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OK, it's not directly related to urban planning, but this little video was so cool, I had to share it:



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Peak Oil and the Coming Armageddon

The high price of oil seems to be as much of a conversation topic now as daytrading was during the dotcom boom. Everyone seems to have something to say about it. One thread of conversation, in particular, has jumped out at me, though. It's the thought that peak oil will be the driver for the coming Armageddon. In this line of thought, no response to peak oil is necessary, since it is merely a sign of the second coming of Christ. No need to invest in alternative energy sources, city-reshaping, or sustainable agriculture. Just the conviction that things are going to get really, really, bad; followed by whatever flavor of second coming you believe in.


Armageddon of the 80's

Now, I grew up in a private Christian school during the Reagan years, and I can tell you that the Armegeddon of the 80's was all about the Soviets and their thousands of atheist-manufactured nuclear warheads. It was scary. Remember the movie, "The Day After"? It scared the crap out of me. And during these years, there were indeed a number of really close calls (click on each word for the associated link).

Armageddon of the New Millenium

However, I have spent a significant amount of time researching potential individual, community, and government responses to peak oil, and I can tell you that this is not your 80's Armageddon. From what I can tell, the Peak Oil Armageddon has the following qualities:

1. You will likely have to trade in your car for a bicycle, bus pass, or functional pair of feet.

2. Urban dwellers will live in pedestrian-oriented high-density neighborhoods, well-connected with electrified transit and local farmer's and manufacturer's markets.

3. Food farms will get smaller, integrated into the cities, organic, and diversified. Energy farms will occupy the far-flung countryside and deserts.



The scariest film Peak Oil can offer seems to be "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil". I watched it this past weekend; and let me tell you, Armageddon just ain't what it used to be.

Urban Farming and Decommoditized Food

I watched "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" over the weekend. What an odd film. If you're the sort of person who doesn't like spoilers, close your browser, watch the film, and then come right back -- because the whole point of this blog post is to talk about the ending of the film.

Good. For those of you who are left... the movie is essentially a documentary of the life of an unconventional farmer, John Peterson, who spends his life undecided about whether he wants to be a midwestern farmer, or a writer surrounded by artist friends. John inherits the family farm as a young man when his father dies of diabetes. Torn between his creative desires and his loyalty to the family's legacy, he decides to live both, and makes a mess of it -- turning the farm into a hippy hangout and eventually losing all but 20 acres or so.

John ends up saving the family farm by converting it to something called a "Community Supported Agriculture" farm. Essentially, he sells shares in his farm to city-folk, who receive a portion of the produce in exchange. Because the shareholders only receive food in proportion of the harvest, the risk to the farmer is minimized, and the "consumers" are converted into business partners. The result is profitable: Farmer John's "Angelic Organics" farm now has more than 1400 shareholders and covers 155 acres. John calls it "decommoditized food".

So why am I writing about this in a blog about Urbanism? Well, our entire system of growing and transporting food is built around the premise of cheap energy, and that premise is no longer valid. I can see only two alternatives: depopulate the planet and convert the survivors into rural communities (the subject of James Kunstler's depressing, "World Made By Hand"), or convert our agricultural systems from an industrialized model to a localized model.

Now, I'm an optimist, a big fan of large-scale urban architecture, and I work in the field of systems transformation, so I'll vote for the second option! A 100-mile diet is great, but to make it a reality for the planet, the relationship between the farmer and the consumer has to change to one of partnership and shared ownership. So I think I'll be taking a closer look at the CSA model. If you have other models you'd like to share, let me know! All my urban dreaming won't amount to much if we can't figure out how to get enough to eat!