I've stumbled upon a lot of articles about "urban farming" recently. They take one of two forms:

1. Articles written by people who have never heard the word "garden," and call ordinary vegetable gardens "urban farms" if they're inside city limits.
2. Articles written by people who think that skyscrapers ought to be built especially for farming.

Just Google "urban farming" and you'll see what I mean.

All of this is very weird. How did people forget about vegetable gardens, to the point where they felt compelled to coin a new word for an ancient concept? And has anyone priced floor space in the city recently? I mean, yes, growing crops in concrete-and-steel buildings would put the capstone on industrial agriculture, finishing the job that was started by high-density livestock confinement. I can see that. But why would anyone think it desirable or environmentally sound?

I don't have the answers, other than a gnawing feeling that people are even more disconnected from the land than I thought. People yearn for the land. I think that people who haven't spent time in the country feel this deeply, but aren't sure how to act on their feelings. So you get some unusual behaviors, like calling a riding mower a "lawn tractor" or an ordinary vegetable garden an "urban farm."

I wonder how one might encourage people to channel these yearnings into actions that will give them as much of a genuine back-to-the-land experience as conditions allow. Gardens are a good start, of course, even if they are being called by a silly name.