214 comments on Transit Oriented Development
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
214 comments on Transit Oriented Development
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Classic posts
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Oil Drum: New York City archives
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Whenever I see plans for one of these "green" in-fill projects such as the one in Bellevue, I wonder where the food will come from. There is no mention of space for food production, and for 800 apartments the project would need on the order of 100-200 acres. Right now the Seattle area does need innovative urban village concepts to deal with the strangling effect of high traffic density. Ten years from now, where will their food come from?
" Ten years from now, where will their food come from?"
farms.
Farms that are close to the TOD will produce the food, then bring it in by electric powered small trucks in the 4 to 8 ton range that can go 60 miles to a recharge. These farms will produce vegtables, fruits, maybe nuts and a limited number of animals (perhaps processed on the outskirts of the TOD). Tractors will be recharged by the grid that is powered by wind or hydro electric near Seattle.
This is the way many communities worked 100 to 125 years ago, but the cities centered around steam powered and electric railways and the farmers used horses and wagons for hauling while cultivating with horses, oxen, or steam powered tractors.
Some city folks, like me, will grow a certain percentage of their food in community gardens (in backyard or on rooftop) to supplement what they buy at the local market. In a 12' x 14' area I grow mellons, peppers, tomatoes, beans, & basil. More than half I give away because I can't eat as much as I produce.
Food is an extremely high utility resource. We will continue to truck our food across half the country if necessary, no matter if we have to run the trucks on ethanol, manure, library books, or decomposing human flesh. It's that important. Food shipments on some level are the highest priority thing to preserve of any transportation, so we'll keep moving it.
It will just be less intensively farmed, less out-of-season, less meaty, and DEFINITELY less exotic.
It simply isn't possible to feed a city based on land within the confines of the city. This is not a problem. Even if you're assuming a systematic breakdown of order... your garden still doesn't get you anywhere individually, because your garden fences aren't strong enough to hold back a city that didn't garden and is out of food.
I think community gardens are a fantastic idea, but they're equal parts aesthetic and cultural as they are practical. Sure, they help - by the end of the Siege of Leningrad, the entire city was one big community garden. But they still relied on (starvation) grain rations, and many people still starved to death.
Gimme a break. Food will come from 400 miles away by heavy rail, just like in 1870. Do you know why Chicago exists, as a city? It was the shipping point for the produce of the Midwest, especially beef. From Chicago it went down the Great Lakes, across the Erie Canal and to the cities of the Northeast, all before the age of fossil fuels.
Econguy - here is why Chicago grew up to be important to transport: It was the cross roads of our RR based transporation system of the time. All cattle were not shipped through Chicago, just as all grain, hogs and chickens did not pass through there. Most cities, including New York were surrounded by farms that did supply a portion of locally consumed food.
My Grandfather who was born in the 1890's and grew up on a farm, then homesteaded in Montana before WWI, told me a lot about how people raised, transported and distributed food. His father was a railroad contractor turned farmer around 1880 after a collapse of the railroad building business and bancruptcy of many RR's.
One hundred years ago most major cities had stockyards where livestock was traded then sent to a local meat packing plant. The cattle was shipped by rail from maybe 100 to 500 miles to these cities. Shipping some livestock across the country was done, but most livestock did not travel that far. Cattle and hogs raised on Minnesota farms were shipped to Minneapolis and processed there for local groceries and meat markets. Same goes for cities in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Nebraska, etc. The surplus livestock may have been shipped east, but a lot of it was consumed locally. And states like New Jersey did have dairy farms that provided milk, butter, cheese for NY.
Bottom line is that a larger percentage of food will have to be grown locally because fuel cost to transport it will be high, even if by rail. The railroads largely got out of shipping fresh produce and livestock because they were not cost competitive with trucks. I think a large part of the food will still travel by truck, but not as far as now. I formerly worked for two major RR's and have done engineering consulting work for RR's over the last 20 years.
Like virtually all major cities on large bodies of water, Chicago was a port town. The purpose of a port is transportation. The Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes and the Atlantic in 1824. That's why, when the railroads were built, they were connected at Chicago. Most of the city's growth, and its heyday, were indeed during the rail age.
Trucks have been more economical than trains because of highway subsidy, and also the efficiencies of avoiding transshipment. When fuel is more expensive compared to labor (for transshipment), and given recent improvements in transshipment (standardized freight containers), rail will become more attractive compared to trucks. This is already happening.
What do you think of proposals to extensively electrify rail that is now diesel??
City of broad shoulders. Hog butcher of the world. Cattle were slaughtered many places but the Chicago stockyards killed the most.
Tucson was a rail head rancher would drive their cattle to and then load them on the Southern Pacific.
Wrong!
For 800 apartments its 4000 people assuming 5 people in each family. That requires 3200 acres of arable land to produce average food of 2000 calories per person per day (not american food usage of 3500 calories per person per day) with very little meat usage as compare to today's american food usage (62.5 gm versus 250 gm) provided the meat is by mass half from 'white' sources (birds and seafood) and half by farm animals (goats, horses etc)