Elysian Fields

Will Wilkinson has a note about so-called urban farming that's right on the money--until we start eating foodstuffs synthesized by nanites out of the basement algae pond, it will require land to sustain large-scale agriculture. I say this as an avid urban agrophile with a thriving garden that's awfully large . . . for a neighborhood in which my 18' x 50' side yard is the largest green space that's not a city park. You can grow an awful lot of tomatoes and zucchinis, and my sorrel is out of control, but were it not for that expensive bastard John Mackey and his goddamned yuppie food emporium, I would starve. I do, however, think that encouraging what you might call near urban agriculture, which is to say bulldozing the exurbs back into arable land, would do us all a world of good. Western Pennsylvania, for instance, is already some of the finest farm country on earth, particularly rich for dairy and vegetable farming, as well as the best lamb on earth.