Transition and Cities
I have been reading the Transition Handbook, and as a lifelong city dweller and a trained economic geographer, I am troubled by what I think is a blind spot in the Transition model, one that could cause problems even for small towns that might achieve self-sufficiency if it isn't addressed.
The Transition model is based on a goal of community self-sufficiency in the essentials without fossil fuel inputs. I agree that this will be necessary. I think that small towns in rural areas are well-suited to build this model in place.
However, I don't think that this model, by itself, will be sufficient for cities.
A city like Boston, or any town within Route 128, or places like Worcester, Springfield, Brockton, or Fall River have no hope of self-sufficiency in food. There is just not enough acreage to grow food for the millions of people in these areas. Even if every front and back yard and park and other flat open space were converted to gardens, even if we planted fruit- and nut-bearing trees on all the hill slopes, we just aren't going to be able to grow enough food in these places to feed their people.
Okay, you say, they can buy food from less crowded towns in Central and Western Mass or New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. That is starting to sound a little more viable, but then how will they pay for all that food? What will 3 million city dwellers in the Bay State produce in a post-fossil fuel economy that will convince distant farmers to turn over their hard-earned harvests? I have wrestled with what the people of the Boston area and its satellite cities will produce and come up with some ideas, but not enough to employ or feed our roughly 2-3 million people. Certainly cities will remain transportation hubs for greatly reduced long-distance trade (mainly by sail and riverboat, with valuable items traveling by horse-drawn wagon). They will remain centers for specialized craft production, as they were before the fossil fuel era.
But in the pre-fossil fuel era, these functions supported no more than 10% of the population of any country in cities. The proportion of city dwellers to food producers needs to be something like 10 to 1. It will take something like 10 farmers to generate enough demand for one city worker's goods. There are fewer than 100,000 farmers left in New England, nowhere near enough to support the millions of urbanites in those states.
It seems to me inevitable that, as deepening economic crises beset us and as corporations predicated on cheap fossil fuel go bankrupt, millions of people in Massachusetts alone are going to be out of work. The same will be true all over the United States. The government will be bankrupt and unable to support these people. Even if they learn sustainable trades like shoemaking or green building to try to buy what they can't grow on their inadequate plot in a converted city park, how are they going to compete with the millions of others trying to do the same thing? If every tenth person is making shoes and they are selling them to other people who also don't have enough food to spare, how are they going to supplement their diet?
I don't just want to raise an alarm. I want to propose a solution. If people can't grow enough food to meet their needs where they are, and if they can't earn enough food through urban trades (as most present-day office workers will surely be unable to do), then they will need to move to a place where they can grow enough food to meet their needs.
What I think Transition ignores is a profound inequity in the distribution of useful land. There are huge agrocorporations that own much of the usable farmland in the United States, across the Great Plains, Texas, and Midwest. There are wealthy individuals that own huge spreads or who own agricultural land as an investment.
The flip side of this is that people will need to move to relatively empty farmable areas (Texas and the Midwest) in order to produce enough food to feed the US population. The reason for this is that current US food production depends on massive mechanization and fossil fuel inputs. All of those machines and chemical inputs will need to be replaced by human beings working the land by hand, maybe with the help of a horse or ox, and certainly with the help of animal manure. The only sensible way for that to happen is for the city folk who can no longer earn their bread in cities to move to the land and grow and bake their own bread.
I think that we need to prepare for much (not all) of our population to relocate. We need to push for land reform. We need to push for city and suburban schools to teach young people organic farming skills to prepare them for a farming future.
I'm not saying we shouldn't garden every available square meter of dirt in our cities. I'm not saying we shouldn't introduce local currencies. I'm just saying it's pretty clear to me that that won't be enough.
I love city life. I have lived in cities nearly all my adult life. I just bought a house in the suburbs with a modest yard hoping to grow much of my own food. I think that the suburb where I live just about has a shot at growing enough food for its people. But now I am realizing, what about all the people still in Boston? What about all the people in Brockton (a smaller but still dense city next to my suburb)? They are not just going to sit there and starve. Cities are wonderful, but they cannot feed themselves. People from neighboring cities are going to want some of the food from my suburb, and I really don't blame them, but it won't be enough to feed the suburbanites and the urbanites. Someone is going to have to leave the region and grow food in a place that has more land than people.
Okay, I've said it. What do others think?
The Transition model is based on a goal of community self-sufficiency in the essentials without fossil fuel inputs. I agree that this will be necessary. I think that small towns in rural areas are well-suited to build this model in place.
However, I don't think that this model, by itself, will be sufficient for cities.
A city like Boston, or any town within Route 128, or places like Worcester, Springfield, Brockton, or Fall River have no hope of self-sufficiency in food. There is just not enough acreage to grow food for the millions of people in these areas. Even if every front and back yard and park and other flat open space were converted to gardens, even if we planted fruit- and nut-bearing trees on all the hill slopes, we just aren't going to be able to grow enough food in these places to feed their people.
Okay, you say, they can buy food from less crowded towns in Central and Western Mass or New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. That is starting to sound a little more viable, but then how will they pay for all that food? What will 3 million city dwellers in the Bay State produce in a post-fossil fuel economy that will convince distant farmers to turn over their hard-earned harvests? I have wrestled with what the people of the Boston area and its satellite cities will produce and come up with some ideas, but not enough to employ or feed our roughly 2-3 million people. Certainly cities will remain transportation hubs for greatly reduced long-distance trade (mainly by sail and riverboat, with valuable items traveling by horse-drawn wagon). They will remain centers for specialized craft production, as they were before the fossil fuel era.
But in the pre-fossil fuel era, these functions supported no more than 10% of the population of any country in cities. The proportion of city dwellers to food producers needs to be something like 10 to 1. It will take something like 10 farmers to generate enough demand for one city worker's goods. There are fewer than 100,000 farmers left in New England, nowhere near enough to support the millions of urbanites in those states.
It seems to me inevitable that, as deepening economic crises beset us and as corporations predicated on cheap fossil fuel go bankrupt, millions of people in Massachusetts alone are going to be out of work. The same will be true all over the United States. The government will be bankrupt and unable to support these people. Even if they learn sustainable trades like shoemaking or green building to try to buy what they can't grow on their inadequate plot in a converted city park, how are they going to compete with the millions of others trying to do the same thing? If every tenth person is making shoes and they are selling them to other people who also don't have enough food to spare, how are they going to supplement their diet?
I don't just want to raise an alarm. I want to propose a solution. If people can't grow enough food to meet their needs where they are, and if they can't earn enough food through urban trades (as most present-day office workers will surely be unable to do), then they will need to move to a place where they can grow enough food to meet their needs.
What I think Transition ignores is a profound inequity in the distribution of useful land. There are huge agrocorporations that own much of the usable farmland in the United States, across the Great Plains, Texas, and Midwest. There are wealthy individuals that own huge spreads or who own agricultural land as an investment.
The flip side of this is that people will need to move to relatively empty farmable areas (Texas and the Midwest) in order to produce enough food to feed the US population. The reason for this is that current US food production depends on massive mechanization and fossil fuel inputs. All of those machines and chemical inputs will need to be replaced by human beings working the land by hand, maybe with the help of a horse or ox, and certainly with the help of animal manure. The only sensible way for that to happen is for the city folk who can no longer earn their bread in cities to move to the land and grow and bake their own bread.
I think that we need to prepare for much (not all) of our population to relocate. We need to push for land reform. We need to push for city and suburban schools to teach young people organic farming skills to prepare them for a farming future.
I'm not saying we shouldn't garden every available square meter of dirt in our cities. I'm not saying we shouldn't introduce local currencies. I'm just saying it's pretty clear to me that that won't be enough.
I love city life. I have lived in cities nearly all my adult life. I just bought a house in the suburbs with a modest yard hoping to grow much of my own food. I think that the suburb where I live just about has a shot at growing enough food for its people. But now I am realizing, what about all the people still in Boston? What about all the people in Brockton (a smaller but still dense city next to my suburb)? They are not just going to sit there and starve. Cities are wonderful, but they cannot feed themselves. People from neighboring cities are going to want some of the food from my suburb, and I really don't blame them, but it won't be enough to feed the suburbanites and the urbanites. Someone is going to have to leave the region and grow food in a place that has more land than people.
Okay, I've said it. What do others think?
Views: 13
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tina Clarke on
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HI, Mark -
Thanks for sharing your analysis and insights! You'll be interested to know that many in the Transition share your concerns.
If you don't mind, your writing is excellent, and I'd like to share it as part of a blog I'm writing for Transition US. One request: Would you mind revising it in a couple of places where you imagine that the Transition movement is not aware or thinking about these challenges? Perhaps simply give your excellent analysis.
Then I'll cut and paste your offering on the Transition US web site (whatever length they have room for -- this will be my first blog with them) and reply to your very important query with information about all the interesting experiements and resources that I've heard of, and invite others to share their experiences.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Tina Clarke
tinaclarke@transitionnetwork.org
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Permalink Reply by Glenn Saunders on -
There are two diametrically opposed visions of the future, the reurbanization as proposed by people like Kunstler, and the back to the land movement.
My feeling is that we will have both. The initial stages of collapse will have people move to the city. The latter stages of collapse in which the green revolution fails will result in a mass conversion of urbanites into back-to-the-landers. Assuming they even have the money and resources to move, they will attempt to do so. Those such as myself who are contemplating rural life are merely early pioneers of what is surely to become a huge wave sometime down the road.
So it makes it very tough for someone who is currently living within the metro boston area to make long-range plans. Do you feel complacent because you are surrounded by really great mass transit? or do you despair because of the population density issue?
Welcome to my nightmare.
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Permalink Reply by Mark O'Malley on -
Tina Clarke said:If you don't mind, your writing is excellent, and I'd like to share it as part of a blog I'm writing for Transition US. One request: Would you mind revising it in a couple of places where you imagine that the Transition movement is not aware or thinking about these challenges? Perhaps simply give your excellent analysis.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Tina Clarke
tinaclarke@transitionnetwork.org
Sure, Tina, I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the compliments!
Mark O
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Permalink Reply by Mark O'Malley on
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Glenn S said:There are two diametrically opposed visions of the future, the reurbanization as proposed by people like Kunstler, and the back to the land movement.
My feeling is that we will have both. The initial stages of collapse will have people move to the city. The latter stages of collapse in which the green revolution fails will result in a mass conversion of urbanites into back-to-the-landers. ... So it makes it very tough for someone who is currently living within the metro boston area to make long-range plans. Do you feel complacent because you are surrounded by really great mass transit? or do you despair because of the population density issue?
Welcome to my nightmare.
What I have trouble imagining is what kind of work would be available in cities. I can't imagine people moving to cities unless employment in cities grows sharply. I just don't see employment growing anywhere. In the very short term, we could have a rebound in employment, maybe next year, maybe 2011. But this employment would be with companies assuming that this is a normal recession and that we can return to business as usual. So most of those jobs, like most jobs presently, would be in the suburbs. The initial economic rebound would probably send oil and gas prices quickly back to their prohibitive levels, and the economic recovery would then abort. Eventually, corporations are going to start to fail when investors begin to understand that this is no longer business as usual, that net economic growth is no longer really possible, and that nearly all companies' business models are obsolete. Then we will see a steady decline in employment, in cities and suburbs. At the same time, our overindebted and insolvent government is going to face prohibitive borrowing costs and a reluctance by investors to buy more government bonds that show little likelihood of repayment. Either the government will have to default on its debt, and the dollar will crash, sending prices sky-high, or the government will have to print money to inflate away its debt, and the dollar will crash, sending prices sky-high. This currency crisis will do in must companies still left standing. Private sector employment will collapse, and public sector employment will collapse. Why would people move to cities in this scenario? The government won't be able to buy them trainloads of food and there won't be any way for them to earn the means to buy food themselves. I see instead a desperate effort to grow food, unless Transition has a plan in place that does not leave people desperate.
I can imagine a medium-term future scenario, after this collapse, in which a reorganized government and/or group of people with some kind of wealth begin to rebuild an urban-centered, coal- and rail-based manufacturing economy similar to that of the 19th century. Of course, a coal economy would be disastrous for the planet. Transition needs to offer a better alternative.
The really great thing about Transition as a movement, despite the flaws that I have pointed out, is that it offers positive solutions. We don't have to sit in our urban, rural, or suburban bunkers and just worry about starving masses flooding into or out of the cities. Instead, we can work together to solve these problems. When people are worried or desperate, the Transition movement can be there with answers and solutions.
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Permalink Reply by Rita de Cassia Couto on -
Hi Mark,
I believe you are right about the food issue. We are all going to struggle with food distribution and access, specially the city folks. Here at the south coast we just created a food network group hoping to have all these issues discussed before the problem arises.
The Transition movement doesn't provide answers. However, I believe It gives us a path and shows through the success of many communities that there is hope if we get together and think as a group.
I live in a rural-suburban area. Thus, I'm in a really good location regarding food. We have great farms and CSA. I could see Boston coming down to the south coast by boat and bringing back some food. Why not? What most likely will happen is that each community will find their own ways creatively. This is what the Transition movement suggests and I would like to see happening sooner than later. People need to stop following the mainstream media and open their eyes to the chaos ahead of us. Getting together as a community and working in collaboration open the path to the collective intelligence. The problem I believe is that very few people are realizing that NOW is the time to start thinking about these issues and identifying solutions, not when there is no more food in the plate.
We all have to transition from taking everything for granted to start planning our future.
I would love to hear about how you have been managing your garden and interacting with your community!
Rita
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