The City of New York Parks and Recreation Department and The American Society of Landscape Architects have officially endorsed [1] a competition - named ONE PRIZE - for creating productive green space in Cities. The Competition SemiFinalists have been chosen and their portfolios PDFs are online [2]. Take a look at the link to view the clever ideas for rejecting mowing for urban growing.
Even Scotts [3] knows mowing is madness - requiring seeding, weeding, feeding, herbicides, wasted water, wasted gasoline, noise and air pollution - all resulting in ZERO useful product.
Links:
[1] http://www.oneprize.org/sponsors.html
[2] http://www.oneprize.org/semifinalists.html
[3] http://www.scotts.com/smg/home/home1.jsp