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Baby chicks
at the home of
Robyn Morton, associate director |
Do you have a small “homestead” in the city, or maybe have friends who live a rural-style sustainable life inside the city limits? These have been called “urban homesteads” in the past, and were popularized by such magazines as Mother Earth News and Natural Living. Urban homesteading is a lifestyle which incorporates as much of the rural “homestead” values as possible into an urban setting. Urban homesteaders endeavor to use their land in productive ways, typically through extensive gardening and small-scale animal husbandry. Efforts are often made to minimize the amount of energy used in the home, or by creating systems which will generate their own energy rather than drawing off of the grid. But unlike rural homesteading, urban homesteading takes advantage of the community aspects of urban life. Minimizing driving and oil use are common cornerstones of an urban homestead, as well as building strong connections with neighbors, often including sharing homestead activities in order to maximize the productivity of the available land. The goal of urban homesteading is never full self-sufficiency, but a revaluing of the home as the foundation of living a sustainable life.
In the past few years, urban homesteading has taken off, with more and more people exploring new ways of increasing their home’s and neighborhood’s self-reliance within city limits, and creating self-described “urban homesteads”. But if the Dervaes family, and their incorporated entity “The Dervaes Institute” has their way, we’ll all need to find a new term for it, because in 2010 the family registered a trademark for the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading”. Recently, the family has sent out 16 “cease and desist” letters to various people and organizations, including KCRW-FM 89.9, the Denver Urban Homestead association, the Institute of Urban Homesteading, and Google, to name a few. Some of these organizations had their Facebook pages removed without notice, leaving them with no way to contact their participants. Two letter recipients, Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, are authors of the book “The Urban Homestead: your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city.” This book was published in 2008, two years before the trademark was granted, but that did not stop the Dervaes family from requesting that they cease their use of this term.
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The story was originally broken by
Gustavo Arellano from OCWeekly, and has spawned a Facebook page “
Take Back Urban Home-steading(s)” which has over 5,000 fans (and counting). Adam Parfrey, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is preparing a legal challenge to the trademark. Said Corynne McSherry, the EFF intellectual property director: "The Dervaes Institute should recognize that this is one community that will not be intimidated, cease its heavy-handed tactics, and take steps to repair the damage it has caused." To read the full legal challenge, click
HERE, and watch our
Facebook site for updates on this continuing story.
UPDATE 2/28/2011: The Dervaes family has not backed down, and continues to send out cease and desist letters to people who use the phrase ‘urban homesteading’.
