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Comment by jonwachob91 | Hacker News Reader

People in cities still need rural towns for farming and related agriculture production. Maybe in 20 or 50 years most farming will be automated, but until then lets not lose sight that big cities are dependent on those rural towns with "strange tradition life of worse health, poorer people, less equality and more pollution"

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Everyone needs everyone else for the goods and services they provide. We pay farmers for the food they grown when they buy it. We pay them again with farm subsidies. Do we really need to pay a third time with town subsidies?

As far as I know here in Belgium most of the factory work also happens far from the big cities.

>We pay farmers for the food they grown when they buy it. We pay them again with farm subsidies. Do we really need to pay a third time with town subsidies?

Not allowing them to be squeezed so much by oversized supermarketchains and the like would probably do more

Vertical farming and recirculating aquaculture could revolutionize food production in wealthy nations. Remote work and high housing costs could slow the urbanization trends somewhat.

Vertical farming requires nuclear fusion. What's your schedule for that?

Seriously, why exactly are we throwing away free solar resources only to have to generate them through some other method that is much harder?

I'm all for growing food in regenerative and no plow agriculture, but from what I understand it won't scale to current population levels. Vertical farming can be intensive in electricity demand and construction materials, yes. However, it can produce more food with less water and fertilizer than traditional industrial farming.

My understanding of vertical farming is that the only thing they've succeeded in growing in leafy greens.

I believe that Bowery is growing tomatoes and strawberries now.

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