From De-Urbanization to Re-Ruralization
Discussion
From a twitter thread by Chris Smaje:
"1. Urban infrastructures have tremendously costly energy and water footprints that will not be sustainable in the long term unless the rising trend in global energy use (currently 85% fossil fuel based) can be completely met with renewables, for which there’s no evidence.
2. Granted, it’s widely claimed that urban living has a lower ecological footprint than rural. The truth is that high-energy modern urban living has a lower footprint than high-energy modern rural living – which is not the same thing.
3. Another issue is soils in general & phosphates in particular, which we’re currently effectively mining or re-routing to agriculture with high energy solutions. Long-term I think we’ll need to cycle phosphates sustainably, which will require distributed settlement.
4. Much urban job creation results from financialized capital which exceeds trade & direct investment about 100fold. Without a stable (if inherently inequitable) global system of capitalist states to underwrite it this fictitious capital and the jobs it creates will melt away.
5. Already the stability of that system is melting due to crises of political legitimacy in many countries – the inability of states to deliver economically what they must promise to deliver (Wolfgang Streeck’s ‘consolidation state’)...
6. ...This is compounded by manufacturing overcapacity and the impossibility of maintaining GDP growth.
7. Meanwhile, climate change threatens global disruption on a geologic scale & is prompting state legitimation crises, water conflicts & mass migrations, further destabilising nation states & their ability to service the high (fiscal, energetic & water) cost needs of urban popns
8. So whether we like it or not I think we’re going to see mass ruralization and localized agrarianism emerging in the years to come. The chances of this being a chaotic and conflict-ridden process are high.
9. Therefore, I think policy-making should gear itself above all else to managing the transition to agrarian localism as smoothly as possible worldwide"