Cities, what's the point?

[smegal]

The key points are that
a) Cities allow interrelationships which increase the productivity and prosperity of city dwellers
b) It takes them off the land which improves the efficiency of farming beacause it allows bigger farms.

I just did a bit of digging - a family needs about 5 acres to live off the land as a smallholding. UK land area is 100,000 square miles - 64,000,000 acres. Maximum is 12,000,000 smallholdings. How many families in the UK? - 60 million people at 4 per family - 15,000,000 smallholdings needed. And thats not accounting for uncultivatable land....

And do we really want a situation where the whole population of the UK is living a subsistence existence on their 5 acres? I'm not sure it counts as progress...

Tim

This man speaks the truth.

[martin]

"It takes them off the land which improves the efficiency of farming because it allows bigger farms" - no it doesn't! (its no way as simple as that!) - big farms usually mean big fields, big machines, enormous "inputs" (much of it fossil fuels), few workers, dying villages as a result, and the virtual complete despoilation of the countryside, and decimation of it's wildlife, which makes short term economic sense, but in every other way is "a hiding to nothing".
As I said, we need more people in the countryside, not less, smaller farms and smallholdings rather than vast concerns  -we can increase the yields of those acres we have by using sustainable methods (which tend to be more labour intensive), and cut the damaging "inputs" and return the natural fertility to the soil - without which we are facing a deeply bleak (and hungry) future...
I get heartily peeved with the doomsayers who mutter about "stone age" and "subsistence" when in fact we could all be eating better "clearer conscience" food by wresting control from "Big Ag" - it's already starting - allotments are in short supply, vegetable growing hasn't been so popular since WW2, and there is a growing realisation that permaculture, organics, and the pioneering work done by the likes of Fukuoka are showing a "better way" - even the latest UN reports are saying that sustainable farming is the only hope to feed the world.
Best of all it need not be "all or nothing" - town-based organoponicos, allotments and gardens can supply a lot of good local food - the more people who work from home, the more they can choose to supply some of their own food - and there are few pleasures greater than enjoying your own produce..

Quality, not just quantity..........

[spaces]

We're in the dark ages still if we still believe big = efficient    Eventually 'bigag' will be caught out big time, but in the meantime their close ties with government and vast sums put into PR and squashing legal cases will keep them in mega-profit.   

[Rupert]

Fossil fuels have improved agriculture not cities. In fact a lot of cities grew up from factories which rural folk flocked to because being an agricultural worker was hard work and poor pay.

Take away cheap oil and the whole system collapses.

[martin]

I'd quibble whether they have actually "improved" agriculture - they've managed to cut labour and improve yields, but at horrendous cost to the innate fertility of the land and the general environment - it's treating the soil as a sterile growing medium (which it is rapidly turning into), rather than a complex interdependent ecosystem in it's own right, and essentially bludgeoning nature into doing our will, rather than having the sense to work with the natural systems (but that takes a lot more intelligence, and real skills, which is not evident from "Big Ag")

[spaces]

Fossil fuels have improved agriculture for farmers through the array of machinery, although some large farmers I know are hugely concerned by the compaction effect on their land by ever-heavier machinery. As for cheap energy allowing the proliferation of herbicides, artificial fertilizers and the rest I see the result these have on a day to day basis. Soil dies eventually, more and more chemical additions are needed and disease becomes more difficult to control and kill. And that's ignoring the lack of insects above and below the soil, without which plant health and reproduction becomes increasingly difficult.

[martin]

And simple common sense has largely gone out of the window - "crop rotation" has all but disappeared, and vast tracts of monocultured crop prevail, year after year, made possible by increasing doses of "icides" (to the delight of the companies making the toxins) - if you rotate crops you can largely avoid much "pest build up" (as does smaller varied fields of crops), and it's also simple to let nature self-fertilise by choosing the right succession of them (nitrogen fixing crops followed by those that are nitrogen-hungry).
I grew up in a family of keen amateur photographers, and one of the "pet subjects" several decades ago was the vast plume of birds that would follow the plough - nearby fields are about to be ploughed for the fourth time for yet another crop of winter wheat (with gobbets of "inputs" and sprays) - if previous years are anything to go by there will be very few (if any) birds to be seen  - the land is nearly stone dead, but the idiot system means that each year the farmer's tractor gets bigger and newer, so he's making profits (at the expense of the land itself)......

[dtl]

Spaces,

with respect to scattering ash or grit on the track; the track is 3.5 miles long so it is not feasible.

I population of scotland is approx. 5 million.

Ignoring the self sufficiency issue;

Scotland have a lot of large unihabiated spaces.
Using the Scandanavians as an example, it would seem possible that these empty spaces could inhabited by successful communities without congestion.

[biff]

dtl,
    between john o,groats and cape wrath are quite a few deserted villages,some at the end of a dirt tracks which lead off for a few miles  down to the north sea with angry wild highland cattle acting as sentries,i spend a day in one such location enjoying its beautifull beach,taking pics and letting it all sink in.you only had to see the decent condition of the houses to realise that the people moved for their children,s sake,yet there was no more beautifull place to live on the planet.it was only later that i thought that perhaps they were all evicted,,, and it would seem from the history point of view that it was only the travelling bands of fish gutting wives who dared put up a fight for a decent way of life.
    these women in bands of 40 to 50 would travel from port to port gutting fish and preparing them while the hubbies stayed at home,eventually they realised the whole setup was pure exploitation and for a while withdrew their labour(strike) and went to jail and went on hungerstrike but to no avail.braveheart is a myth,it was these women who were the real bravehearts.
 over here we had a different way of doing business,when the landlords evicted 33 families our of the glenveigh estates his days were numbered and then there was lord letrim and captain boycott and so on and on.
   when i listened to a tenant farmer complain about the insentivity of the duke of northumberland to his 93 tenant farmer,s plight during the foot and mouth era i have to say i am glad we gave lord letrim and his like their just reward.still e,,everyone to their own.cities for work and prosperity and the country for the good life.
                                biff

[spaces]

Along the North Coast of Scotland there are several hundred thousand highly radioactive particles - the leftovers of old fuel rod fragments being pumped into the sea by the Douneray nuclear plant. Although there is a clean up operation in process, it's thought this will continue for years - in the meantime, these are periodically washed up on beaches.

http://www.dounreay.com/particle-cleanup/faqs

[biff]

awwwww gawwwwwwwwwd,
                         a nuclear landlord, even worse.
                                                         biff