A proposal that might finally make rural places completely obsolete

Dickson D. Despommier's op-ed in today's New York Times is titled "A Farm on Every Floor." Here's the first paragraph, which introduces "vertical farming" and explains why the author, a professor of Public Health at Columbia University, thinks we're going to need it:

IF climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings.