News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 5th 2025
Welcome to the Roof Depot’s Future: The Farm That Changed Minneapolis
from the series Phillips Imaginary…
By ERIC ORTIZ
A decade of food, jobs, and community wealth has made East Phillips a global model of resilience, justice, and health.
Disclaimer: This is a visionary, fictional article imagining what could happen if the City of Minneapolis strikes a fair deal with East Phillips for the Roof Depot site.
The East Phillips Urban Farm turned 10 this year.
What began as a bold vision for a polluted industrial site in south Minneapolis is now a living testament to what happens when communities choose justice, health, and resilience over neglect.
“We stopped asking for change,” said a longtime East Phillips resident. “We became the change, and the city followed our lead.”
Ten years ago, in 2025, East Phillips faced generations of disinvestment and environmental harm. Per capita income was under $19,000. Nearly 30 percent of residents lived in poverty. Asthma and diabetes rates were far above city averages. And only 3.2 percent of residents worked in the neighborhood.
In 2035, the neighborhood tells a different story. Per capita income has nearly doubled, poverty has fallen, health outcomes have improved across the board, and more than a third of residents work locally.… Read the rest “Welcome to the Roof Depot’s Future: The Farm That Changed Minneapolis”
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Open in new tab Order and Chaos
from the series Peace House Community Journal…
By MARTI MALTBY
The Book of Genesis tells that in the beginning, God brought order out of chaos. We’ve been trying to do the same thing ever since, with varying degrees of success. For the most part, we seem to do okay, creating enough structure for society to function, but not enough to crush everyone. But even accomplishing “okay” is a struggle, and maintaining requires a constant balancing act.
We’ve seen what happens when things get too structured. Sometimes totalitarianism results, where thought, speech, and behavior are all curtailed in the name of some “greater value.” People, either as individuals or groups, are sacrificed for something intangible.
Even if it doesn’t get quite that bad, too many rules still cause problems. George Orwell, an ardent socialist, wrote a lot about the problems he saw in other socialists. Many of them, he believed, embraced socialism because it would make society more orderly, not because it was more just or freeing than other forms of government. According to Orwell, many socialists disliked messiness, and saw socialism as a means of keeping everything (and everyone) in place.
Of course, there are dangers in going too far the other way.… Read the rest “Order and Chaos”
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