{"word_count": 107, "character_count": 773}
Urban agriculture may potentially pose hazards and provide benefits to urban dwellers. Given theurban population growth world-wide, the phenomenon of urban agriculture as a food, income andemployment generator is likely to increase.Urban planners (especially in less-developed countries) need to find ways to capture the benefitsand counter or prevent the potential problems of urban agriculture activities. Urban planners shapepatterns of land use and the built environment in and around cities to manifest a desired futureurban state, and to distribute public benefits to citizens. In recent years, traditional, often technical,approaches to planning and managing urban areas have been altered by such trends as increasedpublic participation in community decision making.