A Trip to the Farm

Last weekend, we took a family trip to the farm. This may conjure up images of driving out of the city, the skyline fading away in the rear view mirror as the car gently coasts down a quiet, country road with nothing plains of vegetables and crops all around and the occasional farmhouse.
If that's the image you had in your mind, then it's time to redefine the meaning of the word 'farm'. In the recent past, you could not describe a farm without using the word 'rural'. In this new decade, that connection is beginning to blur. Whereas urban life once spilled out into the rural landscape, today, rural life is invading the urban landscape and, we welcome it!
Farms are coming to the city. Backyards, parks, and abandoned lands in the heart of big cities are quickly being converted into productive farmland. Not only is this a novel and efficient approach to green farming but, in today's world, it's becoming a necessity. One city that has especially shown assertive growth in this new field (pun intended) is Detroit.
San Francisco is no exception to this explosion in urban farming. The farm that we visited last weekend was a farm that has been created in a large swath of land in the heart of the city that was once supported an exit ramp off a now demolished freeway. So, our drive to the farm brought us closer to the city center, deeper into the urban landscape. A paradigm shift.