permaculture

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Whether small town America flees to the city or the suburb of the city is 
really immaterial; they're leaving the land either way. What's the difference 
if a China-Mart pops up in a city or a suburb?  Either way development eats 
up farmland. Nobody's ignoring suburban sprawl; it's the result of cities 
imploding under the weight of their own population problems. And now those 
problems force people out of the suburbs, to "exurbia" - new communities 
beyond the suburbs where they can pay for the suburban lifestyle without the 
suburb. But they're not repopulating small town America, and they're no more 
sustainable than the suburbs or the cities. They tend to be retirees and 
pensioners.
They're not growing anything or producing anything. They fish and golf. They 
still depend on the real rural America to provide them with food and fabric 
and all the byproducts from agriculture. Nothing gained. The flight from 
small town America continues unabated.

It's not my imagination. I see the numbers elsewhere and I see it right here, 
just outside a town of 300. Kids don't hang around after high school. And the 
newcomers don't come to farm or raise livestock, and they try to bring the 
city with them. I'm the exception.

Urban infrastructure can't be more sustainable in the long run when it's 
falling apart or sitting unused. In that case, who cares if it lasts 80 
years? But it won't last. Everything needs maintenance, and cities aren't 
getting it. The "war zones" of the rust belt cities are testimony to that.  
Even the bridges and Interstate highway system are falling into disrepair. . 
Is that "forced environmentalism"?

paul@largocreekfarms.com
tradingpost@gilanet.com

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 10/19/2004 at 5:05 PM lblissett wrote:

>Very interesting discussion here. Here are a few thoughts:
>
>1) I don't think the "city vs country" and "flight to / fleeing from the
>city" mentality really fits with modern American life anymore. There simply
>is no "flight to the city" anymore -- that phenomenon ended after WWII and
>rise of suburbia, when many cities were actually severely depopulated by a
>mass exodus to the kinds of sprawling developments we still see being built
>today. There are still plenty of Northeastern cities like Buffalo or Newark
>which have tons of under-used infrastructure because everyone left for the
>burbs. What is really decimating rural America? Is it cities? Not really.
>Every day you see farmland being torn up to build housing developments and
>Walmarts. Focusing on the cities only serves to ignore suburban sprawl as
>the predominant form of waste in the post-WW2 automobile-centered
>fuel-burning culture of America.
>
>2) That being said, there is still a huge quality of life issue with living
>in cities. On paper cities might actually prove to be more efficient than
>other forms of settlement, but the experience of the city (especially
>Manhattan) will be dirty, noisy, and unhealthy. In my own opinion, "living
>well" in an urban environment today seems like an uphill battle that can
>only be fought with loads of money. But there is a difference between
>ecological impact and personal impact. Ideally we would want to live in
>ecologically sustainable, high-efficiency human environment which is able
>to
>balance our need for nature, peace and quiet, regenerative surroundings,
>etc., with the other social and cultural advantages that come with city
>life.
>
>3) Urban infrastructure requires a lot of energy, but this isn't
>necessarily
>a bad thing, because urban infrastructure necessarily has to be long-term,
>and it's the short-term model of "disposable development" which is really
>threatening to the environment. Long-term planning isn't necessraily a
>picnic if it's wasteful and poorly planned, but building an imperfect
>structure that will last for 80 years is better than building a perfect
>structure that will simply be torn down and rebuilt in 15 years.
>
>4) "Caging ourselves" -- I think what Sean is suggesting here is that
>because of the prohibitive cost of otherwise wasteful things (like 3 cars
>per family, oversized houses, a strip mall every five miles, etc) people
>might be more ecologically friendly than they'd want to be. The high cost
>of
>living in a city demands a certain level of efficiency and requires
>long-term planning in terms of population and infrastructure. It's almost a
>kind of forced environmentalism, although it's still just a question of
>being better only in degrees. It's the system that's flawed.
>
>- David Travis
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
>To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 3:08 PM
>Subject: Re: [permaculture] self-sufficiency
>
>
>>
>> You seem to be thinking outside the box (literally "box") there, and IMHO
>that's what we desperately need.  I can't see making the concrete jungle
>sustainable.  You mentioned "those fortunate enough to get to the country
>side" but I'd make it "determined enough".  And "We need, in effect, to
>learn to cage ourselves into our own little zoo, otherwise known as
>cities".
>I don't follow the reasoning there. It seems to contradict permaculture
>completely. Small town America has been decimated for decades by the flight
>to the city; rural economies have suffered; and there's more than enough
>room (and work) in small town America for all who want to flee the concrete
>jungle. If we can't see that, it's because our mind is still stuck in the
>city.  My belief is the world could practice permaculture and feed itself
>and live in harmony if socioeconomic institutions and concentration of
>wealth and power didn't control most of the world. Let's keep thinking
>outside the box.
>>
>> paul@largocreekfarms.com
>
>
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