Getting ideas out-What scale should it be?

The idea of bringing farming back to Las Vegas area is one of the main focuses of my thesis. The second important idea is to make people aware that it is possible and educate them on how to start farming/ gardening even to small scale. The idea developed because I compared the environments where I live now and where I grew up and used to live. The climate is different; therefore, it is going to be a challenge to figure all out.
I grew up in the environment where we had our own vegetables and fruit in our yards. It was just enough for family’s use and not to the scale of selling it, although my grandparents lived on farm and produced a lot of produce. I experienced farming/ gardening at two different scales, therefore, at this point I still need to decide on scale of the project for my thesis.
Before Las Vegas became what it is today, it used to be an area where people farmed certain crops, however, with time it disappeared and today only some people grow a little bit of vegetables and fruit for their use. I would like to, therefore, increase the scale of how much people grow in their backyards to the scale of community wide or city wide.
For this thesis, to determine scale is important early on since the size and the program will vary. If I choose community size scale, I would be looking in designing a model community of urban farming. A model which could be applied to any community. However, the challenge would be not only architecture of the community, but also issues such as how to raise awareness, how to let people know that it is there, how to expand the idea beyond the city limits? Also, since water in Las Vegas is scarce, would grey water from surrounding houses would be enough for irrigation? Would there be enough people/ families to start composting that is effective for fertilization? In a model community I would also be looking into program beyond housing. Education is important to make urban farm work. Program such as educational center would become crucial, but how should it be incorporated to not be boring with number of classrooms and office and effective? Herb suggested incorporating small food processing plant as part of education center since today more than ever people are interested in knowing where their food is coming from or how it is made.
Second option is to design urban farm of the bigger scale, perhaps in a form of hotel/ casino. Raising awareness and expanding beyond city would become less of the challenge, while architecture would. It would be used not only by visitors but also by locals (but to what extend?). Program would need to include places not only for visitors to rent, but also for locals to live in if locals to be involved, because if it is just a hotel/ casino, as there are many on the strip, locals would try to avoid it. Besides, hotel/ casino would be entirely in charge of the farm and locals would not be experiencing it firsthand. The benefit of such scale, however, would include larger amounts of grey water for irrigation, restaurants and cafes would produce enough waste to have composting plant on site. Overall, larger variety of vegetables and fruit could be grown, while food processing plant could include more machinery for wider variety of foods and the entire experience would be educational.
Besides the scale of the project, picking the right site is important. At this point, I feel that smaller scale project could be located anywhere while larger scale project would have to be located somewhere near or in-between tourists’ destinations.
Another important portion of thesis is understanding agriculture. Since desert is not like most other places where farming and gardening is natural, it is important to understand what grows best and when. Desert has only two seasons therefore, the growing seasons vary.