That looks like a great read Billme.
Thanks I am always looking for good gardening books.

This is more theory and philosophy than practice, but that's where my interests lie right now. I've been doing a lot of thinking about urban gardening and sustainable food systems for underprivileged people.

You might try reading Public Produce by Darrin Nordahl too. I went to one of his book talks and he's got some interesting ideas that's he's working hard at implementing.

And quit thinking about it, we need you out there doing it. I've learned more by just jumping in and making mistakes and meeting great people than I ever did in a book. And in seven years, I've insulted, infuriated, infatuated, motivated more people that I can count but things have changed and more people have benefited from the things I've stirred up than in all the 50 years before. (and I was in a service business)

Get out there and stir up the status quo too. lol

Community, often raised bed, urban gardening has gotten quite popular here. Sustainability is going to be the real problem. These plots are tiny and have no room for effective rotation far less fallowing or cover-cropping, and solarization must be done in the growing season same as fallowing thus vastly eliminating production. (In a few exceptional locales such as South Florida, summer solarization and winter gardening could work.)

Nematode and disease build-up is bound to soon become a real problem, perhaps especially since tomatoes are always going to be a favored crop. Even non-organic gardeners have few resources any more for combatting the soil-centered problems. Nemagone and Vapam, now banned, are what kept the very small dooryard gardens going on hot sands year after year. The large suburban or rural yard and garden of old could rotate. So how will we keep the interested persons successful in their ventures? Plant nutrition is the easy part; aboveground pests and diseases at least have available controls of various efficiency. How will we beat the soil pests and diseases? And I mean beyond faith-healing?

It started with The New Alchemy Institute back in the early 70s. They worked for 20 years developing low cost household integrated systems for year-round food production. 40 years later, people like Will Allen at Growing Power are proving it can be done, and there is a growing awareness that the advantages of local food production can be as far-reaching as organic seems to be. The current trend is recognizing that there has to be an economy of scale - not just a series of raised beds in a community garden, but acres of production, on rooftops, vertical spaces, and agriculture specific buildings. There is definitely a place for urban gardens, research has shown that it has the ability to make communities safer, and for low-income people it can have a significant effect on their budgets. Large-scale projects - real agriculture - are showing up in developing cities all over the world.

Here is a link that might be useful: city greenhouse

An interesting photo of what people can do if they have to. Here in a city under siege.

http://www.mediastorehouse.com/leningrad_cabbages/print/4317587.html

It's catching on everywhere...

Here is a link that might be useful: urban gardening in India