It's a beautiful day in the Agrihood

American builders have a long history of bulldozing farms to make way for housing developments. Now developers are starting farms to sell homes. Harvest, a $1 billion "urban agrarian" community being built by H. Ross Perot Jr's Hillwood Development in Texas, hired a farmer to cultivate vegetables before construction began on a planned 3,200 houses. Willowsford, a community of 2,130 homes in Virginia's Loudoun County, set aside 2,000 acres of green space, including 300 acres for raising fruit, vegetables, chickens, and goats. Developer DMB integrated produce fields and edible gardens into projects in Arizona, California, and Hawaii. Agrihoods, as they're known, such as the 359-home Prairie Crossing outside Chicago, began cropping up in the 1980s. What's changed is the size and number of projects and the entry of large corporate developers. About 500 of the planned 2,430 homes have sold since Willowsford opened in 2011. Prices currently start at about $600,000. Two community centers have demonstration kitchens for pop-up restaurants, wine tastings, and culinary classes.