ABSTRACT
Created initially to avert a biosphere-threatening crisis in soil availability in a postindustrial city in the American Midwest, the Soil Assembly and Dissemination Authority (SADA) has grown from a mayor's special initiative to a monolithic state institution. It manages many aspects of urban life, from real estate development to infrastructure to food production to waste management. Documents, memos, fliers, and other ephemera associated with SADA's 2115–2116 handbook are presented here, delivering a glimpse of a possible future scenario for urban soils, set in a landscape of humanly wrought environmental instability countered by continuing technological innovation. These documents, which build on contemporary research to speculate about the future of soil management, also reflect humanity's ongoing struggle to balance human consumption with the functioning of other earth systems.
