Michael H Goldhaber wrote:
> 4. As to Marx's suggestion mentioned by Louis in his blog post, to 
> better integrate city and country, it happens that version of the was 
> instituted in post-war Japan as a method to maintain the dominance of 
> the (rightist) Liberal Democratic party. Rice farmers 
> were heavily subsidized and protected, and rural areas became the 
> centers of many small-scale industries. that is still in place, but 
> the children of farmers now refuse to farm, in many cases, and the sytem 
> seems to be in partial collapse. On the other hand, in the US a closer 
> integration fo city and country is now common place, instantiated by 
> young people moving to farms, farmers markets and various means of 
> ordering direct.  What that means in terms o energy efficiency, 
> pollution and prices is more complex.

Actually, the best example of town/country integration is in Cuba today, 
which was forced to innovate in agriculture because of the collapse of 
the USSR. Richard Lewontin has written extensively about this, I 
believe. So has Food First.