Suburban sprawl was a dreadful mistake–and
not one brought on by “consumer choice,” but rather by a specific set
of government policies.

Let’s hope sprawl’s forward march can now be stopped–the bursting of
the housing bubble no doubt helped with that. But existing sprawl isn’t
going away. It’s our built environment–a brute fact that won’t be
wished away by my desire to see walkable, bikeable, flourishing
neighborhoods everywhere.

The question becomes, what to do with this existing, admittedly awful
infrastructure? Here’s one answer, from
Good
Magazine:

In cities, agriculture might be able to take the place of vacant
lots. And in suburbia? Well, in 2008, the New Urbanism evangelist Andrés
Duany, of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), architects and town
planners, proclaimed that “agriculture is the new golf,” a prescient and
deliberately provocative claim that is helping frame the conversation
about suburbia’s future. “Only 17 percent of people living in
golf-course communities play golf more than once a year. Why not grow
food?”

Admittedly, the article deals mainly with new development: planning
housing communities around farms.