As cities move to support urban agriculture another layer of resource issue comes up, predominantly, land use. That is how to access land in the first place. This is assuming you are either expanding beyond your own backyard or you don’t have a space and having been eyeing the blighted lot down the street for years.
 
Lots of folks are working on this very issue of best way to access. I expect to see guidebooks issued and workshops held on the very topic over the next year. That said, the East Bay Urban Agriculture Alliance was generously given permission to use an amazing checklist of steps to take to inquire and access private and public land from The Essential Urban Farmer the new book by Novella Carpenter (author of Farm City) and Willow Rosenthal (founder of City Slicker Farms).
 
You can find it in their Land Access toolkit (click).
 
The book has many more fabulous resources. Its well worth the modest $25 they charge for it, you can get it here.