Urban vs. Rural; What's to be done?

[TheReal_ND]

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.














Carl Sandburg, the man who wrote that poem about his beloved Chicago, fled the city and died down the road from where I live now.

It's nice. Chicago has a certain gravity about it. Once it sets hold you wonder if you'll ever escape. Some cities are like that. I feel like parts of me have been left behind in many cities. Wondering when I return to haunt them.

[brewster]

Yet the rest of us don't destroy our ecosystems. LOL

Are you sure? You sure as hell destroyed the ecosystem where your condo sits, and you have a share of all the roads and other infrastructure that serve you there. Suburb is not a desirable 'ecosystem'. All of that is simply concentrated and distilled in a dense city.

Density matters. The people of Houston at a density of 3600 per square mile destroy far more ecosystem than people living at the 70k per square mile of Manhattan.

[TheReal_ND]

Houston is the third busiest port in the world and the largest refiner of petroleum in the nation. Destroying the environment is an inevitable side effect of that.

[TheReal_ND]

The other thing about cities is that they destroy the environment by design. Flown over the continental United States lately? It's been carved up. There is no wild where we need farms. The wild is out there in ever shrinking portions and soon it will be gone entirely. This is stage one. If we ever get off this planet there will be new frontiers to settle but be it ten years or ten thousand we will turn it into another hive world to either support its own massive population or another. And that's the way it will be as long as the human race survives in this galaxy. Sure, perhaps some worlds will be set aside as verdant parks for our pleasure but the vast majority will be eaten up. And this world? This world will no longer be recognizable to us after the eons of war and upheaval we have promised it. It will be our finest masterpiece and most grisly wasteland at once. It will be our home. That is, if we survive demographic winter. I don't think we will. I think we are approaching the great filter.

[brewster]

The other thing about cities is that they destroy the environment by design.

Nope, they preserve more environment by concentrating people in one "sacrificial" spot. There's more forest in the Northeast now than there was 300 years ago since people moved off their farms into the cities.

[C-Mag]

Cities destroy the ecosystem that they lie on. Duh. But by concentrating all those people in one spot they spare many other ecosystems.

Agreed Cities Destroy ecosystems they lie on. +1 It's good we can come to this agreement, there is a lot of denial about this point.

On your second point I don't agree or disagree. Urbanites don't live in cities for some kind of self sacrifice to save nature. Urbanites largely do it out of tradition, familiarity, comfort and as a strategy to accumulate wealth. So, they don't get any points from me.

If we agree that cities are a necessary evil of modern society, and that they will destroy ecosystems and concentrate pollution, then we too should be extremely active dealing with those issues arising from cities. We see the bulk of Environmental activism targeted at rural landscapes where people have lived mostly the same for a couple hundred years.

I'm aggressive on this because our focus is wrong.
The land my family homesteaded at the beginning of the 20th C is still pretty much the same. It still supports the same wildlife, it produces food. Wildlife is his managed for long term conservation of the population. Water is preserved, timber is managed for long term production. Four generations of my family have managed that. Yet Environmentals, largely raised in urban landscapes are constantly coming to my corner of the world and trying to tell us that we are doing shit wrong. I say, use your energy wisely, go back to your city and look what your land managers have done in the 100 years to the land you live on.

[brewster]

We see the bulk of Environmental activism targeted at rural landscapes where people have lived mostly the same for a couple hundred years.

That's not accurate, just your perception since that's your area of interest. A vast amount of environmental activism is focused on the urban environment, and quite rightly since that where most of the people are. Recycling collection, LEED certification for buildings, emissions controls, ending dirty fuels and mass transit are just a few of these. Most of the environmental activism I've ever heard of targeting the rural environment is towards industrial agriculture, which is certainly not the way it's been done for hundreds of years. Bulk application of chemicals and lagoons of manure are not traditional, and they exist to feed the city dwellers anyway.

[C-Mag]

We see the bulk of Environmental activism targeted at rural landscapes where people have lived mostly the same for a couple hundred years.

That's not accurate, just your perception since that's your area of interest. A vast amount of environmental activism is focused on the urban environment, and quite rightly since that where most of the people are. Recycling collection, LEED certification for buildings, emissions controls, ending dirty fuels and mass transit are just a few of these. Most of the environmental activism I've ever heard of targeting the rural environment is towards industrial agriculture, which is certainly not the way it's been done for hundreds of years. Bulk application of chemicals and lagoons of manure are not traditional, and they exist to feed the city dwellers anyway.

The vast amount of lawsuits brought by environmental groups are brought in rural areas. When's the last time you saw a protester sitting in a tree to protest a City and their production of waste ? No it's all spotted owl type bullshit.

Cities make up 3% of the land cover and produce 90% of the pollution. People who live in rural areas should not have to pay for the sins of the urban masses. It's not just that the Los Angeles River ecosystem was destroyed, it's that the destruction never stops and the consumption never stops. Cities need to rethink things and focus on some kind of sustainability going forward. Take Las Vegas and Phoenix, completely unsustainable growth, the more they grow the greater the environmental impact to other areas.

Let's quit acting like nothing can be done, it can, and let's stop the ruse that these places are somekind environmental benefit.

[brewster]

The vast amount of lawsuits brought by environmental groups are brought in rural areas.

I doubt that. Document it. Vast number of suits are brought on urban polluters. You just notice the ones that affect areas you care about.

Take Las Vegas and Phoenix, completely unsustainable growth, the more they grow the greater the environmental impact to other areas.

I agree, sunbelt "sprawl cities" are the worst form of urban environment. They give none of the benefits of density and all of the damage. Like I said above, density matters. IMO an endless suburb of single family homes on large lots is not a "city". It's not even the postwar transit oriented suburb I grew up in. Those were 1200- 1800 sq ft houses were on 4- 6k lots, now no one builds less than 3000 and lots are far larger. They don't even bother with sidewalks since there's nowhere to walk to.

[C-Mag]

You point out some good problems with modern development.

Vancouver, BC is a prime example of the type of irresponsibility of modern cities and how they seek to be blessed as Green cities while exporting their problems. Vancouver has been shipping their garbage to the Phillipines, and Manila said, FU, it's not recyclables, it's trash and toxins.

Now the trash is going back to BC to be dealt with. Will there be an environmental lawsuit against Vancouver for breaking the Basel Conventions, of course not. They will sweep it under the rug and chug right along.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/201 ... years.html

The point is, environmental pollution and damage cities is not stuff that used to happen, it's happening today. They are just better at exporting their problem. 40 years ago we had the Cayohoga River on fire from urban pollutants, now they ship those pollutants somewhere else. Vancouver is listed like 3 on most environmental cities, and they do it by sending their garbage downstream.



https://www.techrepublic.com/article/gr ... the-world/
Note: San Francisco is ranked as one of the best environmental cities in the world too.