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My English is poor so sometimes I write convoluted sentences since I do not know how to construct them, sorry, I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably bi

by xte 8y ago

My English is poor so sometimes I write convoluted sentences since I do not know how to construct them, sorry, I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably big city? I do not know any. Cities might seems to be more productive since our developed countries switch from production to tertiary sector but that's thanks to the rest of productive world that's now in easter Europe, Asia, Africa, South America etc. So in general cities are not more economically productive, it only offer more options per land area since there is more concentration but with the exception of tertiary sector you simply can't have industry, agriculture, breeding, ... in cities and well... We all need to eat, we all use industry-made product from bottom up. The problem of "countryside" is the concentration of alternatives per land area, you may have nearby a sole productive and attractive activity, if something happen to it you might have to go far away to found another option. In cities being concentrated you normally have more options nearby. However this is most a matter of economic organization that's still do not understand to much how to use territory than a mere thing from being in the countryside itself. Perhaps the most sustainable model we actually have in place is the Riviera one's with enough space to evolve and enough concentration of opportunities. Google HQ is a tertiary sector activity and require hi-speed connections so a city is a nice place for it, however did you know where most data centers are? Did you know where we produce electricity for them? Concrete, Steel, Plastic, ... that is needed for them? That's a big point that many today forget but in case of real crisis that's represent a real and dangerous problem because if producer are not anymore in your country and are not anymore willing to work/commerce with you, you are TFU. That's a thing USA and even more UK should have learned from China, we western Europeans should have learned from Easter EU...

TulliusCicero 8y ago
> I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably big city? Big cities are more sustainable than suburban or rural areas, not less. Per capita energy usage in those cities is lower. > in general cities are not more economically productive Yes, they are. You can't just handwave away that their economic output is higher because you don't like the particular sectors that are more popular in cities.
- xte 8y ago
  > Per capita energy usage in those cities is lower. Oh, sure and where in a city you produce food? Industrial product? I know for sure that an apartment consume less energy than a single house to be heated/cooled. It consume more to being built and maintained though and more important it can't be really used without non urban area... That's the real problem. On economic productivity it's the same: more money turn, but they turn because suburb exists, without them it's like the ancient I think Sioux Chief that say "when you finish fish what you count to do? Eat dollars?"... This is the real sustainability I talk about. Without counting the amount of prime matter and energy needed to build big architecture vs small distributed ones.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    > It consume more to being built and maintained though No, it doesn't. Not on a per capita basis. > it can't be really used without non urban area... That's the real problem. The number of people that have to be farmers and living on-site on a farm is very small in a developed country. There are way more people living in rural or exurban/low density areas than are necessary to make food. > more money turn, but they turn because suburb exists Not really, or at least you don't need American-style, super low density suburbs. Medium density suburbs are popular in Europe and work fine.
    - xte 8y ago
      It's hard to compute but only try to estimate the cost of build a subway train with it's relatives stations, depots etc and the energy it consume. If you compute well enough you'll that it require far more resources than private vehicle in a countryside are. Even if you compute "CEP" (a french index that means primary (non renewable) energy/resources consumption, I do not know correspondent metric in English) of a a groups of single family's houses, with micropoles foundations screwed on ground and the rest in wood, glass and plastic/aluminum/... built with medium/high quality and proper insulation vs a single tall building for the same number of people and similar construction quality you still see that you consume more non-renewable/recyclable resources to build the single tall building than the many individual houses and if those are really well designed and built (so they can be heated and cooled with little non-renewable energy) you'll see that even energy consumption is better in individual houses. Simply because they have enough place for solar-thermal panels, efficient double-flux VMC at today's tech and cost are far more efficient, airtightness can cheaply be superior etc. Many do not think that simply because do not know how modern houses are built nor how modern tall building are built and do not even see the mass of steel and foundation they have. On living: you automatically agree that cities are not sustainable by themselves so we need to be low density and in nature, of course we can discuss density and it's variation depending on natural resources place per place but that's the point. We can automatize as we want but we need nature, we can't live for now in isolated artificial environments nor cities nor boats/submarine/starships. And that's probably will remain true for centuries to came. My personal opinion is that a low density Riviera model is the best for now, where low density means low enough to been able to "survive" with local natural resources but no more so we still need commerce and cooperation but we can life in a not-so-comfortable and not-so-terrible way without. For my actual place (French alps) it means something around 8-10 humans per square km maximum in medium. Moderately concentrated like "USA dream" (single houses with a bit of private garden around, like 5/10 time the ground occupation of the house itself) in good place with place for nature around. You may counter-arguments that a capillary, well maintained roads network is not cheap however being Italian I see the difference on roads between few countries and french's one are definitively cheaper than many other and even cheaper than highways. We still need some kind of ground high speed network but in a Riviera scenario with enough "local" economy that need is far less important than inter-urban networks.

by xte 8y ago

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably big city? Big cities are more sustainable than suburban or rural areas, not less. Per capita energy usage in those cities is lower. > in general cities are not more economically productive Yes, they are. You can't just handwave away that their economic output is higher because you don't like the particular sectors that are more popular in cities.

xte 8y ago
> Per capita energy usage in those cities is lower. Oh, sure and where in a city you produce food? Industrial product? I know for sure that an apartment consume less energy than a single house to be heated/cooled. It consume more to being built and maintained though and more important it can't be really used without non urban area... That's the real problem. On economic productivity it's the same: more money turn, but they turn because suburb exists, without them it's like the ancient I think Sioux Chief that say "when you finish fish what you count to do? Eat dollars?"... This is the real sustainability I talk about. Without counting the amount of prime matter and energy needed to build big architecture vs small distributed ones.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  > It consume more to being built and maintained though No, it doesn't. Not on a per capita basis. > it can't be really used without non urban area... That's the real problem. The number of people that have to be farmers and living on-site on a farm is very small in a developed country. There are way more people living in rural or exurban/low density areas than are necessary to make food. > more money turn, but they turn because suburb exists Not really, or at least you don't need American-style, super low density suburbs. Medium density suburbs are popular in Europe and work fine.
  - xte 8y ago
    It's hard to compute but only try to estimate the cost of build a subway train with it's relatives stations, depots etc and the energy it consume. If you compute well enough you'll that it require far more resources than private vehicle in a countryside are. Even if you compute "CEP" (a french index that means primary (non renewable) energy/resources consumption, I do not know correspondent metric in English) of a a groups of single family's houses, with micropoles foundations screwed on ground and the rest in wood, glass and plastic/aluminum/... built with medium/high quality and proper insulation vs a single tall building for the same number of people and similar construction quality you still see that you consume more non-renewable/recyclable resources to build the single tall building than the many individual houses and if those are really well designed and built (so they can be heated and cooled with little non-renewable energy) you'll see that even energy consumption is better in individual houses. Simply because they have enough place for solar-thermal panels, efficient double-flux VMC at today's tech and cost are far more efficient, airtightness can cheaply be superior etc. Many do not think that simply because do not know how modern houses are built nor how modern tall building are built and do not even see the mass of steel and foundation they have. On living: you automatically agree that cities are not sustainable by themselves so we need to be low density and in nature, of course we can discuss density and it's variation depending on natural resources place per place but that's the point. We can automatize as we want but we need nature, we can't live for now in isolated artificial environments nor cities nor boats/submarine/starships. And that's probably will remain true for centuries to came. My personal opinion is that a low density Riviera model is the best for now, where low density means low enough to been able to "survive" with local natural resources but no more so we still need commerce and cooperation but we can life in a not-so-comfortable and not-so-terrible way without. For my actual place (French alps) it means something around 8-10 humans per square km maximum in medium. Moderately concentrated like "USA dream" (single houses with a bit of private garden around, like 5/10 time the ground occupation of the house itself) in good place with place for nature around. You may counter-arguments that a capillary, well maintained roads network is not cheap however being Italian I see the difference on roads between few countries and french's one are definitively cheaper than many other and even cheaper than highways. We still need some kind of ground high speed network but in a Riviera scenario with enough "local" economy that need is far less important than inter-urban networks.