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>Because they have immense numbers of people living in them? Because those people do less to support their own survival locally, and therefore cities require i

by mmjaa 8y ago

>Because they have immense numbers of people living in them? Because those people do less to support their own survival locally, and therefore cities require immense intake of energy and resources every day, in order to maintain that lifestyle.

lovich 8y ago
>Because those people do less to support their own survival locally That seems to be a critical modification what you originally said. Are you trying to argue that humanity can keep its current quality of life in a less resource intensive manner by spreading out, or are you arguing that we should decrease our quality of life and go back to creating food and goods on our own? If you take city dwellers and put them all in rural areas, 90% of them are not going to start farming enough to keep themselves fed or farm at all. They are just going to order the food from somewhere else and have it shipped to them, only now the shipping will have to travel a much wider area to get to everyone
- mmjaa 8y ago
  >Are you trying to argue that humanity can keep its current quality of life in a less resource intensive manner by spreading out, or are you arguing that we should decrease our quality of life and go back to creating food and goods on our own? Both. We should spread out, gain more local independence in terms of energy harvesting, and we should also change our lives to be not so dependent on massively energy-hungry activities .. like driving 4 miles to get a burger from a drive-through.
  - rorykoehler 8y ago
    > driving 4 miles to get a burger from a drive-through. That sounds like suburbia. People who live in high density cities don't really do these things. We just walk downstairs.
  - lovich 8y ago
    Like the other posters in the thread have concluded. I don't see how you could be correct at all. Everything you've described in terms of energy inefficiency is something that describes suburbia. Cities have large energy requirements but that's due to the number of people there, they don't have high energy requirements per capita. If you can show some math that shows how having a few thousand people in walking distance of a few restaurants has a higher energy requirement than spreading those same few thousand people around the country and having them stay fed _without them farming their own food_ then you might start to have an argument here but for now this seems in the realm of impossibility
joshuamorton 8y ago
Specialization means that they just require fewer resources overall. It's less resource intensive for me and my neighbors to have one person do the agriculture than for all of us to. It's cheaper and more efficient still if I have 30 million neighbors.

by mmjaa 8y ago

lovich 8y ago

>Because those people do less to support their own survival locally That seems to be a critical modification what you originally said. Are you trying to argue that humanity can keep its current quality of life in a less resource intensive manner by spreading out, or are you arguing that we should decrease our quality of life and go back to creating food and goods on our own? If you take city dwellers and put them all in rural areas, 90% of them are not going to start farming enough to keep themselves fed or farm at all. They are just going to order the food from somewhere else and have it shipped to them, only now the shipping will have to travel a much wider area to get to everyone

mmjaa 8y ago
>Are you trying to argue that humanity can keep its current quality of life in a less resource intensive manner by spreading out, or are you arguing that we should decrease our quality of life and go back to creating food and goods on our own? Both. We should spread out, gain more local independence in terms of energy harvesting, and we should also change our lives to be not so dependent on massively energy-hungry activities .. like driving 4 miles to get a burger from a drive-through.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  > driving 4 miles to get a burger from a drive-through. That sounds like suburbia. People who live in high density cities don't really do these things. We just walk downstairs.
- lovich 8y ago
  Like the other posters in the thread have concluded. I don't see how you could be correct at all. Everything you've described in terms of energy inefficiency is something that describes suburbia. Cities have large energy requirements but that's due to the number of people there, they don't have high energy requirements per capita. If you can show some math that shows how having a few thousand people in walking distance of a few restaurants has a higher energy requirement than spreading those same few thousand people around the country and having them stay fed _without them farming their own food_ then you might start to have an argument here but for now this seems in the realm of impossibility

joshuamorton 8y ago

Specialization means that they just require fewer resources overall. It's less resource intensive for me and my neighbors to have one person do the agriculture than for all of us to. It's cheaper and more efficient still if I have 30 million neighbors.