A Tale of Two Cities

How far from the urban center do you need to go, before you find productive farmland?

Try Roma, Italia.

Now try San Francisco, California.

This is a fun little comparative study in land-use. Scroll around Italy, and look at the pattern of small towns surrounded by actively-farmed, productive land.

Now scroll around the Bay Area. Uh-oh.

Non-stop suburban sprawl.. not a farm to be seen for dozens, maybe hundreds of miles.

Look around some other cities in Italy, even the big ones like Milano and Torino. Now look at just about any American city. It's worse the farther west you go. In the northeast, there are still plenty of small towns and cities surrounded by farmland. In the northwest, small towns and cities are surrounded by woodland but that could conceivably be cleared and farmed. But what about asphalt suburban sprawl? How do you reclaim that for farmland? For real fun, have a look at the post-1950's cities: Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles.

We have a land-use problem in this country. Big time.