Cities Built on Fertile Lands Affect Climate 99
Devar writes "While cities provide vital habitat for human beings to thrive, it appears U.S. cities have been built on the most fertile soils, lessening contributions of these lands to Earth's food web and human agriculture, according to a study by NASA researchers and others. Though cities account for just 3 percent of continental U.S. land area, the food and fiber that could be grown there rivals current production on all U.S. agricultural lands, which cover 29 percent of the country. Studies like this one may lead to smarter urban-growth strategies in the future."
Well, duh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh, yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's do the second thing first. The point of the article is not that people build on fertile land. The point is that in doing so, they affect the environment and the food supply.
Second, it's not as simple as saying, "that's where people want to live, too bad." Silicon Valley is built on the best farmland in California, possibly in North America. The early electronic factories didn't come here for easy access to food -- they came here to be near Stanford and the Moffett Naval Air Station. Later high-tech companies came here to be near existing high-tech companies, and to tap the labor pool. There were urban centers they could have built in, but farmland was cheaper.
The huge growth that followed was inevitable, and even desireable. But it could have been a lot better managed. Swathes of orchards could have been set aside, which would have made the Valley a nicer place to live, helped recharge the water table (lots of droughts here) and fought smog (trees suck up a lot of air polution). Instead of building willy-nilly, housing could have been concentrated in logical locations connected by heavy-duty transit corridors, including mass transit (the traffic jams are horrendous, and even if there were money for more freeways, there's no place to put them).
Back in the 60s and 70s, when things started to ramp up, the County government tried to do something like the above. But county-wide planning would have eliminated the huge profits of real-estate developers. So they persuaded various little towns, some of them little more than railroad stops, to annex huge patches of land, exempting them from county planning.
There's a street that runs on a rise at the side end of the valley, called Blossom Hill Road. The name comes from the fact that driving their in the spring brought you face to face with a shocking amount of floral color. Now all you see is urban sprawl. I never go there.
Re:Duh, yourself (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I remember tales of the pioneers of the 1800s hitching up the Conestoga and braving the crossing of the great plains in their brave quest to live near Stanford and Moffett Field, visions of higher learning and F-14s dancing in their heads as they struggled to ford streams with their teams of oxen...
Re:Duh, yourself (Score:3, Interesting)
Sacramento is not THAT big when compared to the rest of the valley, and the population density in the valley is quite low.
The v
Re:Duh, back at you (Score:4, Insightful)
"Urbanization follows agriculture -- it's a natural and important human process," said Imhoff.Throughout history, highly productive agricultural land brought food, wealth and trade to an area, all of which fostered settlements.
This has little to do with Silicon Valley. In fact, the entire concept is a no-brainer to any civilization that ever settled anywhere on the planet.
In fact, I wonder why NASA wasted money on this study in the first place.
Re:Duh, back at you (Score:2)
Saving money is punished, wasting money is rewarded.
If you don't spend this year's budget, it gets cut next year.
Re:Duh, back at you (Score:3, Interesting)
Two comments:
Firstly, there are large swathes of the US where fertile land is neither urbanised nor farmed, but simply left to grow back into forest. I'm thinking of New England. Outside the main cities (and often surprisingly close to them) there are acres and acres of new-growth forest that used to be farmland. What happened was local farmers were priced out of business by big midwestern producers, and the land was just left fallow. (if you've ever been to Walden Pond -- where Thoreau went off to retreat
Hindsight is 20/20 (Score:1)
But it could have been a lot better managed...
Yes, it probably could have been, with enough wisdom and foresight, and some luck. Our governments have had plenty of the third, and not much of the first two. This was at least as true one hundred years ago.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the responsible, right-thinking enviornmentalists were draining swamps to stop the spread of disease; Now, we're trying to restore wetlands.
What should we be planning for now? Planners are often wrong, rarely unc
Putting on my ObviousMan cape and shorts (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, like the natives had wheat, and rye, and oats, and apple trees, and all those other crops unknown to Westerners. <insert DUH with red circle and bar sinister here>
Actually it was the reverse. With minor exceptions western agriculture out-produced the native American crops and techniques by large margins (until western crop-breeding practices p
I'll second that.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Out 20x10' kitchen garden could produce almost enough colories for two people to live on for a quarter of a year. The potato yeilds are just nuts - and we're not even trying hard.
Garden alchemy (Score:1, Funny)
If you can get the pigs to lay eggs, you might have something here!
Re:I'll second that.. (Score:4, Funny)
I'll say! If you plant potatos and reap nuts, you must be doing this really half-assed!
There goes the civilization (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe NASA should investigate the effects of granary production, and in-city irrigation.
Re:There goes the civilization (Score:2, Funny)
Re:There goes the civilization (Score:1)
More study is needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Blame Kubla Khan (Score:5, Funny)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
So, we see early in the poem, beautiful, fertile ground. Later in the same poem, we read that:
It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
So, this research is not novel, such climate change has been known for almost two centuries
Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Right. In most places people know about smarter growth strategies. Rarely does growth hinge on anything but the perceived path toward the greatest short term wealth growth for the land owner. I'm guessing that maximization of soil production will be secondary to air quality, traffic, and many other concerns.
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Recently, the last agricultural business in the area -- a dairy -- was shut down because cow poop was getting into the river. Never mind the oil and gasoline run-off from the sea of asphault all around the dairy.
Oh, and where does our food come from? South America and the irrigated deserts of California. Los Angeles can't get enough drinking water; they're draining the Colorado River dry before it reaches the sea, and still they can't get enough water. Yet they grow rice in the desert!
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:5, Insightful)
If California had to pay for all of this itself, much of the state would dry up and blow away overnight. And it ought to.
Including this native-born American. It is just one more example of how subsidies create destructive incentives.FWIW, I think the ~$2/gallon subsidy we give oil via our defense spending is just as insane; if we charged the cost of defending ourselves and the Middle East against oil-financed extremism via fuel taxes, we would not have had an SUV craze. At $3.50 or more per gallon, there would not be enough of a market for Escalades, Hummers, Excursions and monster pickups to create the variety of models which lures people to use them as image statements (other than "I have more money than sense"), and we would be safer and richer (with a much healthier balance of payments) than we are with our hidden oil subsidies.
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:1)
FYI...California is a donor state. That means we contribute more money to the Federal Government than we get back. Not that I think irrigating a desert is particularly intelligent (or draining a mono lake and building a 500 mile aqueduct, for that matter.) But complaining about Federal monies spent in California rings hollow, especially given the enormous budget deficit facing Califo
Subsidy accounting (Score:3, Interesting)
(Not saying that they are, I have no expertise in this matter; I'm just saying that this is one way in which the truth could be obscured.)
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps because a parallel plumbing and reclamation system would be necessary to keep the saltwater and freshwater separate? Is that really contributing a net gain or just shifting the damage? Another possible reason is that most fresh water is consumed in agriculture, not toilets, by a margin of about 15 to 1.
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.
No, we don't, because we're increasingly immune to BAF bullshit and discount it automatically. The rest of the world is doing it's level best to emulate us in every conceivable manner and has been for the past century, regardless of what the worlds activists happen to be saying. Why are they flattering idiots?
Including this native-born American. It is just one more example of how subsidies create destructive incentives.
Would that include subsidies to car manufacturers to develop and market low-emission vehicles and power trains that run on renewables? It could be you're thinking of grant funded research that produces results similar as those we see here. Perhaps you are referring to subsidizing alternative energy sources for electricity, including offsetting operating costs. Or maybe you mean ITER or NIF... Is it really subsidies in general or just the subsidies you, in all your righteous genius, don't happen to think are proper, as you sit there well-fed in your heated dwelling writing messages in your spare time for distribution on a network initially developed using federal defense subsidies?
if we charged the cost of defending ourselves and the Middle East against oil-financed extremism via fuel taxes, we would not have had an SUV craze. At $3.50 or more per gallon...
You want to pay for defending ourselves against oil financed extremism by charging ~$2 a gallon more in taxes to end the SUV craze. I have a better idea; let's stop causing the market to buy vehicles based on truck chassis by allowing manufactures to build sufficiently sized vehicles based on passenger car chassis. I believe a small relaxation of CAFE and EPA standards on passenger cars would allow vehicle fleets to meet the expectations of the American market, but that the fleet average regulations prevent building appealing cars. Split the difference between 27.5mpg (cars) and 20.5mpg ("light" trucks) and we can start making cars again. The entire SUV episode the fault of these regulations because the market has been forced to choose between a car that's a couple hundred pounds too small/light (say, the difference between 3.4k and 4k lbs) and a truck that's a couple thousand pounds too heavy.
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:1)
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:2)
It's not a theory. All one need do is examine the history [cato.org] of the passenger car/light truck market in the US. Soccer moms used to buy station wagons based on passenger car chassis. Men used to by sedans. CAFE is the reason that changed. Simple as that.
The VAST MAJORITY of SUV drivers DO NOT NEED a vehicle that large.
Absolutely 100% correct. It is also true that the vast majority of SUV drivers do not want a passenger car that small.
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:2)
Then Darwin wins out in the end.
I didn't buy a truck for my current vehicle. I bought a Camaro. Do I need the power? No. Do I need the look? No. Do I like what I bought? Hell, yes, even when faced with rising gasoline prices that push a 14-gallon fill-up towards the $40 mark because I use premium in my 20mpg car and live in California. I knew I would face such issues when I bought it.
Because
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:2)
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:2)
Re:Smarter Urban-Growth? (Score:3, Funny)
Here you need about 80,000 pages of committee reviewed studies to mow the lawn.
Who cares ? (Score:2, Funny)
This is the entire concept behind Urban Harvest (Score:4, Informative)
We help build communities from the ground up by promoting sustainable urban land and horticultural practices to grow food and reduce hunger. We carry out our mission by working with volunteers and community groups building community gardens and orchards.
Their website. [urbanharvest.org]
Isn't this common sense? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, no one really ever sets out to build a big city, they just grown from smaller cities that grew from smaller settlements.
Re:Isn't this common sense? (Score:3, Insightful)
One always needs a study to prove the "obvious." To a lot people, it's obvious that violent movies and videogames induce violent behavior in children, or that seeing an exposed breast on television is traumatic.
"Common sense" is the name we give to our personal prejudices.
Re:Isn't this common sense? (Score:1)
And well it should not (Score:1)
To quote Sam Kinison... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, in light of this study, what should we do? Tear down existing cities and rebuild them where things don't grow? What about that minor issue of water supply?
Never mind that every year, we manage to increase our crop yeilds on the same amount of land because of superior agricultural technology and methods.
Sorry, but I see another scaremongering study to push one interest groups agenda here. Anti-growth, more than likely. And the notion that because our cities sit on fertile land we're contributing to world hunger when we outproduce just about everybody, well, that's just horseshit. We export quite a bid of food already. So what, are we still not doing our part? That's the tone I get from the article.
Re:To quote Sam Kinison... (Score:4, Insightful)
Biofuels... (Score:1)
But here I want to hypothesize that the one situation in which the world would no longer produce enough food is if there is a large shift to biofuels. The amount of corn that would need to be grown for ethanol or biodiesel if we shift to a biofuel fleet would be staggering (whether for global warming reasons, or for oil depletion reasons). And then we might regret having built over the most fertile land we
You don't know the half of it (Score:1)
Then multiply by a large factor again. If the Chippewa Valley ethanol plant in 1996 is typical of current technology, the situation would be downright dismal; that year the plant consumed 1 gallon-equivalent (gasoline) of fossil fuels to produce a mere 1.2 gallons-equi
Re:You don't know the half of it (Score:2)
In order for those figures to be truly meaningful, they must be compared to the fuel expendature for fossil fuel production. That should include the resources to produce those oil rigs in the North Sea, the supertankers, the tanker trucks (and the fuel they consume), refining, etc.
Further, to compare the viability of switching to biofuels, economy of scale hasto be considered. What would the biofuels cost when produced at the scale required for use as a primary fuel? That ould reduce the costs considerab
Re:You don't know the half of it (Score:2)
All of that is included in the cost of crude delivered to the refinery.
Every BTU of energy that comes out of the pump is a BTU of energy that came from crude in the first place.
In the case of ethanol from corn, th
Re:You don't know the half of it (Score:2)
Every BTU of energy that comes out of the pump is a BTU of energy that came from crude in the first place. In the case of ethanol from corn, that is not true. As of 1996, there were some 5 BTU of non-renewable inputs to get 6 BTU of ethanol out of the distillery, and it does not get better from there.
In the 'worst case' That is, total conversion to biofuel, that 5 BTU would come from more biofuel and/or crop waste. It is also likely that we would develop more effecient production methods. Distilleries
Re:You don't know the half of it (Score:2)
It better come from crop waste, because if it all comes from the product fuel the total productivity falls by a huge amount (83% for that 1996 example; it would probably be somewhat better now, but I'll wager it's still more than 2/3).
The use of crop waste isn't quite free either. In current harvesting techniques the corn is shelled on the combine and the stalks and ears are shredded and p
Re:You don't know the half of it (Score:2)
I certainly agree that using biofuel to fuel biofuel production would have terrible effect on production. Crop waste could be used somewhat creatively (agreed, not for free). For example, reletivly mild heating of most plant waste will yield a watery mixture of methanol and tars. The nitrogen content is left intact as well as the fiberous structure. That part could be scattered in the fields while the distilates provide a low grade fuel that could be used to power a still (or suppliment solar power for the
Thermodynamics is the half you don't know (Score:1)
No it can't. There is not enough delta-T to run a worthwhile heat engine.
You may have heard of thermodynamics, but you obviously have not studied it or
Re:Thermodynamics is the half you don't know (Score:2)
Pardon me, I thought we were brainstorming here. I guess you thought it was a pissing match.
For one, there is no actual need for greater than 95% purity for fuel alcohol. Any moonshiner can tell you white lightning will run great in a conventional gasoline engine (I assure you, moonshiners do NOT use vacuum stills).
That brings us to more like 13.7%. It's not great, but it does represent recovered WASTE HEAT. The only real question will be the total lifetime energy recovered vs. the cost of the engine at
Re:Thermodynamics is the half you don't know (Score:2)
Brainstorm turns into brain-fart as soon as it leaves the bounds of reality.
This is one of my pet peeves. Too many people have no concept of what's actually possible within the laws of physics, and this ignorance of (or refusal to face) reality extends to their planning and even politics. Guess what happens when you plan on something that's impossible to achieve, or support a political platform which demands it? It can get very, very ugly.
Less visibly ugly
Re:To quote Sam Kinison... (Score:2)
But the guy at the restaurant said I was't allowed to sleep there anymore! : (
That's it!! (Score:2)
Re:That's it!! (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, this place where I live is called "poison water" -- yeah, that's it, "poison water."
Paulo Soleri (Score:5, Interesting)
It does not seem feasible at this time: the one in the link above is very small and is being built at a snail's pace. Arcologies of the scale Soleri has envisioned have only appeared in the fiction Larry Niven has done in collaboration with other authors. ("Oath of Fealty" and the Dream Park novels)
Re:Paulo Soleri (Score:5, Interesting)
I really do wish that arcologies would catch on. The environmental impact of having the day commutes of tens of thousands of people reduced to a ride in an electric-powered mass transit shuttle - which people would have to use because there would be no room for cars inside the building - would be tremendous, especially when multiplied by a few hundred arcologies.
The only thing to consider is whether the fertile lands mentioned in the above article are reclaimable, or whether enough environmental damage has been done to them to make them no longer very fertile.
Thanks for clarification (Score:3, Interesting)
One major weakness with arcologies is vulerability to terror/war or such catastrophe.
In the 1950s, Clifford D. Simak wrote his "City" stories after being inspired by the vulnerability of cities to nuclear attack. Turn the city into an arcology, and the problem (such as it is) increases.
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:2)
Built an ancology and bristle the outside with Phalanx [navy.mil] batteries. No missile or unauthorized plane would get within a mile of the place! (literally)
=Smidge=
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:1)
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:2)
Though I supopose you couls always face a few of those guns inward...
=Smidge=
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:2)
Hot button alert! It's per se. It means in, of, or by itself; intrinsically. [m-w.com]
Never use a word you've only heard and never read.
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with you on all technical, environmental, and economical points but you will have a very hard time convincing people to give up their yards and cars and shrubbery and sunlight all day long to live in what they will inevitably percieve as a large box
Re:Thanks for clarification (Score:1)
Re:Paulo Soleri (Score:1)
Re:Paulo Soleri (Score:2)
Yeah, but build too many of them and LA launches
Yeah! Good idea!
Disappearing Farms (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the potatoes in in the store are from Long Island just not labeled as such. Maybe they have been out competed because of cheap transportation costs but mostly I think it is because as you drive out on I-495 (The Long Island Expressway) you see miles and miles of suburbs most of which used to be farms.
The lack of urban planning in America has been a major irritation to me since I moved temporarily outside of New York City. I lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia for a few years and in Stutgart Germany for a half a year.
Stutgart was laid out as little clumps of Urban areas mixed into farm, woodlots and vinyards. There were vinyards in the middle of the city. Plus you could walk or bike ride for miles on trails from one part of town to the other and there were trains everywhere.
New York City is very dense. The whole world should not be like that, but it definitely should not be like the miles and miles, 50+ miles of suburb that surround it. The worst is places like Raleigh Triangle that has no city, just urban sprawl alon highways. I haven't been to California, but I get the impression that large sections of it are like that also.
You call it urban planning, I call it economics. (Score:2, Insightful)
Urban planning po
Re:You call it urban planning, I call it economics (Score:2)
I live in TN, land used to be $1000 an acre, but now it is closer to $10,000 an acre. And rising. I suspect that $10,000/acre is darn cheap compared to another places.
Re:You call it urban planning, I call it economics (Score:1)
Re:Disappearing Farms (Score:1)
irrational hope (Score:2)
I really doubt it. There are much bigger, more immediate problems with our "urban-growth strategies" than that (pollution, traffic, etc.), problems whose solution would result in enormous and immediate benefits to every resident. Since we don't manage to solve those, something as abstract and without direct impact as the use of fertile land to build cities on will lead to anything.
RoofTop Gardens (Score:2, Interesting)
Who cares... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem of world hunger cannot simply be solved by producing more food. You have to get that food to whoever needs it, before it spoils, and in a way that is cost effective. That's a much more difficult problem than just growing more corn.
Re:Who cares... (Score:2, Insightful)
Urban growth not the problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Urban growth not the problem (Score:1)
I beg to differ. People in the world are hungry because they have overpopulated their environment and outstripped its capacity to support them. It's a harsh truth, but still a truth: If we (humans) don't manage our fertility, natural forces will manage our mor
Re:Urban growth not the problem (Score:2)
I beg to differ. People in the world are hungry because they have overpopulated their environment and outstripped its capacity to support them. It's a harsh truth, but still a truth: If we (humans) don't manage our fertility, natural forces will manage ou
Re:Urban growth not the problem (Score:2)
------
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Hong Kong and Japan (Score:1)
Re:Urban growth not the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh - and in the process of heavily subsidizing agriculture, we effectively make fertile land worth less, which means it is easier for other activities to outcompete farming for the land. This is true both in the US and in developing countries.
(btw, I don't disagree with the statement that the spread of f
Re:Urban growth not the problem (Score:2)
This is not a difficult premise to check. Look where hunger is most rampant in the world. Now look at the types of governments those nations have. You will find, without exception, that dictatorships, communists and extreme socialist nations are nations where famine is rampant.
Re:Urban growth not the problem (Score:1)
By flooding developing countries with cheap food and causing them to be dependent on imports, you make them vulnerable to disruptions in the supply chain. You also make it much more difficult for these countries to develop strong local economies, since they are dependent on labor-intensive industries like food production. Reduced income in rural areas makes it difficult for those people to acquire food even t
Water (Score:2)
Most people don't want to live in the desert. Unless, you like to gamble of course.
Problem isn't fertile land as much making good use of the land.
Re:Water (Score:2)
Irrigation is not the biggest reason why cities show up near rivers, commerce is: Rivers move merchandise well.
Re:Water (Score:2)
Was the land fertile before the city was there? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you think about all the refuse and biological waste that winds up on the ground every day, wouldn't this contribute to the fertility?
I don't think that even if we could convince all the people to move to a less fertile area that the ground would produce all that much. Because with all that humans drop, we also pollute. So even if we could farm it, I seriousl
Well, MY city... (Score:2, Funny)
Idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
Every year, all throughout the Southeastern United States, there are people who live in a town built on the Mississippi River flood plain who, when the river floods (as it does every year), instead of moving to a better place, decide to try to control the river's flooding by building levies. The levies, of course, are preventing the Mississippi from carrying as much silt as it used to, which is causing erosion. Never mind that the land is more useful for irrigation farming.
There are people in the midwest who, despite living on land so unbelievably flat that you can't see a single hill or Mountain, and despite the area being known as "Tornado Alley", act surprised and heartbroken when their towns are ripped apart by tornadoes year after year.
All throughout American history, people just built their towns on the first, most immediately convenient place they came across, with little or no regard as to whether or not it was actually a good place for a town. A great many years later, despite the technology for advanced climatological and ecological studies being available (that would tell these cities' current inhabitants that their town is situated in the worst possible place), people continue to live in these places. After each disaster, people keep coming back.
Idiots.
Re:Idiots (Score:1)
Now I live in California, and there have been a few earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides. I wouldn't be suprised if everyone (with American television) had heard about them recently. I have been directly affected only by having seen the fire
So ? (Score:1)
When placing a city (town) there are many a lot faster affecting reasons for the optimal position than the climate. And old cities wont be moved.
Agriculuture uses UP land. (Score:2, Insightful)
But one of the reasons why city land is so fertile is that it has been a city for so long. If we used moved and used the old city as farm land for 10 years, it would suddenly stop being the most fertile land and the new city we built would become the most fertile land.