this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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I prefer dreaming of self sustaining eco cities, with a tiny land footprint, so the area around it can be left to nature.
The Netherlands is already a pretty good model, not too far away from that.
Could you elaborate?
From the center of Amsterdam you can bike to a horse pasture in like 20 minutes. You can go from high density urban to farm land super fast. Farmers were heavily involved in constraining how the Netherlands urbanized, so you have a lot of dense cities surrounded by farms and forests.
It definitely isn't self-sustaining, but it could be. The Netherlands is one of the biggest agricultural producers in Europe.
There's tons of green space within the cities too... And bikea are the primary mode of transit.
It's pretty close... About as close as you can get under capitalism.
I live in the Netherlands and I think it's shit. There's agriculture and construction everywhere! What little nature there is is always full of tourists.
I moved here from the US and you cannot possibly comprehend how much better it is. From the perspective of someone escaping the US, it's one step away from an ecotopia. But yeah, it does suck in a lot of ways. There are still cars everywhere and I even see trucks sometimes. I don't understand how y'all could have gone through the whole "Stop da Kindermoord" thing and still let in trucks.
There's a lot of bad things to fix, but I haven't seen anything closer to what I want and with two kids who are growing up I don't have time or capacity to fight to make the US survivable.
It's a good start that most of the rest of the world could copy and be far better off, even if it's still a long way from optimal.
So do you eat your fries with mayonaise?
Perhaps not copy everything. :P
The thing I actually hate the most is the whole enclosure of the commons/foraging is illegal (or at least super gray area) thing. I'm an immigrant and I don't want to go back, so I'm not about to see how far I can bend the law. But I also know there's so much food that could be grown in the city and so much that could even be collected right now.
The Netherlands seems super domesticated.
Leave it up to the Dutch to head into the wilderness with only a package of oreos.
And what's the deal with corn? In the summer I saw single or groups of two or three corn plants, not dense enough to pollinate, too short to have been started inside. Do y'all grow it as an ornamental or do y'all not know how corn works?
Also the one food forest I've found needs a goat.
I take it you're in one of the cities then? I'm in Amsterdam.
I'm from around the area of giethoorn. Lots of water!
About the corn. I don't know. Maybe it's a field used for research? I've seen some of those and they do weird things.
Although the denser the city the farther you need to farm to feed that city.
Yap I was thinking futuristic with fusion power and vertical farming.
What's wrong with smaller cities, with more evenly distributed population across countries, with density lowering as you move from the center? Reduces city impact, still promotes dense urbanization and reduces transportation costs if there is something being produces around the city. Also left to nature is a bit impossible in today's world and promotes detachment from feeling like part of nature for most people. Most of Europe and north America is riddled with invasive species or just have been devastated by agriculture or deforestation in the last centuries and if managed correctly which can mean leave it alone humans can have a positive impact on the world. If you could create forests in the desert with plants from around it, wouldn't that be positive?
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