[pfreyre]

I would like to start a thread about cities in the future. With so many people talking about permaculture in a post-peak world, the question that I haven't seen answered yet is that of larger-sized cities.

Cities have been around for thousands of years. The oldest city that I am aware of is the city of Ur in present-day Iraq, presumed to be first settled around 4000 BC. Other cities such as Istanbul, Rome, Athens, Delhi, Beijing, etc have been around for 2000+ years. The question I want to pose is: how large can cities be in the future without using any or very little fossil fuels? And, what will happen to places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc...

Presumably one of the biggest issues in the future would be access to resources. Given that cities like New York are so close to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC, there would obviously be a lot of competition for food. However, places like Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Denver, etc have less competition for resources and might fare much better. Also, I do want to keep this conversation to larger cities, so places like Cody, Wyoming are off the radar for this question.

In 1800, the 10 larges cities in the world were:
1 Beijing, China 1,100,000
2 London, United Kingdom 861,000
3 Guangzhou, China 800,000
4 Edo (Tokyo), Japan 685,000
5 Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 570,000
6 Paris, France 547,000
7 Naples, Italy 430,000
8 Hangzhou, China 387,000
9 Osaka, Japan 383,000
10 Kyoto, Japan 377,000

This shows that we can live largely-populated cities without cars, buses, trucks, and trains connecting their fabric, as long as they are very dense and walkable. I do believe that in a post-peak world we will continue to have some powered transport, as well as bicycles - something that hadn't been invented yet 200 years ago.

While its hard to place a definitive cap city population, it seems that without any energy sources other than human/animal power, it would be possible to sustain a very dense city of about 1 million people. However, what will happen to places like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles? Will New York have to shrink from 20 million to 10 million? Or maybe 2 or 1 million? Yet, we will also be able to power our society with some amount of solar and wind energy, so what will this help us to achieve?

Furthermore, what will the ratio of rural v urban dwellers become? Currently in the US it stands at 80% urban : 20% rural, where urban is defined as: "urbanized areas over 50,000 pop and urban clusters 2,500 to 49,999 pop."

What do you all think is the limit?

[anador]

There is precedent for large urban densities being achieved in pre-industrial societies, however, the 1 million range of population reached by the city of Rome, certain Chinese cities, and the urban agglomerations of the Khmer empire, have proven to be highly unstable and often temporary situations in a low energy society.

It has been more commonly demonstrated that a pre-industrial city has its greatest population-to-stability ratio at around between 10,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. Most Medieval cities in a variety of cultures tended towards the lower end of this scale, but many capital cities maintained a population of 100,000 or more people for a number of centuries.

The problem is not necessarily one of shear numbers, these ancient societies grew their populations slowly and developed very particular economies and infrastructures to maintain a civilized lifestyle in a low energy civilization.

The 1 million people in Rome at its Height, benefitted from a nearly industrial beuracracy,

Huge amounts of trade flowed through Istanbul, And Angkor had one of the most advanced water management systems, which allowed them to grow rice for 3 million people.

Just throwing 2 million unprepared modern people with no long term history and cultural economy into an urban situation, however, is a recipe for disaster come powerdown.

Theres no low energy trade base and infrastructure.

We could certainly sit down and design new cities designed with an emergent infrastructure for local food production and trade in mind, in fact that is what the firm I work for has been doing for 3 decades.

There are people working on the problem of creating cities that are convertible to a new energy paradigmn.

Unfortunately a city of 1 million designed to function without fossil fuels is a very different object than one that was not.

[Shaved Monkey]

The only reason people got drawn to the large city is they could make money which they exchange for shelter and food.
If the chance to make money disappears and the access to food disappears and the shelters become too dangerous then people will move.
Solar, wind and aquaponics may sustain smaller populations all depends on money.

Cuba survived by turning their parks into organic farms and educating their unemployed to become gardeners and increasing the wage of farmers.Non private ownership of land meant they could just grow on any derelict land
Benevolent centralised government helps.

[anador]

With early societies and future societies it was sometimes not based on money as much as it was on protection.

Life in the classical countryside before the pax romana and after it ended was a difficult and risky thing. There were brigands, and all manner of theives with no rule of law beyond the city walls.

Most people, even farmers did in fact live in a urban type settlement. What we consider the countryside versus the city in these times is skewed

places that we consider "outside the city" or "rural" like compact high density low population towns on the great plains or in rural new england are cities in their own right, and many of them would have been considered urban centers had they existed in 13th century Italy for example. But we dismiss them as "small towns" as if they are not an Urban type.

People would live in the walled town and go out and farm their alloted fields, during the day but sleep in a city at night.

Even the smaller villages of the English manor system are very urban, if small places. Buildings right up to one-another, apartments, shops. They are Cities.

The idea of a farmstead in a field way away from a village or town was more uncommon than people think. The isolated farmstead was more a feature of the 19th century society than the 15th century one. And it is the result of an inherently different energy state.

Even colonial New England existed in a relatively "high energy society" in its time because of the huge HUGE stocks of virgin firewood. Europe had to use more dense and conservative systems of farming and lifestyle because of a lack of available energy, and productive soil, even in those days.

Even the villages that are not walled are intrinsically designed to be defended. The town common could shelter animals overnight, if there was fear they would be stolen. The streets going into the villages contract and become narrower just at the boundary of the town, providing a more defensible narrow section of street that functions as a gate, but using houses as the barrier, rather than fortified walls

Havana is a great model. But without that centralization it would be difficult to manage an american city similarly during a powerdown.

Also, the traditional lifestyle was not so long forgotten in Cuba at the begining of the embargo, most of the population in Havana was from a recent farming background, and the traditional (and illegal black markets) were already in place to service their society in spite of the central hegemony of their government.

[Duende]

A subject dear to my heart!

anador provides a good first stab at an explanation and expectation. In my opinion, very large cities will suffer enormous population loss. Why? Well, large cities command enormous ecological footprints, sometimes many hundreds of times the size of their jurisdictional limits. Food production is obviously a big issue too. History has shown that large cities are mostly abandoned in times of major disruption in favor of living closer to the factors of production in less complex economic and social arrangements. Having said this, there will likely still be people living in large cities for many, many years to come. Why? Well, cities command supreme influence over their regions. The sheer purchasing power of big cities make them attractive markets for those with anything to sell. So producers will work hard - even in a energy descent scenario - to get their goods to market. But the long and short of it is that cities in the developed world will lack the ability to possess an ecological footprints many times the capacity of its region. Populations - and standards of living - will fall dramatically, particularly in the developed world.

[anador]

While melodramatic, that is true, but not universally so.

The deindustrialization of inland Northeast Cities and towns actually spared them from alot of sprawl. The coasts are as you say, sprawled, covered over, and poisoned

Just look at upstate new york and western mass, inland maine, vermont, most of rural canada.With BosNYWash, when you move north south, it goes on for ever. But when you move east west the sprawl is very thin. 20 miles west of boston is nothing like 10 miles west of boston.

The economic ruin of the midcentury actually preserved many of the towns and cities in the new england new york rustbelt from being oversprawled. The farmland went fallow in the 20s and thirties, and much has reverted to living soil in a young forest ecosystem.

The west and south were pretty much destroyed by their success and have been raped and pillaged by sprawl as industries left the north starting in the 1940s. Their cities look like they've been bombed and their countryside is spread thin with identical houses.

Theres alot going for the Northeast in my opinion, And if the transition town movement really got going there I think you would even be amazed what potential exists in that region.

Damn I hate Florida.... I want to be back in Mass.

[anador]

And as for future resourses, We do have rich veins of ore. It just exists in the walls of all the mcmansions. The enough copper and iron in landfilles alone, that we could mine them for decades, especially since without fossil fuel, we wont need as much.

And similarly, many of the low concentration small lode ore veins were left alone, because they werent big enough for huge oil driven mining industries to make a profit.

There are plenty of places to find bog iron marshes and pyrite lodes, that were too small for the 1920s to 1980s mining mentality

They are just sitting there, modest resources for people with much more modest needs

[anador]

Yeah, My mom was actually Born in Redding, and she talks about Northern California/ Oregon alot.

I have to agree with kunstler that the Northwest and Northeast are the best places to try to make it, though you are very lucky to be in that region for another reason.

The people, the ones I have met from "beyond the redwood curtain" tend to be open to these new patterns of lifestyle and ways of living. It would be easier to get a group of like minded individuals going on a project up there than in the NE.

People tend to be both negative and stubborn in NE. Its difficult to get people to get excited or motivated about new ideas about farming, living, and town planning. They tend to be very defeatist and despairing and won't even give new ideas a try.

I love the place, but I truly believe that one of the most negative side effects of our waY of life is the symptom of despair. Despair is the enemy to humanist pursuits. It certainly pervades NE.

When you manage to turn someone around from being dismissive and apathetic, to honestly motivated and interested, blows my mind the difference it makes.... sorry went a little OT

[AgentR11]

Do not under estimate the power of rail and ocean transport.

They are energy efficient on a scale that is hard to beat; and between the two of them, grain can still make it to the cities in large quantities. And if you've got that side of the equation down; then whether Bob walks or bikes for his individual transportation doesn't really make much difference.

That said, if you can tolerate being sweaty, its easy to think of your own personal market range as being a good ten mile radius without much difficulty by bicycle. (if you personally "power down" and stop being in a rush, it can be quite a bit further than even that...)

[AgentR11]

People will receive their morning gruel, afternoon porridge, and evening-tide slop with a small helping of dried beef.

I know you write it like that for its un-appeal; but honestly, how different is that from what folks do now?

Wake up
Eat breakfast cereal/toast (grain), drink low grade, bulk ground coffee
Go to work
Eat lunch burger (grain + lump of ground beef)
Go home
Eat dinner bread(grain) & spaghetti (grain, tomato, a little more ground beef)

just an example. (You write dried beef, but no reason to leave the World of the Chub in powerdown...imho)

we aren't GOING there, we are already here.

[pfreyre]

pstarr and AgentR11: I definitely agree that rivers and railroads will continue to function in the future most indefinitely. The question is at what capacity? If we can develop biofuels from sources like algae (I know this is a highly debated topic) that don't force us trade land used for food v. fuel, then we might be able to produce the amount of energy we used, say back in 1860 or 1900.

While I certainly believe that life after peak oil will require that our 80:20 ratio of urban:rural population to change to 50:50, or even 20:80 (the other way around) because occupations like: customer service representative, marketing assistant, and financial advisor will be a thing of the past; what will this ratio become?

Cities like my home town of Minneapolis may very likely revert to being the milling capital again, just as it was for a time between 1880-1930. People will still need wheat to make things like bread, right? Now, all we have to do of course, is to re-industrialize all the warehouses and lofts that were turned into condos along the Mississippi. It is for reasons like this that commerce along the Mississippi and all of its tributaries like the Ohio River, Missouri River, etc, or the Erie Canal will be used.

The midwest, northeast, northwest, and southeast will probably continue to hold up okay as a whole. Its the southwest I would avoid at all costs, who ever thought of building places like Phoenix and Las Vegas in the desert anyway?

There is a pretty decent .pdf presentation that I found online about post-peak urban planning that I found online a while ago. If there are any urban planning folks out there, you will enjoy this: http://www.atlanticplanners.org/events/Conferences/2006%20Conference/2006API%20Principles%20of%20Post-Peak%20Planning.pdf

[prajeshbhat]

Do not under estimate the power of...

rail and ocean transport.

They are energy efficient on a scale that is hard to beat; and between the two of them, grain can still make it to the cities in large quantities. And if you've got that side of the equation down; then whether Bob walks or bikes for his individual transportation doesn't really make much difference.

That said, if you can tolerate being sweaty, its easy to think of your own personal market range as being a good ten mile radius without much difficulty by bicycle. (if you personally "power down" and stop being in a rush, it can be quite a bit further than even that...)

Sounds good in theory. But you are going to have a hard time advertising it to people. They are only going to take railways and public transport seriously after cars become completely unaffordable to 80% of them. Reason? You have to share the train with 1000 other people. There is something about sharing that just turns people off. Probably just the way we are designed.
Ocean transport is doing well. I don't see any problems.

As for bicycles, you must be envisioning a cool modern superbike like this


But the design and development of these bikes largely depends on an underlying motorcycle industry which provides the necessary machinery and materials. Without that you might have to contend with a chinese bicycle.

[SeaGypsy]

http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN ... ooter.html

China is way ahead on ev


http://www.alibaba.com/products/electri ... 60544.html

[AgentR11]

There is a huge world of "possible" between your superbike or a carbon fiber roady and that wooden mockup. Its more a case of bicycle manufacture making use of available tooling, as opposed to being dependent upon them. Its entirely within human capacity to make a low tech bike, even after existing motor vehicle tech passes. Its not done now, because it can't sell, not because its not possible.

An interesting note about your superbike, the odd futuristic component is the front wheel hub; but you could drop any ole 26" front wheel in that bracket and it'd work fine. (I think its a 26"). The key component that really is a mess, is that rear wheel hub; there are a dizzying array of "standards" for that, and all kinds of compatibility issues between shifters, rings, spacing....

[AgentR11]

nb... in "rail and ocean" I'm talking about shipping of grain, meat, etc, not people. The people need to not be moving so much as they do now.

[babystrangeloop]

This debate on the future of cities is scheduled for later this week:

‘The Long Emergency vs. NYC’s Resurgency’
The Saratogian / October 10, 2011

The college will host a debate on the future of cities Thursday, Oct. 20, featuring two noted scholars and moderated by an expert on transportation issues.

“The Long Emergency vs. NYC’s Resurgency: A Debate about the Future of Cities” will feature Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White and author James Howard Kunstler. Jeff Olson of Alta Planning & Design, a Skidmore faculty member, will moderate.

The talk is scheduled for 6 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium in Palamountain Hall. There will be a “meet and greet” in the Palamountain/Dana hall lobby from 5 to 6 p.m. before the debate.

Skidmore’s Environmental Studies Program is sponsoring the panel.

This discussion will feature Kunstler, whose book “The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil,” is an apocalyptic vision of a post-oil future, and White of Transportation Alternatives, a leader who is helping to transform New York City into a livable metropolis. Both speakers share a common vision of the need for a sustainable future. The debate will focus on whether or not change is possible in light of our modern condition. ...