This probably isn't the most private place to discuss this. But heck, change has to happen. I totally agree with the urban farming. I lived in the Selby-Western area of St. Paul in the early 1970s before it was cool. Tried to learn piano at a local community center from a black teacher (Mr. Whitacre) who kept playing Chopin when Scott Joplin was popular. Lowertown St. Paul was abandoned, except for a farmers market, when they let me play scientist. So I lived the back to the city scene before I rediscovered the rural scene. Community gardens were way before my time. So yes, guys like me do some dirty work, then politicians, bankers and speculators take over. Right now our rural area looks like Wayzata. Stereotypes don't work. What is obvious to me is we desperately need better rural land use. And I think the old computer innovators have ideal skills. With everybody worried about grid hacking and terrorism, our energy grid infrastructure could be greatly upgraded. The solar photo-voltaic and windmill and battery baloney is a weak competitor to your car's generated power and electronics. But we need fuels, and the corn ethanol as energy security story proved false. We can make a lot of energy product out here. But we need more scientists, not more diesel mechanics. It's kind of like the internet as a communications national security development. People think the NSA spies on the internet, but the NSA built the internet. Iznogoud wrote: > Rick, I would like to bring to your attention the urban agriculture movement, > which is growing in the US as of the last 5 years. It is quite big in Chicago > and there are (in my opinion) other places, like Detroit, with vast amounts of > unused warehouse space and lots of access to transportation, where this sort of > industry can thrive. > > There is a very large greenhouse in St Paul (close to the State Capitol) that > is operated by a local distributor of produce. There are smaller installations > in Minneapolis as well. youtube has videos from a huge facility in Toronto. > > In my opinion, this is part of the future of agriculture in the northern plains. > If combined with intelligent and sustainable energy production practices, lots > of automation, etc, it can be key to the local economy and sustainability. > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >