alt Hacker News> But not without having to travel. And once travel is in the picture, you can be to the same places just as fast from a farm as you can from another point in the city.
Your phrase "having to travel" is painting with a very broad brush.
There are naturally huge variations in transit time depending on where you live in a metropolis, where you are going, and how you are getting there.
I can walk 15 minutes to a coffee shop and grocery store, drive 20 minutes to a Walmart, and take a train 35 minutes to the office.
All are very convenient and the latter two require transportation.
> Where do you get the idea that farm work is a necessary condition to realize an income from farm land? Most farmers (in the legal sense) don't farm their own land, they have other farmers work it through sharecropping/rental agreements.
Even if you aren't doing the hard labor, you have to want to manage that kind of business. Most people evidently prefer not to, and instead like urban jobs. The last 150 years of urbanization isn't a fluke.
> I can walk 15 minutes to a coffee shop and grocery store
Not to make it sound like a competition, but I can do it in 5 not living in a city. Why does it take so long in a place that should be optimized for keeping everything close by?
> drive 20 minutes to a Walmart
I can be to two different Walmarts given 20 minutes. That is also an unusually long time for a heavily populated area. Are you actually living in a rural area with a train and I misunderstood?
> and take a train 35 minutes to the office.
Okay. You got me there. I don't have a train in my backyard. It would take me 20 minutes to get to the station.
But, to be fair, when I lived in a big city downtown it also took me 20 minutes to get to the station, so perhaps your situation of having a train sitting right outside your door waiting on you is a bit unusual?
That said, perhaps you have included, say, 20 minutes to get to the station, and a few minutes waiting on the train. But in that case is the 5-10 minutes of actual train time really that advantageous? In this scenario you're almost at your destination before you even get on the train. Presumably this isn't what you meant.
> you have to want to manage that kind of business.
You'd have to report your income to the government. What else is there?
The onus will be on the farmer working the land to do everything else. I know that well, because I'm one of those farmers. The industry is much too competitive to think you can make the landowner do anything.