Book excerpt: In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in local food systems-among policy makers, planners, and public health professionals, as well as environmentalists, community developers, academics, farmers, and ordinary citizens. While most local food systems share common characteristics, the chapters in this book explore the unique challenges and opportunities of local food systems located within mature and/or declining industrial regions. Local food systems have the potential to provide residents with a supply of safe and nutritious food; such systems also have the potential to create much-needed employment opportunities. However, challenges are numerous and include developing local markets of a sufficient scale, adequately matching supply and demand, and meeting the environmental challenges of finding safe growing locations. Interrogating the scale, scope, and economic context of local food systems in aging industrialized cities, this book provides a foundation for the development of new sub-fields in economic, urban, and agricultural geographies that focus on local food systems. The book represents a first attempt to provide a systematic picture of the opportunities and challenges facing the development of local food systems in old industrial regions.