0 "AGRICULTURE IS THE NEW GOLF"

I love the quote,"Agriculture is the new golf." I read it in an article for The Wall Street Journal last week. The article was about the housing development trend to place homes around agriculture or small, suburban farms. The Wall Street Journal called it a "...hot trend..." How exciting is that?! 

It has always made sense to me that some of our suburban land should be used for agricultural purposes. Part of the original reasoning for rural and urban areas was to have open space to grow food and dense areas for industry and the availability of goods and services. 

Today this system no longer exists and our cities are much more spread out.  Lines between urban and rural areas are very blurred. Cities have merged with rural areas, but rural areas have not merged with cities. Generally, we have more open space in suburbia, but it often lacks a real purpose and as more and more land is developed, we are losing farmland.  This causes the distance between us and our food to lengthen and the need for more food to be created on smaller spaces.

By converting some of our suburban space back into food producing areas, we can merge the rural with the urban and justify having so much open space.  Isn't it exciting to think about walking outside your door and being able to eat something?  After all, eating is awesome!

[thanks!-for the images: (1) golf canada: http://www.destination360.com/north-america/canada/golf  (2)  farmers market http://www.msue.msu.edu/portal/default.cfm?pageset_id=28508&page_id=521242&msue_portal_id=25643  (3)  tire garden http://www.norcalblogs.com/sustainable/2008/05/the_simplest_raised_garden_bed.html]