A silver lining for the dark storm that was the home morgage fiasco? Perhaps... unsellable houses in urban neighborhoods could be an answer in disguise to our inner city food distribution problems. The demolition of blocks of empty unsellable homes could open up lots and acreage for local urban farmers strapped for cash and looking for work.

Detroit other midwest towns experienced a mass exodus due to loss of jobs, exacerbated by the housing crisis, and now there are a lot of districts with nothing but abandoned buildings. So where man has walked away... mother nature gets to play.

What are your reactions to this new phenomenon?

http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/urban-farming-technology/

It all gets props for trying to interest people in growing things in inventive ways.

Metal Halide grow lights are used to add the cool color spectrum but the lights put out a lot of heat and use more energy than other grow lights. Not saying you can't grow indoors with them. There are just better options, like High Pressure Sodium and fluorescents.

Using vacant urban land to farm on is a great idea and we should do it now. It would bring food and people closer in ideology and distance.

As good an idea as it is, don't tell it to anyone who makes money in real estate, which includes almost every politician and all other people earning over $200,000 a year.

Yes, you can make money farming, but you can make a lot more money gouging rent on buildings built on arable land. Ask any New Yorker where a thousand dollars a month will get you. It will get you laughed at by any real estate agent you visit.

The instant the housing market recovers, city farms will be gone faster than that Pawn Stars guy screws you out of money.

I love the idea of urban areas returning to simple local farming for food...but how will the new draconian food growing laws effect these local outfits? Hopefully Municipalities and States will step in with legislation to protect the local farmers from incursions by Federal Agencies. For instance....Utah has recently proposed a new "Utah's Own" piece of legislation that will remove or curtail Agency oversight of food that is grown, labeled and consumed within Utah (not sold out of State). I hope it passes.

When the states tangle with the Feds, the Feds win. Examples: the medical marijuana laws in several states. The Fed can step in any time it feels like it and wreck everything. They're quite good at that.

I hope the financial incentive that forces oversight of food that is grown can be controlled and this effort succeeds. There may still be an appetite for some imported specialty foods, though.

That's because most Americans have not discovered the dirty little secret behind American democracy...and that is...the USA is a republic. A nation can not claim to be a democracy, but continue to be a republic. That is just hogwash when George W. Bush swore to give the Iraqi people Democracy. Who was he fooling? Nothing like believing you live in a democracy when really....you are part of a republic.

Saddam got 99% of the vote so Iraq was a democracy. Our president gets a mandate when 15-20% of the people are respresented by votes counted towards him and we, too, are a democracy.

In a true democracy, majority rules, period. As long as there is an electoral college, America is not a democracy. I'm not making a value judgement, just stating a fact.

"and to the republic for which it stands"