City Roots is a family-owned father and son operation. Both Robbie and Eric's first careers were as architects, but found themselves with a desire to get back to the land. City Roots, founded in 2009, is South Carolina's first urban sustainable farm, and located on a 3 acre urban site in downtown Columbia.

Organically Certified by USDA, they grow over a hundred varieties of fruits and vegetables, keep bees not only for honey but for pollination, raise chickens not only for eggs but also for the fertility they add to the soil. They do extensive crop rotations and cover cropping for soil fertility and pest management. They have a large scale composting operation which is used to amend the soil, and by doing so have diverted hundreds of tons of material destined for the landfill into rich, fertile soil. They create worm casting and worm tea via vermicomposting to use as a fertilizer. They produce microgreens year round and operate an aquaponic system which is the combination of aquaculture, the production of commercial fish (tilapia), and hydroponics, the growing of plants in a water medium, that mimics a stream and pond ecosystem. They are currently transitioning their farms into no-till vegetable production through a Conservation Innovation grants from the USDA.

City Roots conducts numerous agritourism activities including farm tours, farm to table dinners, and venue rentals. They also operate two satellite farms. One is a 5 acre farm located 10 minutes away at a nearby high school. The other is a 20 acre farm located in Lake City, South Carolina. They operate all of their farms in a holistic fashion with each part playing an integral role in the overall system.