"Cities are for people"

An interesting article on WorldChanging inspecting the downsides to urban vertical farming:

Construction requires a lot of energy. Keeping vegetables warm in winter requires a lot of energy. Recycling water requires a lot of energy. Generating artificial sunlight requires a lot of energy. In other words, the secret ingredient that makes vertical farms work (assuming they work at all) is boatloads of energy.

The general tone of the article seems to imply we all need to be in urban centers. Given the premise that humans somehow are required to be packed together his point seems to follow naturally.

Environmentally speaking, it makes more sense to move another person into a city than it does to make way for a berry patch.

In my case, I keep moving farther and father away from anything that could be considered a city.

And even in densely-packed cities, there's always a lot of unused or otherwise "wasted" space.  It's not about demolishing a building to plant corn.  It's about growing crops in the margins.  Sometimes the margins are walls.