Although he admits to a lack of data to prove his contention, Jeff Vail, writing in his fourth essay on "Resilient Suburbia" has a pretty interesting argument. I note that many who report interesting articles to ST readers do so by pasting entire articles. If this is because some have only e-mail clients but not browsers, let me know and I will follow suit. But for sake of not distending today's round-up, I give you just the link to Vail's article:http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4844?nocomments
I take the liberty of summarizing one of his points because I happen to agree with it: World class urban centers "work" only because they permit an organized competition for the resources of the surrounding countryside and, nowadays, the whole globalized world economy. They may increase the mean wealth of their inhabitants but not the median well being of the collection of "hinterland" residents whose resources they tap. Because such urban centers must compete, they are only viable under regimes of economic expansion and thus inherently unsustainable. Its an interesting thought and I recommend that people interested in questions of long term survival of humans and habitats be familiar with views of this sort. -George -- freedom is not more important than fairness and much easier to fake. _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
