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Using an ethnographic case study, this paper looks at some of the repercussions of urban sprawl on local food sources in Florence, Italy. The Roselli-Magherini family has been farming their ever-shrinking plot of land on the outskirts of an ever-growing city of Florence since the 17th century. In recent times this family has seen their land partitioned and expropriated due to the creation of roads, parking lots and the development of a multiplex cinema, literally in their backyard. The Roselli-Magherini family has had to downsize from wholesaling their produce (seasonal vegetables) to selling at the San Ambrogio neighbourhood market. No longer able to raise pigs and cows due to city by-laws and unable to afford the employees who helped tend their crops, this family is stilling trying to maintain their traditional way of life. This Florentine family is not alone in their fight to keep farming in peripheral urban areas: the Isolotto area where they live is full of fragmented market garden plots tended by struggling farmers who have watched the city grow around them. The expansion of cities and the rise in land prices has seriously jeopardized local food sources in many Italian cities. This case study brings into discussion the struggle to maintain green spaces in and around cities; access to locally grown foods; contrasts and conflicts between rural and urban life; the viability of small-scale farming near cities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]