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In both cases, either my parents or myself were good friends with a few of our neighbours and knew most of the others. We didn't grow much food, but we did watch over each other's homes (and pets) when one of us went on vacation, and invite each other for dinner from time to time and such.
but you live in a small town though not a modern suburb.
I live in a suburban city that used to be a small town. Parts of it "look" suburban, according to the criteria on this forum. Most of the housing was built after 1945, in fact most was built after 1975.
Do you have the link to the study itself? The excerpt that's in your link doesn't really talk about oversupply or having fields lay fallow (or if there are understandable reasons for why they should be laid fallow). It's also a decade and a half old and the About is oddly combative and explicitly partisan for a non-profit. It's also purportedly on the forefront of climate change skepticism and very proud of it which sort of sets off warning signals in my head.
Do you have the link to the study itself? The excerpt that's in your link doesn't really talk about oversupply or having fields lay fallow (or if there are understandable reasons for why they should be laid fallow). It's also a decade and a half old and the About is oddly combative and explicitly partisan for a non-profit. It's also purportedly on the forefront of climate change skepticism and very proud of it which sort of sets off warning signals in my head.
No, I do not have any more links. I said it was old. It may be partisan, as well. However, it is patently obvious that there is no lack of food supply in the US. We get bombarded every day with this talk about "the obesity epidemic".
No, I do not have any more links. I said it was old. It may be partisan, as well. However, it is patently obvious that there is no lack of food supply in the US. We get bombarded every day with this talk about "the obesity epidemic".
I understand that to some extent, though the argument has been put out that it's because we're eating pretty awfully and not more fresh foods which often take up a bit more land per calorie. Also, why is the obesity epidemic in quotes? It seems pretty real since I've seen a good chunk of the US and outside of the US and I have to say the US really is visibly and identifiably quite corpulent. It's not just obesity, which there seems to be an incredible amount of, but also even more of just plain old overweight. I'd say a good majority of people in the US are at least overweight but that comes with substantial local variation.
Anyhow, I support the idea of using lawns for your own foods and such--as perhaps you do, too. It's really fresh and it just feels good to be out there growing stuff. I also think that having sprawl eat up farmland closer to the city/metro center and having to go further out from the cities to grow has some drawbacks in various ways.
I understand that to some extent, though the argument has been put out that it's because we're eating pretty awfully and not more fresh foods which often take up a bit more land per calorie. Also, why is the obesity epidemic in quotes? It seems pretty real since I've seen a good chunk of the US and outside of the US and I have to say the US really is visibly and identifiably quite corpulent. It's not just obesity, which there seems to be an incredible amount of, but also even more of just plain old overweight. I'd say a good majority of people in the US are at least overweight but that comes with substantial local variation.
Anyhow, I support the idea of using lawns for your own foods and such--as perhaps you do, too. It's really fresh and it just feels good to be out there growing stuff. I also think that having sprawl eat up farmland closer to the city/metro center and having to go further out from the cities to grow has some drawbacks in various ways.
Well, I'm not sure obesity really is epidemic. There are 11 countries, all first world, several English-speaking, three in the western hemisphere that have obesity rates above average in first world countries.
Well, I'm not sure obesity really is epidemic. There are 11 countries, all first world, several English-speaking, three in the western hemisphere that have obesity rates above average in first world countries.
But the US is the highest on the list, with a big gap between it and #1.
I'm not getting the point of that. The bolded statement meaningless, by definition some must be above average in a group.
Quote:
If you want to prove that suburbs are taking up farmland and creating a food shortage in this country, by all means do the research.
Why should anyone bother? No one on this thread has said that suburbs are creating a food shortage, I think you're the only poster that mentioned "food shortage". Even if the US didn't have enough farmland to feed itself, the US is rich enough it could import its food.
Even though there is no shortage of farmland in the US, it's still nice to have some farmland nearby. I like that I have farm fields right nearby, even if they're unnecessary in a practical sense for the local food supply (but local farmstands and farmer's markets are nice to have in the summer. Also see here:
But the US is the highest on the list, with a big gap between it and #1.
I'm not getting the point of that. The bolded statement meaningless, by definition some must be above average in a group.
Why should anyone bother? No one on this thread has said that suburbs are creating a food shortage, I think you're the only poster that mentioned "food shortage". Even if the US didn't have enough farmland to feed itself, the US is rich enough it could import its food.
Even though there is no shortage of farmland in the US, it's still nice to have some farmland nearby. I like that I have farm fields right nearby, even if they're unnecessary in a practical sense for the local food supply (but local farmstands and farmer's markets are nice to have in the summer. Also see here:
Read my post, I said food shortage... the quoted post doesn't say "food shortage".
OyCrumbler never said there was a farmland or food shortage.
I thought wburg's photoshopping was quite good, I'd like to be able to do that.
Quit splitting hairs. What do you think farmland is for?
People are always lamenting the loss of farmland to suburbs. Here are a few quotes from this forum:
Quote:
Originally Posted by tysonsengineer
Cool stop whining about traffic making me spend my tax dollars to build you wider roads. Stop whining about every time gas is priced similar to the rest of the world, once again forcing me to spend even more money to invade countries to gain better access to oil and to spend money to secure our own oil interests around the world. Also please stop whining when we ask for 5% of the tax funding that your sub division style living receives in order to fund transit which moves 200 times more people than vehicles right of way area to right of way area, and uses 25% of the energy, mostly not from oil btw, than your vehicles do.
Start making some concessions like that, and then us "up"ers will stop annoying you.
PS I forgot, stop whining about food costs being so expensive. It wouldnt be if you didnt keep pushing real country people, not your fake suburban "country" people, out further and further forcing them to spend more and more on freight, thereby making their industry a business of scale, creating 3 mega companies in the agro business, mostly monsanto, who then jacks up prices whenever they god damn want to. Us city people LOVE our farmers, and wish they didnt have to be separated by 30-50 miles of suburbs.
Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cisco kid
greenspace and spaces for people to live are not mutually exclusive. good intelligent urban and rural planning, as mentioned earlier, allows you to have plenty of both.
having plenty of free open rural land available for local food production also means greater food security people who live in that region. if you pave everything over what are all those people going to eat? you have nowhere to grow your food. you can't eat pavement. you are then forced to import all or most of your food cross-country and/or from other countries at the same time making you also heavily dependent on fossil fuels so you can ship your food across these vast distances (sound familiar?).
when you make yourself dependent on faraway places for your food supply that is a very serious potential security threat and can make you very vulnerable. and we know what can happen when food production is heavily centralized and can only be cultivated by destructive industrial agricultural methods. that resulted in the dust bowl of the 1930s and widespread hunger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
Much like an earlier discussion of how the terms "urban area" and "urban structure" are confused, I think you're confusing something which is a suburb for functional reasons, and something which was built with the intention to be a suburb.
There are lots of cases around the country of small urban areas which stayed politically independent, but effectively ended up swallowed by the major city. These are urban in structure. Look at Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Hoboken, New Jersey for example. They are suburbs of Boston and New York city respectively (as many people who live there commute into the core cities), but neither one is suburban in structure.
Similarly, but to a lesser degree, many "small towns" were swallowed up. In these cases the commercial downtown remained, but postwar development occurred on the outskirts, which meant that much of the (built) suburbs were within walking distance of of a nice little downtown with much older buildings.
In contrast, most modern suburbs are totally divorced from any earlier built structure, as in most areas they are now expanding into farmland and/or other greenfield areas. Thus you don't see much of anything quaint or walkable in a modern suburb, unless by walkable you include sidewalks which only take you around your subdivision and don't lead anywhere.
This encroaching upon farmland is a topic that has been going on for decades.
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