<i>A byproduct is that it's relatively labor-intensive to get high yield out of the small urban farms, thus providing extra good jobs.</i><p>Farming is horrible backbreaking, unending, relentless labour. A good job it is most emphatically not. My great-grandfather would no doubt think that modern farmers are total wusses, what with not having to even muck out horse stalls since we've now got tractors. Even so, farming is a crap job compared to the alternatives available to those capable of doing it properly for most of those capable of doing it. You have to be willing to work like a dog for a substantial portion of the year, and if you've got animals you never get any proper time off, ever. Being a small businessman in any other sector is a much better prospect financially, a hell of a lot safer (there's a reason why non-farm and farm work related workplace fatalities are reported separately) and you can live in something resembling an urban area.<p>Oh, and extra good jobs? This is an example of what's variously termed the lump-of-labour fallacy or make-work bias.<p>tl;dr <i>Farming sucks</i>