Urban community gardens, with their ability to feed and reconnect insulated city-dwellers are thriving around the globe. About two hundred million people are now involved in urban agriculture

In Nowtopia, Chris Carlsson, San Francisco's long-time community organizer, activist, writer and historian offers these subtle thoughts on urban gardening:

“Coaxing food from land is a timeless activity. To tend a patch of land, putting hands in soil, planting, harvesting food and flowers, is to join an enduring human tradition and to carry forward common skills about how to live on Earth that precedes everything we label  ‘the economy.’ 

On hands and knees, digging in the dirt, a gardener leaves the frenzied pace of modern life behind. A different rhythm of sun, soil, water, and growth asserts itself, a seasonal pace indifferent to the frantic demands of the clock.

Our society is gripped by an obsessive awareness of  “now” that reinforces a stunning amnesia for what happened last week, last year, or in previous periods of history ( let alone other parts of the world). Gardening changes that relationship to time by slowing down the gardener, making her pay attention to natural cycles that only make sense in the unfolding of seasons and years.

In a shared garden, time opens up for conversation, debate, and a wider view than that provided by the univocal, self-referential spectacle promoted by the mass-media.”