Cities completely abandoned in the post-oil world?

[Ferretlover]

That sounds logical to me, Lore. It is not possible for most people, today, to live easily, if at all, in a city without the benefits that oil has provided.

[Newfie]

I find many good comments and thoughts in this thread. However I think we are over thinking this process. I don't see any reason to believe that the collapse will be logical and react to rational market forces.

Thus I don't believe that it will be possible to predict how it will all unravel.

That being said, let me wade into the muddy water with my own predictions.

I think that we will try to keep Reno and Vegas going far after they should have been shut down. They will be in the vanguard of the decline, but we will still be in deep denial and unable to comprehend our limits to stave off the inevitable. We will try to prop up these population centers with a sort of "domino theory." If we let Vega go, then what next? It will be the start of a slippery slope of recognition that we will avoid at great cost.

Continuing with this theory we will invest too much into retaining the vestiges of our past greatness, we will be in deep denial about the future trends, and we will not take the logical and rational measures to ease the "power down."

One could argue that we are already abandoning cities such as Detroit. Perhaps even that we are abandoning large parts of LA, NYC, Philadelphia, etc. for the urban infrastructure is crumbling. The physical infrastructure to be sure but the social infrastructure even more so. Graduation rates are below 50% and to be a graduate implies no great learning or skill. Yet we all vote. So we are creating a huge mass of uneducated and burdened electorate, what chance do they have of making informed decisions? Thus I see them reacting to emotional appeals, perhaps resulting in internal chaos and further bifurcation of our culture.

Think of this as an electoral MASS, swinging wildly as the ship of state rocks and rolls. I predict it will become impossible to predict what this mass will do.

Perhaps, at some point, likely well after my lifetime, that there will be a coup, or "revolution," or realignment in a effort to stabilize our political system. This may well result in some form of Fascism, anything to make the trains run on time. But even a strong arm government will be beholden to the mass of population and will make many decisions based not upon what is right (even if they could figure it out) but upon what it takes to retain their seat of power.

In summary I believe that we will go through a longish period were we do whatever is necessary to maintain our self image of grandness. We will waste many resources and much time in trying to prop up cities which never should have been. Then we will pass into a time of greater volatility where prediction is far beyond our capacity.

The end products will be ugly and uneven.

May you be well endowed with copious amounts of good luck.

[Beery1]

I've always wondered whether the great cities of the world such as NYC, Chicago, LA, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore etc. have any chance of surviving after the oil crash.

Did cities exist before the age of oil? If so, they'll almost certainly exist after it's over.

London was a city of 2 million in 1850.

So let's not get too excited about an anarcho-primitivist future - it ain't gonna happen.

[dinopello]

What is the question ? There are around twenty thousand cities in the US. People always throw out the exceptional cities when talking about these things and forget about the rest. Possibly some cities will fold but most won't and many will thrive (relatively).

[lper100km]

Most European and many NA cities were developed and occupied years before the oil age. However, there was a balance between urban and rural living that supported both. Today’s urban sprawl and city population density has increased to the detriment of arable and agricultural land and ensured that local agricultural efforts will not support the local population. @Beery1 If London in the 1850s had 2m people, there were some 8m engaged in agricultural activities to support themselves and the city dwellers.

It is worth pondering that because of the blessings of technology, cost accounting and the influence of business schools everywhere, most, if not all city dwellers are now dependent upon remote sources for fresh and manufactured foods and on fragile supply chains, even for staples. A disruption will result in empty shelves in two days or less.

Your view on the fate of cities will be influenced on whether you believe in a fast or managed crash. I have to think that their outlook in the long run is not encouraging for either scenario, given the potential for inadequate power and transportation, infrastructure crumbling for lack of ability to maintain it, lack of basic services, unlivable hi-rise apartments. This is not to say that there will be no life in the cities. Certainly there will be survivors, but I doubt they will be enjoying a latte and watching the sunset from a poolside deck as a regular feature. But who knows.

[Keith_McClary]

Most GTA home buyers would live downtown – if they could afford it

As the debate continues in Toronto over whether it’s better to raise children downtown or in the suburbs, a new study suggests urban centres are considered too expensive for families with two or more kids.

Most GTA home buyers would make such downtown virtues as walkable access to amenities and rapid transit their priority in choosing a home if they could afford it, according to an RBC-Pembina poll released Monday.When money was a factor, 59 per cent of respondents with two or more children said they would prefer dwelling in large detached homes in car-dependent neighbourhoods. When price wasn’t a factor, it was only families with three or more children that preferred the larger dwelling (just over 40 per cent).
...
If price were not an issue, 81 per cent of respondents said they would prefer to live in a smaller home in a “location-efficient” neighbourhood where they can walk or take rapid transit and achieve shorter commute times over a larger house or yard, according to the poll.
...
“We shouldn’t have to live in the type of city where you live in a condo as a single person and move out to the suburbs as a family and move back to the city as seniors,” said Ms. Burda, the study’s author. “We should be able to have the types of diverse housing that can accommodate all demographics and be affordable to do so.”
...
“If you’re paying $5,000 a year to service a car and pay for the insurance and the fuel but you live closer to work and you don’t have to pay that, you can take those cost savings into consideration when you’re doing your mortgage financing and looking at your cash flow and budgeting,” Mr. DeMone said.

[sparky]

.
Manilla , Bombay , Mexico city , Calcutta ,Cairo , Lagos , Rio are multi millions cities
for most residents , no running water , no electricity grid , few sealed roads
no medical care , no policing , no schools
actually a little bit of everything depending on the suburbs

Most do without anything , 10 to a room , the rest in the streets
so you see , for sure there will be cities post peak
of course some adjustments will take place , no need to have zombies roaming the streets
normal miserable people can put up with anything ,

[ralfy]

Much smaller populations for cities in the past, and today heavily dependent on mechanized agriculture and mass manufacturing.

[Newfie]

Also, how do you define "city."?

As our population grows small towns become suburbs, and then neighborhoods oflarger population centers. Bronx was once a town in NY.

The entire NE us region,from South of DC to above Boston is now one huge "city."

So I was surprised to see the comment about thousands of "cities," but understand the different perspective.

Being an Easterner I tend to think of the large population masses surrounding the urban core. But Atlanta, for instance, is more spread out and will likely react differently than Philadelphia. So your answer will depend upon point of view and vary city by city.

I am probably the only one on this site from the great NE megalopolis and thus may see with different eyes.

BTW, how is Atlanta doing with the drought? A bit ago they were in a bind for water.

[pstarr]

Also, how do you define "city."?

As our population grows small towns become suburbs, and then neighborhoods oflarger population centers. Bronx was once a town in NY.

The entire NE us region,from South of DC to above Boston is now one huge "city."

So I was surprised to see the comment about thousands of "cities," but understand the different perspective.

Cities were manufacturing centers, where resources were brought together to create implements, tools for living. (Cities were built on rivers/oceans, for transport.) Culture/arts were just diversions to that role. Now Kulture/Arts are kind of the main business of American cities. Cities are also dumping grounds for the poor. The stuff is made in suburban industrial parks or in China.

If there is any civilization post-peak, then cities could regain their role because folks would need to come together for that density. It will remain quite inexpensive to bring Heartland wheat, meat by train and barge into the city centers. This is a great advantage over the suburbs that require refrigeration and car-based transport to get food to people.

Being an Easterner I tend to think of the large population masses surrounding the urban core. But Atlanta, for instance, is more spread out and will likely react differently than Philadelphia. So your answer will depend upon point of view and vary city by city.

I am probably the only one on this site from the great NE megalopolis and thus may see with different eyes.

BTW, how is Atlanta doing with the drought? A bit ago they were in a bind for water.

Does this really explain differences in attitude anymore? Aren't we all citizens of TVLand now?

But if it is true, then I must be a very different breed. I came from the NY metro suburban area, part of the entire East Coast Megalopolis. But I moved rural PA farm country to my wife's ancestral home. Then to the Redwood Curtain. It is strange up here, a different world completely. I guess that is why I don't fit into the usual conversation around here? I live in the country. For the last month it has been gray overcast/fog, 60 degrees morning, noon, and night, windless. Just green trees. No clouds, no rain, no wind, no change. ALL THE TIME. Calm. Some would say boring. Safe, quite, peaceful.

[Newfie]

My point was simply that we probably all have different ideas, or visions, when we say the word "city."

The word is too broad in meaning for any kind of useful discussion.

Gary, Indiana..... Reno ..... Philadelphia .....will have different fates.

[pstarr]

My point was simply that we probably all have different ideas, or visions, when we say the word "city."

The word is too broad in meaning for any kind of useful discussion.

Gary, Indiana..... Reno ..... Philadelphia .....will have different fates.

And each city has a unique history, geographic and social milieu and chance will play out differently everywhere. I agree it is impossible to say how things will play out, and how a single place will fare as we slide down the energy slope. But I am pretty sure that most of the suburbs will become either unlivable or very different. One of the things I learned living around---big cities, small towns, suburbs, and the country---is this--a well designed city building is quieter and more private than many small town or suburban homes

One advantage that the suburbs have is their low density and wood frame/stick construction. It will be pretty easy to re-vision, de-construct, and re-construct a (stupid, poorly sited, poor designed) single family home from its 1/8 acre lot into a larger multi-family, multi-use building. That New Building would then share the advantages of older city structures (more energy efficient, shared multi-purpose spaces, security, community) with the advantages of modern construction (thermal/sound insulation, flexible/creative building material, airiness, lightness). This would create open space suitable for agriculture that was otherwise covered with stupid private back patios, useless postage-size front lawns, shadows from adjacent buildings and fences.

[kublikhan]

One advantage that the suburbs have is their low density and wood frame/stick construction. It will be pretty easy to re-vision, de-construct, and re-construct a (stupid, poorly sited, poor designed) single family home from its 1/8 acre lot into a larger multi-family, multi-use building. That New Building would then share the advantages of older city structures (more energy efficient, shared multi-purpose spaces, security, community) with the advantages of modern construction (thermal/sound insulation, flexible/creative building material, airiness, lightness).

This process is already underway. Suburbs are increasing in population size, density, and as employment centers. Light rail is making a comeback. Meanwhile, many US cities have shrinking growth rates, sometimes even a declining population. I am not convinced suburbs are going to die off anymore than cities are.

The combined growth rate for cities in the 100 largest metro areas dropped to a little more than half that from the prior decade. The aggregate picture obscures the continued strong relationship between city and suburban growth within metropolitan areas. cities and suburbs increasingly share common attributes, both across and within our major metro areas.

Traditional downtowns account for only one in five jobs in metro areas. By contrast, more than 45 percent of metropolitan jobs now lie at least 10 miles from the downtown core—outside the Beltway, if you will. Employment decentralization blurred the traditional economic distinctions between cities and suburbs; in doing that, it helped blur their demographic distinctions as more groups settled close to where the jobs are.

Affordable housing is suburbanizing, too. A mixture of policy changes like fair housing laws and subsidies for low-income homeownership, combined with the aging of suburban infrastructure, has made suburban housing more accommodating of racial and ethnic diversity. Nearly half of all voucher holders, and more than half of all rental units priced below HUD’s Fair Market Rents, are located in suburbs.

We need not an exclusively city or suburban perspective on the census, but rather a metropolitan approach to managing America’s continuing demographic transformation.To conclude, there’s not only an economic imperative to think and act more metropolitan in America, but also an emerging demographic basis for doing so. The 2010 Census shows that suburbs and cities share increasingly common attributes and associated challenges.

The State of Metropolitan America: Suburbs and the 2010 Census

Areas with the fastest growth included suburbs of metropolitan areas in the South and West, such as the region around Orlando, Fla.; the "Research Triangle" area of North Carolina; the northern Virginia exurbs of Washington, D.C.; and the areas surrounding such cities as Las Vegas, Atlanta, and several cities in Texas (Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin). As in previous decades, many rural areas lost population, including much of the Great Plains and northern and central Appalachia

Within metropolitan areas, most U.S. population growth during the past century has taken place in suburban areas, rather than central cities.

Somewhere on the way back to the city, Americans got sidetracked.

Polling by the real estate advising firm RCLCO finds that 88 percent of Millenials want to live in cities. Their parents, the Baby Boomers, also express a burning desire to live in denser, less car-dependent settings. But in the past decade, many major cities saw population declines, and the overwhelming majority of population growth was in the suburbs. Methinks we may have jumped the gun on the whole collapse of the suburbs bit.

Listen, I don't mean to belabor this point. This is all just to say that the urban renaissance is not fait accompli. And that's why, in the coming months, I'll be exploring ways that we can nudge the great urban revival along. I'm going on the assumption that while Americans seem to have an ideal vision of urban living, the reality of it often fails to stack up to the fantasy. I also think that our discontent often fails to provide the motivation to change our less-than-ideal, but perfectly comfortable suburban way of living.

Stranded in suburbia: Why aren’t Americans moving to the city?

[sparky]

.
A city fundamental characteristic is that it is not self sufficient either in food or ressources
thus it is essentialy a place for exchange , a focus
That's why most cities sites are where water borne transport is possible
that's the cheapest in energy term

the focus thing can be religious but most often political , that's where the taxes are spend

traditionnally there were very little suburbs
or rather sub urbs .....( sub = under , inferior ) ....urbs ( city , urbanism )
the old suburbs were the habitations located outside the walls , cheaper but much less safe
none was further than a walking trip and back from the gates
suburbs in their present form apeared with the steam trains and the bicycle ,
commuting became possible . no commuting , no suburbs
suburbs are not self sufficient but live of exchange with the city center ,
there is surprizingly little exchange inter suburbs or with the outside

in a low energy world suburbs would disapear or revert to individual local villages or towns

[SeaGypsy]

In our lifetime, cities will mostly survive, but thriving is another question. In the last few years it has become normal across many countries to have CCTV almost everywhere in the cities. Laws are in place for a full blown police state almost everywhere, including now in the bastion of 'freedom', the good ole' USA.

What I see is more of Manila, less of Amsterdam, more of Stockholm syndrome, less comprehension of reality as it is, more idiocracy, less rights, more b/s everywhere, less critique thereof, more self absorbtion, less caring what happens to anyone falling through the cracks. Meanwhile the machine will keep ticking along.

[Pops]

Huge modern cities didn't exist before fossil fuels and only a handful of cities of any size existed before modern agriculture.

It is interesting to me that in recent history, say the last 500 years, there were only a few large cities but various 'oligists go on and on about the huge cities of ancient times, 1-2-3 million people in Rome for example. Whereas in modern times it was not until the 18th century that London reached 1 million. Strange.

I think we tend to forget that the "great" cities of the distant past were very special cases, reliant upon an excess of power for their survival just as modern cities. The it was human slave power and or military power able to force tribute from subsistence farmers (in the form of food) to feed non-farming urbanites. Basically they were command economies. They simply could not have existed otherwise because there wasn't the technology that would allow a surplus of food - a voluntary surplus that is.

I actually think that lots of the great ancient cities were mere symbols of power, political or religious, some surely were densely inhabited for a time but many only sparsely.

Anyway aside from however the ancients did it, up to the 18th century the vast majority of the population lived on the land as subsistence farmers with only a vanishing minority in cities, again because there was not the technology to grow a surplus that would allow specialization and trade and manufacturing that constitutes and is the excuse for a city. They may have slept in a village of a few dozen families or inside the walls of a fortification but they were subsistence farmers nonetheless.

Jethro Tull invented the seed drill in 1700 and that really was the beginning of modern cities. In the 18th & 19th century there was finally enough food surplus to allow populations to grow without the need for slave labor. Obviously slave labor was still profitable but eventually the civilizing effect of a full belly brought most overt slavery to an end.

So in addition to being the seat of power, whether government, religious or military, after the first ag revolution they became increasingly the center of growing trade and manufacture.

But again I think we forget that it is only in the last couple of hundred years that cities really become common centers of population. Even as late as 1900, only 13% of the world's population lived in cities and not until 2007 that the percentage exceeded 50%. In the US the 50% mark was passed in the 1910's


We also tend to forget (perhaps because we live in the city and forgetting is convenient) that fossil fuels are the slaves enabling the huge population of modern cities. Fossil fuel extraction over the last 300 years has enabled the growth and very existence of cities that would not and can not survive otherwise.


http://www.gizmag.com/go/7334/
http://www.localhistories.org/farming.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City

[glaucus]

The best analysis of why cities were established and how they've evolved over time is called "The City in History" by Lewis Mumford. It has an academic tone and though it's getting on in age, it remains the starting place for a comprehensive view of urban history.

Though Mumford was initially a technology booster, over the course of his career he became very disheartened at the effect that the introduction of mass technology (like the automobile) was having on cities. Mumford was very prescient for his time. When you read the last chapter you'll get goosebumps at how well he predicts the negative implications that this would have on our cities.

As an aside, I spoke with John Michael Greer at the Age of Limits conference briefly and he really lit up when I asked him how familiar he was with Mumford's work - turns out he's a big fan too.

[Pops]

Thanks galacus I'll try to get that, I see it's on Amazon, my library is in no way city-size. ;^)

[dinopello]

The best analysis of why cities were established and how they've evolved over time is called "The City in History" by Lewis Mumford.

+1. After I read Pops post, I actually got my copy out and was going to quote some passages but it was too much work. Definately a must read though. People in modern times, especially in the US have a very particular, distorted view of what a city and city living is and has been throughout human history I think. Mumford had his own ideas of what the remedy was for what was destroying cities that I don't always agree with, but as a history the book is impressive.

My copy of "The City in History" was given to me as a gift many years ago and came with a aged, brown copy of the New York Time review of the book in 1961. That review is available here in PDF

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/bo ... umford.pdf

[Newfie]

In Philadelphia, and I believe in many larger US cities, there are special zones that get greater care and protection.

In Philly it is the Cent City District and was funded by downtown business in an effort to stave decay.

It caught on and now the U of P has its own special district. There may be others.

Other portions of the city are essentially abandoned.

In Philly we have magnet high schools, which can be quite good. The rest of the system is dismal at best.

I see this as a trend of decay where substantial portions of the cities are being abandoned by social services as we speak. At some point the pockets of decay will overwhelm the wealth put in to shore up the gentrified areas.

I hope to move out first.