Urban Farm Teaches Millennials How to Disobey — Productively & Peacefully

Alissa Walker recently published an interesting story in Fast Company entitled “An Urban Farm Teaches Millennials How to Disobey.”

The story reports:

“As a graduate student at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Robyn Waxman became fascinated with the next generation of designers’ role when it came to protest and civil disobedience, a place designers and artists have been focusing their efforts for centuries. Studying millennials, who are generally considered to be a group of participatory, positive, technologically-savvy 18- to 30-year-olds, revealed some interesting insights: This was a generation that had solid respect for the law and was reluctant to publicly criticize the status quo.”

After hosting a panel discussion to explore her idea, she confirmed that millennials aren’t likely to engage in the radical protests of previous generations.

“She realized if confrontational behavior was not in their nature,” the article continues, “then she would have to introduce a form of more perpetual protest.”

Her idea was to physically reclaim a strip of public land bordering the school’s street, which the school shares with homeless residents and day laborers.

Waxman remembers, “We were three transient populations brought together by a piece of toxic land that held the potential for building community and for addressing a food issue.”

The project was named “FARM,” or the Future Action Reclamation Mob. On the first day of work, more than 50 people showed up to help.

The mini-farm is thriving, and has sparked a number of similar projects.

“Protest doesn’t have to be something that people hate,” says Waxman. “That’s what makes it so enticing for this generation.”

So what does this project spark in you? What ideas do you have for challenging the status quo through passionate service?

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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.