Imagine stopping by your local mall for a new pair of shoes, a dress, and a few heads of the freshest lettuce you’ve ever tasted.
Sprouting atop the parking garage in the most central and commercial shopping mall in Tel Aviv, sits exactly what you would least expect – a beautiful green garden, blooming with hundreds of herbs and vegetables. Dizengoff Center, a popular mall built in the 70s in Tel Aviv, no longer just boasts seven floors of fashionable chaos in the form of shops, cafes, stands, and crowds – they have also taken on an urban garden.
Dubbed Green in the City and founded in 2015, the urban garden aims to provide a sustainable way to offer fresh food in the center of the city. Using an exceptional hydroponics system thanks to their partnership with LivinGreen, the project is changing up the way local restaurants and citizens are accessing fresh farm to table food. By creating a clean water and mineral system, hundreds of fresh produce servings are grown. They are protected from air pollution by a mesh netting, and have zero pesticides.
Green in the City hosts local workshops to teach people how to create their own urban garden. It also has three fresh food stands around Dizengoff center which work on an honor system. No one mans the stand, and buyers are asked to leave what they owe in a small box. The stands sell over 1500 products a week.
Today, over half the world lives in cities. Green in the City is proof that urban farming is not only possible, it’s an integral way to create and maintain food security and sustainability for city citizens.
