ABSTRACT
This chapter argues in order for urban agriculture and community gardening to significantly contribute to urban food security and sustainability, it must be recognized as part of the overall food system as well as the overall urban infrastructure. The local food systems research expands upon the Diggable Cities concept by first assessing the potential acreage of land in Hartford available for urban food production, and then calculating the amount of food that can be sustainably grown on this land. Hartford, the state capital of Connecticut, is a typical example of a former manufacturing oriented industrial city and, like much of the urban north-eastern United States, has gone through a period of economic deindustrialization and consequent urban decay. One effect of Hartford's deindustrialization and subsequent economic restructuring is a suburbanizing middle class, who in turn withdrew the presence of, and access to, the cheap and plentiful supply of food that supermarkets had come to provide so successfully.
