I'm posting early today as the Fall Equinox is approaching. Below is the chapter entitled Cities, with a supporting comment. Please read thoughtfully and share your views.
Cities
The population of the U.S. is growing. In 2001, the U.S. Census Bureau concluded that in 50 years, by birth or immigration, the population of this country could increase by 120 million. Currently, there are about 285 million people in the United States. By the year 2050 that totals 405 million people; roughly a 40% increase over today’s population. All these people will need food, housing, energy and, if our current system is still in place, employment. The land does not increase. The resources do not increase. The majority of this population will live in cities. The cities in the United States do not produce their own food. The vast majority of everything a city resident eats must come from outside of the city.
Agriculture allowed for the creation of cities.
The town where I used to live has three large grocery stores and a co-op. There is on average three full days of food within the stores themselves. Three meals a day for a population approaching 15,000 people. Just three days. The people who live there are dependent on a steady supply of food that is trucked in. The city, however, is not isolated. There is ready access to the farms that surround it, to the woods and water. It is easy to leave the city itself and access the natural world.
Compare this to the Chicago metropolitan area, with a population around 8.15 million, with 2.8 million people residing in the city proper. The suburbs stretch for sixty miles in various directions. A city that, especially for the people who live deep within it, is very difficult if not impossible to leave. The city is isolated from the natural world of forests and water. Lake Michigan is accessible for the coastal dwellers. There are the patches of woods called Forest Preserves which actually have deer populations. There are community gardens in places. But, for the most part the food is very very far away.
Cities of any size have one thing in common: They must constantly take from the land. For the most part, they give nothing back. Municipal sludge does not count as it contains the toxins of the city’s organic wastes. Leaf composting is a bit helpful.
Cities are useful, though. They are useful to the system of power. People are concentrated and made dependent on the infrastructure that the system of power provides - electricity, water, food, etc. The inhabitants of the cities will profess the system’s value. They will fight to keep this system because to not keep it means their lives must radically change, quickly. They would have to change their habits. They would have to change their way of being within the world. They would have to change the way they relate to the world. This is a hard nut to crack.
If the cities of the world vanished and the people who live in them had to live in the surrounding land, the Earth could not support them all. There simply is not enough habitable land to support the people who live on the planet at this time. The existing land must be used for food production and not for living on.
Unless there is a massive die off of people in the United States, which is a possibility, we here are stuck with the cities as dwelling areas for the majority of people. So, how are the cities to be made more sustainable? How can the existing city populations exist in greater harmony with the Earth? How can they support themselves instead of having to rely on trucked in foods and non-renewable energy?
To live in the country and have easy access to farm raised meat, eggs, milk, produce, wood for fire and water it is easy to forget what living in a city is like. Large cities must have vast systems of infrastructure to supply their inhabitants the basic needs of food, fire and water. Instead of going to a neighbor's house for eggs a city dweller must go to a store and buy them. The eggs have to be trucked in after being laid by chickens living in factory farm conditions. The vast majority of food trucked in to a city, especially animal products, is produced in factory farms. Pasture raised cattle and free farmed chickens may be available, but cannot even come close to feeding the population of a major city.
ReplyDeleteCurrent dietary demands from the US population dictate a system of food production that is mechanized and brutal in its treatment of the animals and the Earth.
The amount of manure produced domestically in the US from the cattle industry alone cannot be used in country. There is simply too much. This manure pollutes the water systems and has been responsible for food recalls. Most notably spinach. This is but one consequence of a diet that is not mandated by the people, but manipulated by the industry producing the food. Less meat produced means less meat consumed. Less meat produced means less manure. Less meat produced means more land can be converted from feed production to vegetable and grain production to feed people directly. This means less profit. This means a more sustainable society.
Do we want to sacrifice the Earth for the benefit of a few wealthy people? Is this society worth keeping? The wealthy will complain as they lose their privilege. People can and will adjust their diets. It's not that hard to imagine a different way. The difficulty is getting people to accept they have to change.