City Harvest

The prose in City Harvest runs on inspirational autopilot — 'tapestry,' 'quiet revolution,' and 'concrete jungle' recur so often across three chapters that they stop meaning anything, and the argument mostly restates itself in new adjectives rather than advancing. But when McDonald turns to her case studies in Chapter 5, the book finally stands on real ground. The catalogue of named, specific projects — the High Line's 1.45-mile reclaimed rail line, Gardens by the Bay's 101-hectare Supertree Grove that 'collect[s] rainwater' and vents nearby conservatories, Bosco Verticale's tree-clad towers hosting 'diverse bird species,' Oslo's Vulkan district, Toronto's Bentway built under a highway — gives the reader an actual, mappable sense of what global urban agriculture looks like on the ground. These aren't invented composites; they're identifiable places a reader could visit or research further, and that specificity is the strongest writing in the excerpt. The same instinct shows up earlier in the survey of hydroponics-versus-aeroponics water savings and the CSA origin story in the 1980s — moments where a concrete fact briefly cuts through the haze of uplift. This is a book built for readers who want a panoramic primer on the idea of urban agriculture and a stocked shelf of real-world reference points to chase down, more than a hands-on how-to manual — and on that survey level, the case-study chapter earns its place.