Neighborhood rain-irrigated native food forestry

We work in the public neighborhood commons of the urban built environment within the Sonoran Desert where the majority of the sponge-like dryland ecosystem has been replaced by bare earth, asphalt, concrete, and buildings that drain rain and stormwater, instead of retaining, reinvesting, and cycling it through life. We then transform the dysfunctional, dehydrating, lifeless infrastructure into a functional, rehydrating, living infrastructure by planting the rain to be the free flood-controlling irrigation source of neighborhood rain-irrigated native food forests planted and stewarded by neighbors. We plant native plants as they are the best adapted to our climate, soils, and wildlife; and there are over 400 native food plants in the Sonoran desert. This grows low-water-use, low-cost, low-maintenance, high value forests lining our public walkways and streets that double as regenerative water and native wildlife corridors that are inspiring and informing regenerative policy change, practices, and culture change throughout the community, watershed, state, and world. See two links below for a recently completed project, and one of the next on-the-ground project we are looking to fund - which will be followed by the creation of public guides showing/helping other neighborhoods do the same or better: https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/2025/04/neighbors-spearhead-four-new-water-harvesting-traffic-calming-chicanes-where-two-bicycle-boulevards-intersect/ https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/2026/05/water-harvesting-traffic-calming-plans-progress-in-dunbar-spring-neighborhood/