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FWIW I was super lucky to grow up on an abandoned farm with a huge patch of woods, streams, and swamps. It was sad to eventually figure out that there was just

FWIW I was super lucky to grow up on an abandoned farm with a huge patch of woods, streams, and swamps. It was sad to eventually figure out that there was just no way to make that experience scale to the whole US population (even if they wanted it too). Of course it was also lonely sometimes and required quite a bit of driving, so I'm not going to defend it as an ecological or social utopia. Nevertheless, I think it was really good to be around so many plants and animals as a kid.

rjf72 7y ago
Why do you say it would be impossible to scale it? The US has 330 million people, and 2.3 billion acres of land. That's averages out to 7 acres of land for every man, woman, and child. 700 acres for a little residential area of 100 people. Of course some of the land is barren and other parts have to be used for agriculture, but the numbers are just so large here that I don't think it matters so much. Of course this is all just pie in the sky since it never will happen, but I think it's interesting to think about. It's easy to forget how huge our country really is. Urban areas only make up 3% of our entire landmass.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I think the issue is not so much that there isn't enough land, its that cities are necessary in order to scale access to infrastructure, cultural institutions, ports, etc.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  Much of that land (the western-middle) is not very habitable. There's a reason that almost no one lives there now..
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  > Urban areas only make up 3% of our entire landmass. And 80% of our population. Yet our political system was conceived in an era when those numbers were roughly comparable. It amazes me that more people do not see this as a problem.
  - brighter2morrow 7y ago
    The US political system isn't trying to use states as a proxy for population measure. The US is a federation of states that only agreed to join the federation on the condition that they get a certain guarantee of clout within the federation.
    - kshacker 7y ago
      Does not mean that a political system is a god given commandment that can not change to move to a better system. And if some states did agree to join a model, it would be the 13 original colonies. I suspect (but do not know) that the other 37 were annexed.
      - brighter2morrow 7y ago
        The only two states that were annexed are Texas and Hawaii. Most other territory of today's states was purchased although some of it was ceded to the US, particularly much of the Southwest was ceded to the US by Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American war of the 1840s. (This doesn't include Puerto Rico and a number of unincorporated territories which were a mix of annexed and purchased.)
        kshacker 7y ago
        Tomato, tomato: ha ha. A war is a war, the losing side gives up, the winning side gets what the losing side gave Annex: add (territory) to one's own territory by appropriation Cede: give up (power or territory)
- mikekchar 7y ago
  It's interesting that 40% of the US consists of farmland (according do some google searching). But farm output is only 1% of GDP. I think this is the major disconnect. You need a fair amount of that farmland for producing food (maybe all of it). So if you distributed the people across the farmland and had them farming, then you lose 99% of your GDP. With telecommunications and remote working, people could distribute and still work reasonably well, but you still need the land for farming, so you need to give up the idea of suburban utopia. Somewhat interesting to consider as I live in a walkup apartment building surrounded by farms, doing remote software development for a living... But even I long for a home with a proper garden... High density housing isn't really that great unless you also have the convenience of city living.

rjf72 7y ago

Why do you say it would be impossible to scale it? The US has 330 million people, and 2.3 billion acres of land. That's averages out to 7 acres of land for every man, woman, and child. 700 acres for a little residential area of 100 people. Of course some of the land is barren and other parts have to be used for agriculture, but the numbers are just so large here that I don't think it matters so much. Of course this is all just pie in the sky since it never will happen, but I think it's interesting to think about. It's easy to forget how huge our country really is. Urban areas only make up 3% of our entire landmass.

harimau777 7y ago
I think the issue is not so much that there isn't enough land, its that cities are necessary in order to scale access to infrastructure, cultural institutions, ports, etc.
rabidrat 7y ago
Much of that land (the western-middle) is not very habitable. There's a reason that almost no one lives there now..
hyperbovine 7y ago
> Urban areas only make up 3% of our entire landmass. And 80% of our population. Yet our political system was conceived in an era when those numbers were roughly comparable. It amazes me that more people do not see this as a problem.
- brighter2morrow 7y ago
  The US political system isn't trying to use states as a proxy for population measure. The US is a federation of states that only agreed to join the federation on the condition that they get a certain guarantee of clout within the federation.
  - kshacker 7y ago
    Does not mean that a political system is a god given commandment that can not change to move to a better system. And if some states did agree to join a model, it would be the 13 original colonies. I suspect (but do not know) that the other 37 were annexed.
    - brighter2morrow 7y ago
      The only two states that were annexed are Texas and Hawaii. Most other territory of today's states was purchased although some of it was ceded to the US, particularly much of the Southwest was ceded to the US by Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American war of the 1840s. (This doesn't include Puerto Rico and a number of unincorporated territories which were a mix of annexed and purchased.)
      - kshacker 7y ago
        Tomato, tomato: ha ha. A war is a war, the losing side gives up, the winning side gets what the losing side gave Annex: add (territory) to one's own territory by appropriation Cede: give up (power or territory)
mikekchar 7y ago
It's interesting that 40% of the US consists of farmland (according do some google searching). But farm output is only 1% of GDP. I think this is the major disconnect. You need a fair amount of that farmland for producing food (maybe all of it). So if you distributed the people across the farmland and had them farming, then you lose 99% of your GDP. With telecommunications and remote working, people could distribute and still work reasonably well, but you still need the land for farming, so you need to give up the idea of suburban utopia. Somewhat interesting to consider as I live in a walkup apartment building surrounded by farms, doing remote software development for a living... But even I long for a home with a proper garden... High density housing isn't really that great unless you also have the convenience of city living.