Planning Pool

Today’s post comes to you from Toronto Chickens, the blog of an underground hen-keeper in Canada’s largest city, where urban hens are not yet legal. As (s)he notes: “Living with chickens below the radar could be stressful at times. Sadly, despite the fact that I would like to share with you my identity, I have to be chicken about it and thus the name Toronto Chicken.”
This post, originally published at Toronto Chickens, addresses the important question of whether urban hens meaningfully contribute to food affordability. Toronto Chicken argues that they do!

Many people have asked me just how much it costs to produce a dozen organic backyard chicken eggs. Time to show off my … Continue Reading

Daniel Fontaine is a co-editor of CityCaucus.com and an active political commentator with a background in political science, writing and strategy. His great post about Vancouver’s proposed legislation legalizing urban chickens was published last October, but not much has changed on the policy front since then; Vancouver City Council still has yet to approve changes to the bylaws currently prohibiting backyard hens in the city. This post was originally published on CityCaucus.com, a blog that explores the ideas, the politics, and the people behind making Canadian cities. These days, the site is devoted to following Olympic activity around Vancouver.

As some of us recover from the spectacle of Super Bowl Sunday, we thought it’d be an appropriate time to kick-off our own grand event — chicken week.  Now, as many a city councilperson can tell you, the idea of city-slickin’ chickens stimulates some compelling, if not maddening debate (evidenced here).  In tough times, urban livestock definitely has some appeal for those who’d take their victory gardens one step further.  Will chickens supplant dogs as the preferred family pet?  Or will future generations merely associate chicken with greasy, dinosaur-shaped bricks of life-shortening goodness?  Maybe something in between…

To get a sense for the realities of chicken-keeping in an urban context, our latest Planning Pool Original visits a bonafide chicken enthusiast in Portland, OR, where backyard fowl are accepted members of the community.

Enjoy!… Continue Reading

Creative commons hen photo from Loungerie on Flickr.

We hope that will enjoy this upcoming week of posts about urban chickens in policy and practice! To kick off Chicken Week, we present a story about a very special urban chicken as told by Vancouver-based musician Craig McGregor. He begins disarmingly with “I don’t feel like playing a guitar solo; I feel like telling you a story!”

To my mind, his (true!) tale perfectly presents the disconnected, uncomfortable and absurd relationship that many urban North Americans have with our mainstream, industrial food system. It’s also very funny.

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Special thanks to Craig McGregor and to Celtic Traditions, the tiny and wonderful Vancouver folk music venue where this concert was recorded.