The age of the city is over in the west - time to progress

A report was issued recently by the National Intelligence Council entitled Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds which claimed that by the year 2030 Asia would wield more power globally than Europe and the US combined.

When reporting on this study the BBC website included a natty video How have so many of the world's cities grown so large in recent years? but failed to answer the why question?

Cities were created as the result of the industrial revolution - we peasants left our rural homes in droves in search of work in mills and factories. Factories, which at that time, were dependent on a huge labour force being readily available and living nearby. Thousands would pour through those factory gates every morning. Not any more. Those days are finished for us and, I would argue, that as a consequence of this, the days of the city in the western world are also over. They may yet serve a purpose for the mass manufacturers of the East but they no longer serve any purpose for us. They should be regarded as a quaint, old fashioned notion, that have had their day.....their continued existence in the west serving only as a hindrance to economic and social progress.

Due to outsourcing of our jobs to the East massive unemployment in our cities can only get worse. With unemployment comes social deprivation, with deprivation comes mental and family breakdown and spiralling crime. This is the path I believe we are on - the conscious and deliberate creation of an underclass. An underclass whose existence alone will maintain our economies by providing jobs for police, prison officers, social workers, mental health workers etc. The result of dependent population. It's not exactly a rosie future tho' is it?

I would submit that the way for us to buck this trend is to reject the city model. To return to smaller, sustainable communities - communities that make full use of all that modern technologies can offer us. In this age of global communication small no longer means isolated. Sustainable means a return to an agriculture based economy, using renewable energies with an end to the built in obsolescence of our manufactured goods (we all know they are capable of making goods and equipment capable of lasting decades.

Sustainable Heating


Sustainable Food


Sustainable Electricity

reply to post by christina-66


If you build it they will come! If you destroy it, they will hold out their hands for food.

What you described is how it should be. Unfortunately our government has different ideas.

Agenda 21

"He who controls the food, controls the world."!

The big cities are where the trouble with America always starts. Too many people packed in like sardines. No clue how awesome nature is. The trouble with big cities being emptied is that if they show up in small towns they will have to change their attitudes because the small towns have it right. Trying to change a small town to their way of thinking will not go well.

reply to post by seeker1963


Yes - what I'm proposing does dis-empower national government (they seem to have forgotten their purpose a long time ago) but it's actually something they cannot stop.

If you ever travel to Germany you will see so many houses with a little wind turbine perched on top but here in the UK they've gone for vast wind farms (I believe the biggest in Europe is just along the road from me) - they are continuing to attempt to keep resources centralised and maintain profits for energy giants. Decentralisation is the answer and they well know it.

During the 2008 banking crisis - when people were being encouraged to buy gold - I thought why? I planted cabbages instead and still maintain that in a crisis my cabbages will be worth more than anyones gold

reply to post by jimmiec


Aye but we could create many new, small sustainable communities - that would boost our economy and have us relearning long forgotten, but essential skills.

reply to post by christina-66


you are right, but right now there is no coming back!
The west world is living in prosperity... well sorry, it was, till the end of the 80thies where all this actually begun ( collapse ), because of the east chip mans power.
Greed was growing and we all in the west have appreciated this with no questions.
Unfortunately our economy is based on growth, an expanding bubble witch is going to burst now.
Chinese cached up in the late 90thies and they gave us the rest...
There is no way we will recover from this continuing as it is.
People were buying things they didn't needed with money they didn't had, bankers knew that and allowed to produce more ( most wasted and thrown away ) goods using propaganda ( advertising ) to even make more money they want.
What they didn't realize, ( actually they did but the plebs didn't ) money as we deal with has no value at all, natural resources do.
The only way now is to use thous overpaid weaponry we have build and get what we want... AGAIN!
The absurd thing is, the bankers are not going on the battlefield, YOU do!

reply to post by KrzYma


Your post seems to be full of contradictions and dire inevitabilities.

I'm right but there’s no going back’ – I'm not talking about going back – but moving forward.

Your part of the west may well have been enjoying prosperity in the 80’s but mine wasn't. It’s demise began with the closure of heavy industry in the late 70’s and early 80’s. In fact it was probably at its most prosperous during the rebuilding programme necessitated by WWII – but we’re not going to go there again are we?

The Chinese did get their act together – but way earlier than the 90’s. They were subject to export restrictions by the global community until the year 2000 – when the dragon was loosed. It took all of 8 years of their mass production capabilities – and our mass consumption capabilities funded by the credit card to cause global financial collapse.

You are correct – there is no way we can recover from this ‘continuing as it is’ – so why don’t you become an advocate for change? Change that leads to localisation of natural resources, in small communities, that know and care for another’s well being.

And did you read the report at the beginning of my op? By 2030 Asia will wield more global power than Europe and the US combined. You can try and use all that weaponry – but against whom? To what end? And don’t you think that other nations are capable of defending their resources? It’s ridiculous to claim that is the only way when you opened your post by saying that I ‘was right’.

Originally posted by christina-66
reply to post by KrzYma

 

...
And did you read the report at the beginning of my op? By 2030 Asia will wield more global power than Europe and the US combined. You can try and use all that weaponry – but against whom? To what end? And don’t you think that other nations are capable of defending their resources? It’s ridiculous to claim that is the only way when you opened your post by saying that I ‘was right’.

No I didn't read the report and this for a reason... there are way to many predictions and scaremongering from MSN as they all follow just one agenda... they profits, so they will tell you all they want. don't need to believe all this
I wish no war is coming, but look at the middle east...

And I said You Are Right if you see this as a goal, a wish to change, unfortunately right now I don't believe we can do so. After, maybe...

reply to post by christina-66

Those days are finished for us and, I would argue, that as a consequence of this, the days of the city in the western world are also over. They may yet serve a purpose for the mass manufacturers of the East but they no longer serve any purpose for us. They should be regarded as a quaint, old fashioned notion, that have had their day.....their continued existence in the west serving only as a hindrance to economic and social progress.

You would be arguing wrongly and against all evidences, we are headed just the other way into mega cities. The point you make about industrialization is correct but you fail to recognize any other benefit created by the city or even that the city had existed long before the industrial age (rise of the city state), and there are reasons for it.

You will witness the collapse of many cities, but the large majority of people will be moving to another city, not into rural areas.

reply to post by Panic2k11


Keep your megacities, what benefits do you see from cities? They are over crowded, dirty, people are clueless of how to live without grocery stores, mcdonalds, and crappy dead end jobs. Look at the utter chaos we saw from unprepared lemmings before hurricane sandy hit....... People are not prepared for a simple thing as not having electricity for a few days, people panic.

reply to post by Panic2k11


Did you get a chance to watch the short BBC vid I included in the op? According to that, it is the East that is now creating these mega cities you speak of - not the West.

It is evident that we are living in a time of flux and that if we continue with massive populations, densely packed together, with no employment prospects and no life skills we are heading for trouble - a place that I do not want to leave for my children and my grandchildren.

I do live in a smaller community (of about 5,000 people). An area that had been a farming community, then, with the industrial revolution, became a mill village producing the threads for the mills in the nearby town. That mill closed about 18 years ago - the owners still produce - but they do so from India.

Shortly before the 2008 banking crisis our local bank closed it's branch (get lean - get mean philosophy). The community bought the premises. The building was given a major renovation and is now a zero carbon emissions property. It is used by the local community for a variety of purposes (community cafe, exercise classes, meeting, business facilities for budding entrepreneurs) and we still call it 'The Bank'.

With increased confidence the local community has undertaken a much bigger project. A community wind-farm - with those giant turbines. It is almost complete (thankfully - I had to tolerate an awful lot of digging and disruption as they laid the cables) and it is expected to be fully operational by spring of next year. It is anticipated that the wind-farm will generate £1,000,000 of profit annually - all of which will be reinvested in our village. (That''s a lot of improvements)

Isn't this a better model than mega cities full of the unemployed?

reply to post by christina-66


I will not defend the logic and social benefits behind mega-cities. I do not like society as it has evolved since we've gone beyond tribal structures. I understand the steps and the motivations and even what we gained, what I particularly dislike is the methodology adopted around power (political, economic) and our inability to evolve better models for those areas in face to the reality of misery that the pursuit of them causes to other but also to those that excel in it.

From a simple economic view and of engineered growth and sustainability of our present model, and its seemingly inevitable evolution (as some stated we are system dependent now and there are no real exists, one cannot opt out of human society in a realistic way today, you are born and die into the system, you can refuse to participate or live in the fringe but will not be able to start a new one). Mega-cities make sense in many aspects, as hubs for the majority of the population. This permits savings in arable land, permits preservation of natural habitats its easier to manage and has lower costs from energy to other social structures, to escape this future a too drastic of a change would be required, especially taking control of demographics and the prevailing selfish mentality that will not happen anytime soon.

It is also a system analysis problem, systems tend to naturally increase in complexity not the other way around, there is in fact a relation with costs nature prefers simpler systems but simple systems are hard to develop in nature they simply emerge, mostly due to the laws of evolutionary systems but in human society things are not the same the complex solution is the easier to arrive at.

See Complexity: Life, Scale, & Civilization (I saw a better presentation in regards to costs but couldn't find it)