The only reason the cities are growing is because the human population is growing, and that is ecocidal.

The only reason the cities are growing is because the human population is growing, and that is ecocidal.

That is not at all true. Outside the US and a few other countries, where cities are largely shrinking and being replaced with much-more environmentally destructive suburban and exurban sprawl, cities are growing for perfectly rational reasons - better income for less work, and access to cultural activities and goods - cities will grow even in areas where population is stable.

The main force sending people to the cities in the developing world is corporate control of agriculture, which is making traditional farming untenable. This is not at all a good trend, but, on the other hand, the worst and most intractable poverty in most developing countries are in the rural areas. It remains much more easy to improve the living standards through the provision of public services to people in a city than scattered across the countryside. The Chinese have been relatively successful at this, and for most Chinese, moving the the city was a very good decision.

But back to the uUS, for a "left" site, I find the widespread anti-city attitudes of Commondreams readers to be rather disturbing. In my area, suburban, small-town, and rural areas are breeding grounds of the most reactionary and racist political views imaginable. I've found attitudes even in the older close-in suburb I recently moved to intolerable and I regret moving here.

And as far as the environment, addressing global warming is going to have to start with a drastic decrease in automobile usage, and this can only be done by living in urban setting. I may sound like a broken record about this, but suburbia needs to be abolished, as well as the whole bourgeois fashion of "a house in the countryside".

Yes, gentrification is certainly a problem in US cities.

Since it is caused by the normal operation of markets, it represents an example of "market failure" - a much more common phenomenon than the economic libertarians ever admit. The only solution is rent control and some kind of real estate price controls - maybe a steeply graduated real estate tax combined with a family income based homestead exception. Yes, this would be is "social engineering", even "socialist", so what?

One downside of urban renewal, as is happening in the US, is that low income/working poor and poverty stricken folks are being forced out of urban areas so the well off can have their convenient little playgrounds. Its happening in every major urban area in america. One could almost see a near future of walled off urban enclaves for the elite with the rest of us stuck out in a sort of a no-mans land

PJD-

Socialist!!! Sounds good to me!

There are compact city designs. They are designs based on civic development. There are designs based on currently available technology that can provide for more efficient use of all our resources. The design principles are adaptable. They can be scaled from megalopolis to villages. The design can be used within existing cities, growing cities and small towns; they can be used to build new cities.

In addition there are transportation models based on current technology that are greatly more efficient than current. All this and there are even the economic models to guide this transformation.

Yet, every aspect would be attacked. Attacked most from the left as too impractical politically. We defeat ourselves.

This is why, even though urban and regional planning has been my passion my whole intellectual life, I very early one shifted focus to psychology and cultural studies. Good people were making horrid effects, slums, poverty, ecologic devastations. Making horrors as a clear resultant of their choices, yet in denial.

The solutions for our furtherance making our future bright and full are right in front us! What feels insurmountable is merely our own internalization of the oppression and ethos of exploitation.

"I find the widespread anti-city attitudes of Commondreams readers to be rather disturbing."

Not everyone is attuned to city living. I'm a lifelong urbanite myself, and prefer it to living in the middle of nowhere. But I can understand that it isn't for everyone. A lot of it has to do with where people are raised. You can't expect a person who grew up in a rural area to take to city living easily. Many people prefer being isolated.

"In my area, suburban, small-town, and rural areas are breeding grounds of the most reactionary and racist political views imaginable. I've found attitudes even in the older close-in suburb I recently moved to intolerable and I regret moving here."

Wow, I haven't found that in the closer suburbs. In fact, I've seen them becoming more diverse, especially with the influx of immigrants and younger people. I've even seen this in the exurbs. Not long ago, we drove through Zelienople, and I was surprised to see an Arabic family outside having a cookout in front of a big country house. Studies have shown that immigrants are preferring suburban areas over urban ones.

"but suburbia needs to be abolished, as well as the whole bourgeois fashion of "a house in the countryside"."

But what will take its place? And will there be room for the suburbanites in the city?

The UN has been producing some outstanding warning reports on climate change. Unfortunately, the group responsible for this report shows that with regard to urbanization and population policy, they have their heads up their asses. "Economic realities" and the need to "stimulate rural and urban development" are the telltale themes. It's more of the grow-grow mantra, which is unsustainable. Any kind of economics not grounded in ecological reality, i.e. true-cost economics, is going to fail. Urban living is among the least environmentally sustainable configurations.

If more People joined in communities with the vision of Gaviotas... we might still have time to stop, reverse the destructive trend.

United Nations named the village a model of sustainable development. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world."

Gaviotas is a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America. For three decades, Gaviotans - peasants, scientists, artists, and former street kids - have struggled to build an oasis of imagination and sustainability in the remote, barren savannas of eastern Colombia, an area ravaged by political terror. They have planted millions of trees, thus regenerating an indigenous rainforest. They farm organically and use wind and solar power. Every family enjoys free housing, community meals, and schooling. There are no weapons, no police, no jail. There is no mayor.

pls see
http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/about.htm

too much comfort, gadgets-love in the North part of america has deprived "us" from the will muscle to embark on such revolutionary, intelligent and creative adventures.
at least we still have active tongues and fingers on the keyboard... what about a little more action!

Give Gaviotas a look, anyone willing to duplicate it, i'll join and work my life 'til the end for this to happen here, so our children can have a chance to life before "nucular" intensification continues...

It's not so much an anti-urban bias, but the fact that urban growth, or more specifically suburban growth is growing like a cancer on the Earth. The UNFPA report focuses on the positives which is remarkable given the stark challenges of urban governance facing almost every Third World country.

The model of development being adopted in places like India and China will doom us, if not changed dramatically. In places like Delhi, there are so many cars, that people have turf wars over parking space all the time. In smaller urban centres which have absorbed the polluting two-stroke engines banned from Delhi, the pollution is out of control. As it gets warmer (and it is , no doubt about that) things are going to get even more critical.

So all these issues are coming to a head, and we will need significant political capital to tackle them.

Interestingly, one of the few countries that is trying to tackle this is Venezuela which has seen Caracas become over built due the oil economy which has rendered agriculture uncompetitive. One of the motors of socialism is tackling the "geometry of power" to disperse development throughout the country as opposed to clustering it in the urban centres on the coast. This might seem like swimming against the tide, but does show the resolve that is necessary to tackle these problems.

Too many conceptions and too many embryos leads to too many people leads to the death of the planet. It isn't hard to figure out but it is obvious there are a lot of stupids who don't have a clue. Bush cuts family planning funding which demonstrates just what a moron he is, as if further proof were needed.

But, suburban growth is largely a consequence of flight from cities. Here in Pittsburgh, for every McMansion built in the suburbs, there is a newly-crated vacant lot in the city that could have been built on, or boarded up house that could be fixed up.

I think a lot of CD readers simply havn't ever lived anywhere else but in the sunbelt-style suburbs, so they don't understand how much more pleasant, livable and sustaniable car-optional urban neighborhood life can be.

Running out of gas will accomplish that. And poverty's crimes in the cities will be curbed when the plutocrat's crimes are.

OK, last time

1.) Population curves have ceilings.
2.) For humans, that ceiling is going to be human suffering and poverty.
3.) If there is no ceiling, population at it's present rate will result in 6 square feet of land per person by 2400. This is a fact of math.
4.) The bourgeois and the plutocrats do not cause this.
5.) Nature will feel (and is already feeling) the top of the human population curve long before humans ever do.
6.) We already are threatening the immediate extinction of most of the world's species. (Amazon RIP 2020) (Ocean fish RIP 2048)

Theodore Kaczynski was right when he said that the traditional leftist was no friend to the true anarchist and environmentalist.

The city is the equivalent to the human factory farm. What people are saying here is that popullution isn't the problem, living a life connected with nature is. (And claiming anyone who wants to do so is a bourgeoisie who wants a country estate.) That is pure garbage, much like the kind you'll be living in instead of rainforests.

"Here in Pittsburgh, for every McMansion built in the suburbs, there is a newly-crated vacant lot in the city that could have been built on, or boarded up house that could be fixed up."

Well that I'll completely agree with. My sister moved to Mckeesport recently, and there are at least 3 run-down properties surrounding her apartment.