Advantages of suburban permaculture

Every area that you could live in has its pluses and minuses.  I often hear about the benefits of living in a rural area on this site, but very rarely do I hear about the advantages of living in the suburbs.  I am going to list a few. Perhaps you could add some of your own.

1.  Proximity to services: I can easily ride my bike to the library, hospital, dental clinic, many stores.

2. Variety of foods and cuisines: I can bike and even walk to many kinds of restaurants, like Thai, Indian, and Korean, that would be unlikely to be found out in the country somewhere. I can also buy exotic vegetables, fruits, and herbs easily here.

3. Live music varieties: I can hear live jazz, classical, folk, rock, punk, and many offshoots here.  I like country too, but that would still be available in the country.

4. Availability of gardening products: Specialty gardening products, like Surround, for organic plant care, free logs and wood chips, and zillions of things off of Craig's list are to be had here that would be an unreasonable distance in the country.

5. Neighbors: I have a lot of nice neighbors. It's not so lonely here. One of my neighbors left the country because he was so isolated.

6.  Access to wild places: I don't have to fight through city traffic to get to wild places, where I can recreate, forage, or relax in a quiet beautiful setting.

7. More help: If I have an especially difficult task, I can find someone to help, even if I have to pay them. More tools and knowledge to conquer especially difficult problems.

8. Free pollination: SInce the neighbors have flowering plants, there are a lot of pollinators living in their yards that want to pollinate my stuff too.

9. No deer/rabbits: I don't have these critters eating my garden like people I know who live in the country do.  I do have squirrels though. My dog is working on that.

John S
PDX OR

What first comes to mind is that someone already lives in the suburbs so they do not have to move to do permaculture.

Even if they live in an HOA, they can still do permaculture by using organic or better techniques.

An abundance of leaves by just asking neighbors for theirs.

An abundance of green manure just by asking neighbors for their grass clipping.

An abundance of wood chips that are available for many people in the cities and suburbs.

Suburbian permies can come to our forum and get answers to all their questions.

I would like to add:

The advantage of learning simply by observing.


We have older neighbors who have gardened a long time and when I see them doing a certain garden activity, I know to get myself in gear if I am lagging behind on the season.

I am that older neighbor.
John S
PDX OR

Oh my goodness best post ever!

I know you live in Portland, I live in Clackamas, balcony gardening for now, but we will be combining house with my father in June, so moving back to Portland proper, and acquiring a yard!

I got all of next year's firewood from the guy down the street, an older gent who was cutting back a large tree. I stopped and asked if he had any plans for the wood and he was happy to let me do half the cutting and all the hauling work. Saved him a lot of work and I got 'free' wood.
My neighbor across the street gave me all the leaves I wanted for my garden last fall (I never have enough leaves). He also lends me tools occasionally. His son clears my snow sometimes, sometimes I clear his.

Some neighbors are not so great, the guy with the mean, noisy dogs, the folks who spray insecticides and kill my bees.

But on average it's not bad. I grew up in the country on a farm, and would prefer it, but my wife is a city girl and would prefer inner city. It's a compromise that works fairly well.

I’m on the ore “urban” end of suburban. One advantage for growing corn is being well-isolated from commercial GMO varieties. Actually, isolated from any real chance of cross-pollination, so I can be sure of the parentage of the seed I am saving.

Suburban permaculture offers a great balance between accessibility and sustainability. You get proximity to essential services, diverse food options, and a built-in community that can share resources like leaves, wood chips, or tools. Plus, fewer pests like deer make gardening easier. Have you found any unique ways to incorporate permaculture in your space?

I can easily get free, empty buckets when I do my bike chores, which are easy here in the suburbs.  Also, lots of healthy foods that are hard to get in the country like natto, amla, shirataki noodles, whole herring, Maitake mushrooms, nori, Trader Joe's brands, and organic mustard greens are easy to get here. Plus, I often find cool plants that I can take cuttings of or scions of from the many homes nearby.

John S
PDX OR

On a suburban property (or even rural) you can't be entirely self-sufficient. That said, I think people should strive for some level of community self-sufficiency. Not every thing is for everyone, so there comes a point where you have to take a step back and say "I don't particularly like chickens (blasphemy, but this is a hypothetical), but I love to garden. My neighbor has chickens but no garden. The people down the street have a fruit tree that produces more than they can reasonably eat themselves. What if I raised some extra vegetables for my neighbors, the neighbor with the chickens gives us some eggs/composted manure for the plants, and the fruit tree people gave us the extra fruit." This is an oversimplification, but a lot of the suburban permaculture would (in my vision) be community-based. You can't do it all, and you'd get burnout trying, but that shouldn't be the point.

As an urban prairie dweller, I can recommend working land within the sprawl.

I don't have to worry about deer in my gardens and the biggest predators other than stray dogs are raccoons and opossums.

If you're trying to sell, you are surrounded with potential customers.

Tree trimmers and landscapers are everywhere and give free mulch. Ditto restaurants and food businesses with expired food/scraps for your animals.

There's a surprising amount of green space in urban areas especially in more depressed metros.

The big downside is much more restrictions on the kinds of animals you can keep and the kind of stuff you can do. Animal aromas, noisy roosters, etc. All that stuff can get you in trouble with code enforcement.

But good relations with neighbors does a lot to mitigate this. If no one complains about you, you won't have many problems.