What is YOUR ecological footprint?

[Tee Kay]

Save the Earth, or we'll all be living like North Koreans.

Why do you hate freedom ( )

 

[Phrossack]

Talking about doing away with suburbs scares me though, it's like agenda 21, let's force everyone into small compartmentalized self contained urban areas where we can easily control them. No one is allowed to own land, the epitome of owning property. Let's all become worker bee drones, cogs in the machine. I want my space, I want my freedoms!

Also isn't this all regional anyway and kind of overblown? The fact is there is space in the united states, so why not use it? The fact is there's plenty of food for chickens and cows here so why not eat them?

You're suggesting that living in a city automatically makes one an easily controlled automaton, in contrast to the independent-minded suburbanites. But that's not true. Urban populations have greater opportunity to participate in political events (because who holds rallies/protests in suburbs?). They have the freedom to choose their mode of transportation, whereas suburbanites have no practical choice beyond motor vehicles. Urban populations don't always live in the white middle class bubble that many suburbanites do, which exposes them to new ideas.

Now, granted, there are many things about suburbia I like (being away from people, some wildlife to enjoy, less noise, more space, yards) and many things about cities I detest. But living in cities is like the residential equivalent of eating our vegetables. We need to do it. Earth cannot possibly sustain 10 billion suburbanites, or even two billion. Either we all live more efficiently, or things will get very nasty.

If I had my druthers, at least as far as improving society, suburbia would be largely abandoned and people would move into cities. Cities, meanwhile, would have to improve a lot. More and better public transportation, more green spaces and ponds or lakes, more plants everywhere, and serious efforts to improve crumbling infrastructure and a dilapidated education system. Cities need to be cleaner, more beautiful, and need to deal with persistent crime and poverty. But even then, they're easier to solve than the suburbs' gross inefficiency.

Furthermore, most of the country's land could become wilderness areas. The areas around the cities could be open for all to enjoy. Several miles into the wilderness, the area could become like Yosemite--feel free to camp or hike, but don't leave a trace. The innermost parts of the wilderness would be off-limits to give nature a safe refuge from interference. The government would need to make a concerted effort to physically link as many wilderness areas as possible to each other to make each one ecologically viable. Our network of roads and highways has carved up the wilderness into small communities cut off from each other and too small to be viable on their own.

 

[Narz]

Save the Earth, or we'll all be living like North Koreans.

If we're lucky.

 

[gangleri2001]

2.58 Earths

 

[Farm Boy]

Furthermore, most of the country's land could become wilderness areas. The areas around the cities could be open for all to enjoy. Several miles into the wilderness, the area could become like Yosemite--feel free to camp or hike, but don't leave a trace.

When's the last time you drove outside suburbia? Have you missed out on looking carefully at that flyover country? We're pretty busy producing those commodities that the Chicago Board of Trade and Wall Street speculate on, and that everyone consumes. Past some parks, which are cool bubbles, and some of them are big(and still very much in need of active protection), this aint no wilderness area, not really.

 

[Phrossack]

When's the last time you drove outside suburbia? Have you missed out on looking carefully at that flyover country? We're pretty busy producing those commodities that the Chicago Board of Trade and Wall Street speculate on, and that everyone consumes. Past some parks, which are cool bubbles, and some of them are big(and still very much in need of active protection), this aint no wilderness area, not really.

That's why I said "become" rather than "remain." I'm not suggesting destroying farms to make way for wilderness; the land would be transferred from suburbia to wilderness in my idealized world without touching farms.

 

[Farm Boy]

The land would be better used to plant what food grows naturally there. We have an irrigation problem, and food needs to be transported. Putting farms right up against cities would generally make a great deal more sense than to treat everyone with a gigantic nature preserve than then needs to be shipped/transported through.

 

[Phrossack]

The land would be better used to plant what food grows naturally there. We have an irrigation problem, and food needs to be transported. Putting farms right up against cities would generally make a great deal more sense than to treat everyone with a gigantic nature preserve than then needs to be shipped/transported through.

That would make more sense food-wise. But people need some kind of get-away in a semi-wild-ish area, and if suburbs were abandoned, there would be hundreds of millions of people in cities demanding some breathing room. They'll need plenty of nearby park space for recreation.

What do you mean when you talk about irrigation and native plants? I'm not sure exactly what irrigation has to do with this (although I'm sure it's something). As for the native plants, are you suggesting we cultivate large amounts of native, edible plants? I'm not familiar with too many of them, except maybe things like gourds, agave, and some kinds of mushrooms.

 

[Farm Boy]

That would make more sense food-wise. But people need some kind of get-away in a semi-wild-ish area, and if suburbs were abandoned, there would be hundreds of millions of people in cities demanding some breathing room. They'll need plenty of nearby park space for recreation.

What do you mean when you talk about irrigation and native plants? I'm not sure exactly what irrigation has to do with this (although I'm sure it's something). As for the native plants, are you suggesting we cultivate large amounts of native, edible plants? I'm not familiar with too many of them, except maybe things like gourds, agave, and some kinds of mushrooms.

Food shipping and storage is a major source of energy consumption. Sure, there would be room for parks, but spending near-city space on sprawling Yosemite-esque preserves would be a hella waste. Recreational transport to those locations makes more sense than shipping food through them if you get to pick.

I guess I don't necessarily mean native plants. The plants don't really have to be native, they just need to thrive to an acceptable degree where they're planted. It's one of the reasons corn is planted on so much ground in the Midwest, or wheat in the north or Canada. People usually get at least the rudimentary issue about subsidization and how it makes some products more stable, but then they rustle for more planting of fruits and veggies without taking into account that those products are already valuable and profitable, but they're profitable and stable and produced in the quantity that they are within the USA with what is, effectively, an unsustainable rate of "water subsidization" through irrigation. It's a problem with grains in Nebraska/Oklahoma/etc too, but it's a problem with fruits and veggies production in many of the places fruits are produced domestically. If you drop that water use to a long-term sustainable rate, you are going to see production spike and plummet like it used to in the bad old days of agriculture, with the weather(it still does, but we've smoothed a lot of it out with heavy inputs. Still not hydroponics level of inputs when dealing with open-air growth). Which means if you are going to want to produce more fruits and veggies and have them efficient and affordable, you're going to need significant allocation of space right next to where the people live(barring like Nevada or California, desert cities for goodness sake! ports do ameliorate it somewhat). Then you're going to need to tolerate supply variance, price variance, or you're going to need to smooth those things out with regulation/subsidization/price supports. If the latter bundle of tools, you're also going to need to tolerate rot and waste from overproduction as you shoot for deliberate error that doesn't result in "too little production" on the years the weather goes badly.