12 Jun
2013
12 Jun
'13
10:08 a.m.
Relevant:
http://www.verticalfarm.com/
Practical?
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:28 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net>wrote;wrote:
Re. Sonja and how the food gets there:
What you said, is about how food gets from the entrance of the highrise to
the apartments IN the highrise. I was asking about how the food gets TO
the highrises. From the farms, to the market or store shelves, to the
front door of the highrise (or whatever building the eater of the food
lives in).
Our food supply largely moves by truck, at cross country distances, and
the difference in total truck miles to city, suburban, and rural
destinations, is minimal.
The primary added impact of suburbs and rural is of individuals driving to
the store for resupply. But the country mice and suburban mice both have
more space in their nests to store food, than the city mice do, so they end
up making fewer trips for food. Country mice also tend to make food
shopping a social activity with neighbors, so the trips that are made are
often car-pooled.
The way to get the cars out of the equation is by having a sufficient
number of grocery stores within true walking distance to homes. That means
a couple of blocks at most, and real grocery stores, not "convenience"
stores. That's the development pattern in Manhattan. New York City also
has grocery delivery from most of those stores via pedal-powered cargo
tricycles (these are even manufactured locally).
One thing New York City doesn't have a whole lot of, is solar power,
because a concrete jungle of highrises is also a truly crappy landscape for
solar, and one couldn't generate enough power on those rooftops to even
begin to provide for the actual usage in the apartments below.
Discussions of sustainability and density all too easily succumb to one of
the fatal flaws of the Western system of logic, "the fallacy of the
excluded middle," where the choices are "bloated suburbs" on one hand,
and
"high-density highrises" on the other, with nothing in between, when in
fact there are plenty of design options in between.
-G.
=====
On 13-06-11-Tue 6:55 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
HOW DOES THE FOOD GET TO THE HIGHRISES!??!?! If only .... People could
.... Hold groceries ... In ... i don't know .... Their arms?!?!?! While
standing in some kind of box .... That moves vertically. It's all just too
hard to imagine. Surely there is no place on earth where people live in
high rise apartment buildings.
On Tuesday, June 11, 2013, Jehan Tremback wrote:
Are you telling us that high density urban
housing is not more efficient
than sprawled out rural housing? Keep in mind that the vast majority of
people will not be subsistence farming. Also, as it relates to the Bay,
people are not going to be going back to the land because of SF rent. They
will move to Walnut Creek and sit in traffic for 2 hours a day, burning
gas.
-Jehan
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 6:01 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net>wrote;wrote:
Hi Jehan;-)
Ahh, the good ol' city mouse vs. country mouse arguement. If we avoid
ad-homs this should be fun.
First of all, a-priori generalizations are a-priori invalid. Individual
ecological impact depends on lifestyle and employment, which vary widely
for both city and country.
One of the largest impacts is commuting by automobile. A country mouse
who's a telecommuter will have a zero commuting impact. A city mouse whose
workplace isn't served by public transport will most likely end up driving
to work. That comparison, in and of itself, falsifies your
generalization.
Are you willing to argue publicly that all the city mice whose places of
employment aren't served by public transport, or who work late/overnight
shift and live or work in places where taking public transport is overtly
dangerous, should quit their jobs and seek employment elsewhere?
Re. smaller apartments: Can you operationalize your variables? How
small? Have you ever drawn a floorplan for one? I've drawn plenty of
floorplans, down to 160 square feet, and I'll gladly show them to you any
time we have a chance to get together.
Re. highrises: Can you operationalize those variables too? How does the
water get in, how does the sewage get out, and where does the money come
from to rip & replace the existing underground infrastructure for that
purpose? And what do you do with a 10- or 20- story building full of
people, after the expected 7.0+ on the Hayward or San Andreas takes out the
power grid, water mains, and sewer mains, for a period of weeks to months?
(We'll assume the building remains standing, though that can't be taken for
granted.)
Also about highrises, what do the children do at playtime?, where does
the food come from to feed all those people in the high-density highrises?,
and how does the food get there? Who has ownership? Who has control? Who
makes the rules?
Sweeping generalizations are easy; designing in detail and walking the
talk isn't.
In the next round I'll describe what I do about water, electricity,
gasoline, and refuse.
Cheers-
-G.
=====
On 13-06-11-Tue 9:34 AM, Jehan Tremback wrote:
"Also there's a difference between a 160-square-foot house you build for
yourself on land you and your friends own, and a 160-square-foot cell in an
apartment complex that some developer builds as a means of extracting more
money from the tenants."
If you want to go out to the country and build a house on cheap land,
that's your choice. You will be damaging the environment with your
inevitable automobile use. If you want to live in the city, as many of us
do, you will have to deal with the fact that many other people do as well.
There are 2 ways to get more people onto a smaller piece of land-
1. Smaller apartments (I put tenants subdividing apartments in this
category as well)
2. Replace 1950's style suburban houses with high rises.
These facts are completely independent of whatever system of government
and economy.
-Jehan
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 4:32 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net>wrote;wrote: