2 ms·

Not to mention the impracticality of urban areas feeding themselves. NYC houses what, 8 million people? With a population density of 27,000 people per square mi

Not to mention the impracticality of urban areas feeding themselves. NYC houses what, 8 million people? With a population density of 27,000 people per square mile, you aren't going to be able to feed everyone without importing utterly massive amounts of food. Even if everyone were strictly vegetarian or vegan, the water consumption alone would still require a massive desalination effort, plus a plan to deal with the leftover brine... not to mention the electric bills from all the light needed to feed so many crops in skyscrapers. 8 million people eat a lot of food on a daily basis. Much better to farm elsewhere and transport the food, imho.

giantg2 5y ago
Generally agree. The part that I find interesting to think about is the relationship between the areas. We require intensive farming to sustain the current lifestyle of people, yet most are very disconnected from the source of their food. If we grew more food locally (impractical given the current setup) then people would witness the impacts of intensive agriculture. This might also help constrain population levels closer to sustainable numbers because people see how finite the resources are. I've seen a variety of estimates of how many people the world can support. But I haven't seen any that estimate how many the world can sustainably support. If we aren't thinking longterm, then we're just trudging towards bigger problems with many of the smaller ones we solve. For example, use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer from non-renewable sources, or biosecurity threats from fast international travel and trade, or overfishing, etc. Pretty much all due to demand for food and the modern lifestyle.