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How bout high rises surrounded by farmland? Instead of "tower in the park" let's have "tower in the farm".
Are you serious? The urban dwellers would be complaining about the farm odors, just like they do now when they move into the exurbs next to a farm, and then complain because the farmer uses manure to replenish the soil.
I think realistically it isn't feasible to have everyone live in cities or everyone live in suburbs. However if we are just talking about purely a theoretical thing in terms of absolute enviornmental damage overall, everyone living in cities of high density and walkability is MUCH less enviornmental damage and much more sustainable.
However realistically I think if a person would use their imagination, a good way to have it would be:
-Most of the population (maybe like 80% or more) live in dense, compact, highly walkable, mixed use, and transit oriented cities that have strong urban growth boundaries around them. The cities should be self-sustaining ideally such as they grow their own food in urban farms and most human activities and production of human goods take place there.
-If cities cannot supply all their own food, there are rural areas. Not suburbs, but rural areas with dotted small towns. The rural areas + small towns would grow food, take some lumber, mine for minerals, do other stuff that cannot be done safely in cities, but would be rural and wilderness. Meaning barely anyone lives there, and development is highly restricted so the mass majority of this place doesn't have development of any kind on it whether roads, power lines, water lines, oil lines, suburban houses, office parks, or strip malls. The mass majority of the landmass of the earth, i.e. 85% of the earth's land mass, would be wilderness zones that no human activity or development can take place. The small towns would be compact and walkable, and have mass transit that connect each one to one another and to large city centers. The lumberers, miners, farmers, and other people who do activities that cannot be done in cities would live in these small towns or do much of their work there, and farmers may be able to have a single family home on their farm but wouldn't be allowed to sell to any developer to subdivide their farm into suburban housing or office parks or strip malls.
I think it cannot be done where people all live in either cities or suburbs. Resources still need to be harvested in rural areas, but "suburbs" as you understand them are not places where farmers grow food. So I'd have the mass majority of the population live in many cities while a small portion live in rural areas to do the things that cannot be done in cities but that we need (i.e. food production, minerals, wood, fishing, cattle grazing, military bases etc). My idea would be that no one (except recognized Indian Tribal Nations) can live outside of cities unless they are there for productive work in those non-city production or services, or support (such as running a restaurant, school, grocery store, or police station for those said farmers, miners, lumberers etc) them and they must build small towns to minimize footprint on the earth (i.e. no sprawling suburbs).
Both scenario's are unrealistic. I assumed there would also be some rural areas. However, urban farms anyone?
Urban farms could never meet the needs of the entire population. You want a herd of cows on your roof to provide milk? While I'm in favor of people growing some of their own food, as DH and I do ourselves, it's not realistic to think that all fruits, veggies, dairy and dare I say meats could be provided on urban rooftops. If you did it in urban parks they would be called "farms".
Quote:
Originally Posted by A2DAC1985
I tell you what, you can't get anything by the posters on City-Data's forums!
I mean, it's not like I stated in my first sentence that imagination would have to be used to discuss the topic.
But lets add this as well: People will LIVE in one or the other. WORKING is a different matter (for the most part). Food for example, would still be grown on farms. Nuclear reactors will stay where they are, so the technicians will have to travel to the site. Lumberjacks still go to forests to log, etc.
My imagination tells me this is unrealistic. The poster below beat me to what I was going to say about work. I also think it's funny that someone would find it more sustainable to transport farm wokers, nuclear power workers, loggers, whatever to the work area, rather than these people actually living near their work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown
Sure, it's just imagining. How will the farmers get out to the heartland of the US to tend to their crops? Rocket ship? How will the lumberjacks get to the forests? Are we going to built subway lines to the cuttings? So you're going to ask them to live in the cities?
Or is it you didn't consider that there are actually jobs done in this country that don't occur in offices and cubicles?
There's a difference between imagination and play-time.
I think realistically it isn't feasible to have everyone live in cities or everyone live in suburbs. However if we are just talking about purely a theoretical thing in terms of absolute enviornmental damage overall, everyone living in cities of high density and walkability is MUCH less enviornmental damage and much more sustainable.
However realistically I think if a person would use their imagination, a good way to have it would be:
-Most of the population (maybe like 80% or more) live in dense, compact, highly walkable, mixed use, and transit oriented cities that have strong urban growth boundaries around them. The cities should be self-sustaining ideally such as they grow their own food in urban farms and most human activities and production of human goods take place there.
-If cities cannot supply all their own food, there are rural areas. Not suburbs, but rural areas with dotted small towns. The rural areas + small towns would grow food, take some lumber, mine for minerals, do other stuff that cannot be done safely in cities, but would be rural and wilderness. Meaning barely anyone lives there, and development is highly restricted so the mass majority of this place doesn't have development of any kind on it whether roads, power lines, water lines, oil lines, suburban houses, office parks, or strip malls. The mass majority of the landmass of the earth, i.e. 85% of the earth's land mass, would be wilderness zones that no human activity or development can take place. The small towns would be compact and walkable, and have mass transit that connect each one to one another and to large city centers. The lumberers, miners, farmers, and other people who do activities that cannot be done in cities would live in these small towns or do much of their work there, and farmers may be able to have a single family home on their farm but wouldn't be allowed to sell to any developer to subdivide their farm into suburban housing or office parks or strip malls.
I think it cannot be done where people all live in either cities or suburbs. Resources still need to be harvested in rural areas, but "suburbs" as you understand them are not places where farmers grow food. So I'd have the mass majority of the population live in many cities while a small portion live in rural areas to do the things that cannot be done in cities but that we need (i.e. food production, minerals, wood, fishing, cattle grazing, military bases etc). My idea would be that no one (except recognized Indian Tribal Nations) can live outside of cities unless they are there for productive work in those non-city production or services, or support (such as running a restaurant, school, grocery store, or police station for those said farmers, miners, lumberers etc) them and they must build small towns to minimize footprint on the earth (i.e. no sprawling suburbs).
I think communism has gone out of favor these days. People will live where they want to.
I think communism has gone out of favor these days. People will live where they want to.
I don't think you need Soviet-style communism to do this. Maybe what could be done would be things like tax incentives or other incentives that are a soft and non-totalitarian way to promoting this. Most activities would be promoted to go into cities, and when rural communities see most people are going away they reorganize themselves to be with less people.
Also, I wanted to comment about urban farming since you said you don't think they can feed the cities.
The above link says if we built a 30-story farmscraper, it could feed 50,000 people. So we we coud build 20 of these farmscrapers and it could feed 1 million people. If things like cows or whatever cannot be grown in there, they can be grown outside but still it'd use up a lot less space if at least the vegetables and fruits are grown indoors and animals outdoors. These towers don't even need to be in cities, they can be built in rural areas.
I think communism has gone out of favor these days.
LMAO, Kat! You beat me to it. Can we wear Mao suits in our bustling little city-prisons? What fun!
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKFire108
The above link says if we built a 30-story farmscraper, it could feed 50,000 people. So we we coud build 20 of these farmscrapers and it could feed 1 million people. If things like cows or whatever cannot be grown in there, they can be grown outside but still it'd use up a lot less space if at least the vegetables and fruits are grown indoors and animals outdoors.
Urban farms could never meet the needs of the entire population. You want a herd of cows on your roof to provide milk? While I'm in favor of people growing some of their own food, as DH and I do ourselves, it's not realistic to think that all fruits, veggies, dairy and dare I say meats could be provided on urban rooftops. If you did it in urban parks they would be called "farms"..
Yup. I grow a lot of my own food in my little city yard and also have worked with some of our urban farms here. While I wholly support this activity as it provides nothing but good things for my community (healthy food, learning opportunities, reclaiming disused land), if EVERYONE was living in the city there would be no room for these small endeavors, let alone enough land to grow enough food to feed the millions of additional people living here (while the heartland goes fallow becuase nobody is permitted to live there).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
I also think it's funny that someone would find it more sustainable to transport farm wokers, nuclear power workers, loggers, whatever to the work area, rather than these people actually living near their work.
I don't think you need Soviet-style communism to do this. Maybe what could be done would be things like tax incentives or other incentives that are a soft and non-totalitarian way to promoting this. Most activities would be promoted to go into cities, and when rural communities see most people are going away they reorganize themselves to be with less people.
Also, I wanted to comment about urban farming since you said you don't think they can feed the cities.
The above link says if we built a 30-story farmscraper, it could feed 50,000 people. So we we coud build 20 of these farmscrapers and it could feed 1 million people. If things like cows or whatever cannot be grown in there, they can be grown outside but still it'd use up a lot less space if at least the vegetables and fruits are grown indoors and animals outdoors. These towers don't even need to be in cities, they can be built in rural areas.
I read the post. I don't think the author has much of an idea of "how a cow becomes a quart of milk", or a hamburger, or much of any other knowledge about farming. Fruits and veggies are one thing, but you cannot grow grains in that manner. Nor can you grow animals that way. I have lived in ag country; those old Illinois farmers would have a big laugh at this article.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown
Yup. I grow a lot of my own food in my little city yard and also have worked with some of our urban farms here. While I wholly support this activity as it provides nothing but good things for my community (healthy food, learning opportunities, reclaiming disused land), if EVERYONE was living in the city there would be no room for these small endeavors, let alone enough land to grow enough food to feed the millions of additional people living here (while the heartland goes fallow becuase nobody is permitted to live there).
I think if I was a nuke worker I'd gladly commute
Well, I was going to make an exception for the nuke worker, but I've lived near nuclear plants, and people do live within communting distance of them.
As I have mentioned before, traditional small towns functioned as miniature versions of urban cores: look at pictures of small-town American downtowns prior to World War II, and you see public squares, mixed-use buildings, walkable neighborhoods, and public transit. For all practical purposes, they did function as cities, even if their population was only a few thousand people. And the alternative to these cities was not the suburb but the farm, a self-contained unit of agricultural production. A tenant farmer doesn't have to commute to work, after all!
Having everyone live in large centralized cities and commute to work in outlying regions is just as silly as having everyone live in large decentralized suburbs and commute to work in a centralized downtown. There are some practical reasons why a person might not want to live close to their work (munitions plant, nuclear powerplant etc.) but in most cases, the commute is just an inconvenience, made worse by our decentralized cities and their land-intensive auto-based transportation network.
As I have mentioned before, traditional small towns functioned as miniature versions of urban cores: look at pictures of small-town American downtowns prior to World War II, and you see public squares, mixed-use buildings, walkable neighborhoods, and public transit. For all practical purposes, they did function as cities, even if their population was only a few thousand people. And the alternative to these cities was not the suburb but the farm, a self-contained unit of agricultural production. A tenant farmer doesn't have to commute to work, after all!
Having everyone live in large centralized cities and commute to work in outlying regions is just as silly as having everyone live in large decentralized suburbs and commute to work in a centralized downtown. There are some practical reasons why a person might not want to live close to their work (munitions plant, nuclear powerplant etc.) but in most cases, the commute is just an inconvenience, made worse by our decentralized cities and their land-intensive auto-based transportation network.
Not all small towns had these features. Most of the smallest did not have much more than a grocery store; the residents and the outlying farmers both went to a larger city for clothes, etc, or they ordered from the Sears catalogue. Nor did the smallest have transit. In the steel mill town area outside of Pittsburgha where I grew up, shortly after WW II before gigantic malls, etc, there were a couple of towns in that had nice downtown shopping areas and the rest just had groceries, drug stores, and maybe a dime store store, something like that.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 12-20-2011 at 11:29 AM..
Reason: clarify
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