I thought
this was an interesting article, posted on Guardian.co.uk on Monday. Essentially, the author is advocating a move from an economic dependency on London towards "small-scale farming, including horticulture, integrated with the
city, and of a kind that employs lots of people, preferably skilled, and often part-time" in order to address a number of issues outlined in the article.
I also found the comments interesting... Aside from a minority of enlightened individuals, most people are rabidly resistant to the ideas discussed and it seems to be due to a lack of knowledge, logic, or a pathological dismissal of anything but the norm and a fetish for technological fixes (e.g. GM, industrialized agriculture). I just thought it was worth noting as an example of what we, as permies, may face in terms of acceptance by the general populace when trying to make the world a better, saner place!