De-Urbanizing Detroit

I had never driven throught the city of Detroit until this past week. I was saddened to see so much abandoned housing and other buildings in the city center. It is something I had read about, but it doesn't hit you until you really see it. People are hurting in this city in part just because it is a city. Cities don't allow their residents to have any type of food sovereignty that would help provide basic needs. Food production is the vital ground floor of any economic system. Most modern cities leave most and especially their poorest residents with no avenues to provide for thier own food needs. Integrating community food production into urban planning is something that is sorely missing from the modern city.
I imagined a series of small community farms where abandoned buildings had once stood. This is apparently already happening as this NPR story relates.
For more than 100 years, the city of London has had a successful urban allotments that are discussed in this NPR story