I’m writing from Chicago, where the BlogHer conference I’m attending will start tomorrow. My run on the lakeshore last night took me to Millenium Park, where I had another of my little ecstatic, falling-in-love experiences, between the gardens, the symphony orchestra playing in the outdoor pavilion, and most of all, the unique fountain and 
wading pool (pictured). I took off my shoes and socks and happily joined the children in the water. Fun! I did stop short of lying down and fanning my arms and legs like a summertime angel (though don’t put it past me on a dare).
I have deeply mixed feelings about big cities like Chicago. On the one hand, they’re rife with vitality, commerce that creates jobs, and cultural diversity. They’re also hotbeds for great libraries and the arts, which create quality of life for people of all income levels.
There’s a whole other side to cities, though, a vulnerable side that most of us never think about. Cities are heavily dependent on farmlands and transportation systems for the food that lets them live. And our transportation system is dependent on not just oil, but cheap oil, and not just cheap oil, but oil from countries largely hostile to the U.S. Oil from all places will run out within a few decades. Moreover, global warming (aka climate change) is sharply changing what crops will grow where, at what cost. Some current farmland will be lost altogether, submerged as oceans rise.
Where I’m going with all this is the vulnerability and time-limited nature of our current culture, including great cities like Chicago. Cities are invisibly but desperately dependent on farmers and our existing transportation system for their food. That means dependent on them for their lives, and the social order we call civilization. Our just-in-time inventory system means grocery stores hold a three-day supply of food. A four-day break in the oil supply would bring cities to their knees, send them into anarchy.
On the positive side, Bill McKibben writes in his fact-packed book Deep Economy that a significant and growing percentage of food is being grown in cities, Detroit being a prime example. Cuba has been doing intensive, successful urban farming ever since the Soviet Union’s collapse cut off its oil supply two decades ago.
All this is complex, because city-dwellers have smaller carbon footprints than rural residents. Urban density lets people walk, bike and use public transit for their transportation, whereas rural residents have to drive everywhere, usually long distances. So, city-dwellers use less oil and create less carbon emissions than rural folks per capita. Yet, farmers know and understand land, soil, water and crops in a way that is literally keeping civilization alive. Distressingly, there are fewer farmers in the U.S. today than ever before in its history.
Answers and solutions? We should all know or learn how to grow food, no matter where we live. For instance, I’m now raising chickens at my Portland home — Portland residents are allowed three urban chickens — and they should start laying eggs next month. I’m also having fun growing lots of fruits and vegetables with Evan, my great housemate who works for rent in a win-win for him, me and my husband (who is not big on gardening, himself).
My other advice, more spiritual than concrete, is for all of us to not cling too tightly to the current shape of our lives and our cities. Even though it’s not obvious in a day to day way, climate change is reshaping them. We need to embrace that fact even as we work to slow climate change by reducing our carbon emissions.
photo sourtesy of papalars
Related Posts:
- Our Chickens’ First Eggs And My Inner Farmer
- Urban Farming: Food Security Plus Fun
- Happiness = Quality of Life, Not Urban Growth
The part of this (excellent) post that really resonated with me is the last graf, about not clinging too tightly to something destined to change. I think people have a natural tendency to do exactly this, and it’s why the biggest changes will come from generational turnover.
I did a series of presentations at a local middle school, and I was stunned by the sheer determination of those kids to “fix” our climate mess, Right Now. Sure, part of that was youthful exuberance and naivete, but I think most of it was simply that they’re a new generation growing up in a much different world than what I saw as a kid.
We need them to grow up quicker, sad to say. Time is running out.
Lou, good point. I’m enthused about the new generation, too, and their willingness to deal with climate change. Though I don’t have children of my own, I engage with them every chance I get.
Sometimes I wonder if we had a greater number of faster trains in America (and a better-connected network of tracks) if food could be brought into cities at a fraction of the carbon-footprint. This is not to say that I don’t support the idea of urban gardens — but people can’t really have cows or grow wheat in the cities.
Colleen, I like your idea. Trains are great. Also, I’ve read that 27% of U.S. food gets thrown out, often because we let it rot or otherwise haven’t stewarded it well. That could change! At the least, if we have to throw food out, we can compost it so it becomes nutrition for our soil.
I’ve been volunteering on a no-till farm in Rainier, learning about Native American farming methods that do not involve plowing or weeding or disturbing the soil at all. It’s the easiest, most prolific method of gardening I’ve ever seen.
Layer 4 inches of chicken manure, 20 inches of straw, 2-3 inches of compost. Scatter seeds and water. That’s IT except for thinning & harvesting.
He harvests the seeds by letting everything go to flower (and doing rotational plantings to keep things coming in between), then cutting the flowered plants down, laying them on a tarp to dry, then beating them with sticks to shake the seeds loose onto the tarp. The bees thrive on the flowers, we need to let our crops go to flower!
It is amazing how much food can be grown in a small space. If we would eat seasonally as our ancestors did, and store foods as our ancestors did (root cellaring can be done in the most limited of spaces), we could avoid much of the waste and big carbon footprint that is occurring.
It is frightening how dependent our food supply is on oil. We need to return to paddlewheels on waterways, trains, and locally grown whenever possible. Less waste is also key!
incidentally, the no-till farm website is http://www.earthdoctorscommunity.org, and the farmer is Earl Renfrow. He recently relocated to a 22 acre site in Rainier, OR and hasn’t yet updated the website, but he’s working on it.