Big Cities; Living Proof that “Growth is Not Good.”
How did Americans become big city dwellers? The vast majority of our citizens live in “Metropolitan America.” In my home state of Colorado, our total population is 4,861,515. Out of that number, 4,175,239 live along the eastern slope of the Rockies in a somewhat narrow band known as the “Front Range Urban Corridor.” Also known as, “the place where Western Slope Coloradoan’s don’t go.”
Narrowing things down a bit further, the metro area known as the “Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area,” is home to about 3,000,000 of our mile high population.
My state is comprised of some 104,100 square miles, yet the vast majority of the population lives in the confines of 8400 square miles! Why?
I have asked many people why they choose to live in the big cities, and the most common answer that I get is, “We have everything here.” On that account, I couldn’t agree more. They have congestion, crime, congestion, corruption, congestion, pollution, congestion, and whole lot of folks who are aspiring NASCAR drivers; yep, everything.
I just can’t get into the big city groove and it’s not because I haven’t been there. Back when I was a director for a large power and transmission company, I drove to Denver each and every month for several years to attend a two day board meeting.
On the afternoons that I would descend out of the mountains into the famous “brown cloud” of pollution, I would get a sick uneasy feeling that refused to go away. On the afternoon that I was returning home, I felt like I was escaping from a sort of imprisonment; similar to the feeling I had the day I was discharged from the Navy.
I would gas up the night before, pack my bags, position my car for a quick getaway and when the adjournment gavel hit the table, I was halfway out the door pulling off my tie and suit coat. Once I arrived at the Eisenhower Tunnel, whose exit would deposit me on the western side of the Continental Divide, I could breathe easy again and a sort of euphoria would come over me.
So why do I feel imprisoned by the city? Am I just whacky or is there some validity to my fears? And what critical issues do I see coming for city dwellers?
In recent times there has been a fair amount of ink devoted to the concept that living in dense populations, using public transportation, and having every imaginable sector of goods and services at ones proximate disposal, should be a model that we aspire to. In other words, the “Calcutta Model”. It is touted as a concept that would preserve open space and farm land. “Walking Communities,” are put up as tomorrow’s model for sustainability. I don’t buy it.
I suggest that going the other direction is the wise thing to do at this point and time for those who can. For many years I called the Alaska Village of Talkeetna home and made critical observations of the benefits of living in a small town.
To begin with, we had no government presence. I know, we should have all died within a week, but we didn’t. We had no police force. “Oh my, who protected you?” Let me just say that mugging in Talkeetna would have been a poor career choice.
We had a volunteer “unpaid” fire department. Sure, the motto for the Talkeetna Volunteer Fire Department was, “We haven’t lost a foundation yet,” but it served us well.
If you can possibly get your mind around it, consider the cost savings to the citizens of Talkeetna by not employing government and a police force! And if you really want to allow your thinking to go buck wild, imagine the freedoms that we enjoyed from this self ruling arrangement.
When we wanted a park in Talkeetna, we built one. And no, we didn’t apply for a dang grant. It was our park, why should someone else be asked to pay for it? When a neighbor had a fire, we helped them rebuild. When someone was stalled along the road, we stopped to give assistance. In other words, we had a community that functioned properly.
I know what many are thinking, “We couldn’t possibly get along without large government and an immediate police presence.” And, certainly those living in large cities can’t; which is my point.
Humans are in fact tribal animals and when the tribes become too large our society begins to break down as it has in every city in the United States. When groups become too large to manage, we tend to hand the management of our lives over to strangers and no one is stranger than Congress. Large government is merely a product of large cities.
This societal breakdown will become far more evident as unemployment and foreclosures rise and our government reaches the inability to continue the charade of deficit spending as the basis for a sustainable economy. Please remember that riots and looting ensue today from something as simple as a power outage!
Lastly, those vast populations living in our modern cities are totally dependent on others to provide even basic necessities such as food.
The majority of city dwellers are involved in non-essential employment. The renowned geophysicist, M. King Hubbert wrote, “Most employment now is merely pushing paper around. The actual work needed to keep a stable society running is a very small fraction of available manpower.”
I believe that the entire sector of non-essentials will continue in its present downward spiral as the stark reality of our house-of-cards economy creeps into our lives. (I would love to be wrong about that, but I don’t think so).
So to answer the question of why the majority of our population live in large cities; “The Biggest Lie Ever Believed” is not only the title of my book, the lie that I refer to is that same lie perpetrated on the WORLD by every political leader and corporate director in America, “growth is good.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
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When too many people are living too close together, there are problems.. The response to those problems are police, and more laws.. The problems remain, because the solutions don’t work.. More problems, and then more solutions that don’t work..
What they need, is smaller communities that are more responsible.. I’m living in Talkeetna because it’s as far away as I can reasonably get, and still live in the u.s… I hate to admit I am part of this society.. I am trying to change things.. But, it’s not working.. I think first, we have unite, and change our propaganda machine into responsible media.. Only then, might other changes be possible.. WmA….
Willy,
It is interesting to consider that big problems come from big populations living in close proximately and big government and lose of freedoms are the outcome.
You said, ” When too many people are living too close together, there are problems.. The response to those problems are police, and more laws.. The problems remain, because the solutions don’t work.. More problems, and then more solutions that don’t work.”
I couldn’t agree more. Most often the solutions are far worse than the problems. “If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” — Will Rogers
Too many people, living too close together. Don’t believe anyone could disagree with the problems that will follow this trail.
“A responsible media”; now there is a real life oxymoron. How about another one; “an informed media?” How about this one, “an educational media”, because that is what the majority of our nation use for their education; the media. You know that big screen magic box that consumes so much of our time these days. The one the government uses to convey it’s leaks to the public.
We have a gullible, uniformed, ignorant population because we do not have the ambition to be reasoning beings anymore. We have become spoiled, whining, brats, who have had it too good for too long. It is easier to get all of our information from the TV sound bites. And besides, it has been a pretty darned good life for quite some time now. So the media will let me know which way to turn and our government will have us back on track in no time.
Maybe I should have started this out with “Once upon a time” or maybe, “Hey boys, now this ain’t no s—!!!!” -bb
This old dude here pretty much hit it on the nail. Here lies much of the reasoning that led us to the exponential economy we use today. And some of the reasons we are expanding our cities to such huge proportons today.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. This issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of the moneyed corporations which already dare to challenge our Government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”
Thomas Jefferson, 1791
Mike,
I certainly agree with you but what can we do about it, our insane immigration policies are continuing to grow the population and there is a certain and not insignificant percentage of the population who believe that more people are better than fewer. What on earth can we do to change this mindset ?
As the good Dr. Paul says, “The Fed creates money out of thin air.” If only if were so easy for us to pay it back!
Our monetary system is badly broken and cannot work long term due to the exponential effect of compounding interest. Here is a good link submitted by Gila on the creation of money…very interesting.
http://www.theuniverseas.com/the-burden-of-debt-based-money-the-core-issue“>
Robert,
We need a massive paradigm shift. As you suggested not only does the general public think growth is good, they believe that growth is the normal state as if it were universal law and we were powerless to control it.
M. King Hubbert challenged exponential growth mathematically and concluded that it is in fact the opposite of the normal state.
The U.S. government has countered our natural zero population growth (which occurred around 1964), by increasing immigration in order to continue our model of growth as an economic basis which of course won’t work.
What is interesting is that our jobs are being shipped out and immigrant job seekers are being shipped in by the same government. Go figure.
All we can do is continue to educate those around us to what is happening and encourage our representatives to curtain all immigration.
That will be difficult with two pro-immigration (legal and illegal) candidates running for president. I personally am writing in Ron Paul on the ballot.
Hey Mike, Been awhile since I wrote. I am with you as far as cities go. I just don’t feel right with all the traffic and people. Even where I live here in small little Palmer Alaska it can get crowded in early morning or late afternoon. And we still only have 4 stop lights. I sometimes drive the hour and half to Talkeetna just to walk around and have lunch or a glass of tea. Most everybody parks down by the park or railroad and amble about. It a little touristy in summer. But still small town. By the way your picture is still in the Fairview. Red
Red!
I was just thinking about not hearing from you.
Remember when Palmer didn’t have a traffic light?
It’s an honor to know that my picture still remains in the immortal halls…okay, on the piano, at the Fairview Inn.
When we hear the old timers talk about the good old days, they hadn’t overlooked the difficulties of their past life, they were talking about personal freedom and personal space, which far outweighed the difficulties.
However, one can’t miss what they never had nor can they possibly understand the sweet intoxication a self governed free society.
We who were fortunate enough to have lived on “The Last Frontier” will also be last of the Americans who will remember “the good ol’ days” and perhaps, the last to comprehend that our countries defined policy for “growth” destroyed America.
Throughout the entire intellectual history of the US, there has been a strong bias against cities. The larger the city, the greater the animosity. Country life is good, and city live is bad.
In their song “Lyin’ Eyes”, the Eagles noted that “every form of refuge has its price.” If you think about it, there are plenty of good things that take place in large cities. Consider that things like plumbing fixtures, HVAC and farm equipment is all made in larger cities. When you only have enough population to tend the farm, you don’t have the specialists, or the large markets that make all of these things possible.
When we loose the large cities, we also loose modern technology and the economies of scale that make them possible.
How much life saving medical technology has been developed and manufactured in rural America? How many Level One trauma centers are there to save your life when you get your arm mangled in a Combine? The cars that allow country folks to travel freely are made in large cities.
Large cities only exist because we have a system of agriculture that feeds more people than it takes to grow, process and transport the crops. Without the “excess population”, we loose large cities, and the specialists and mass markets that make life the country so good.
If you had to live without our modern technology, I don’t think would would find “small town life”, so appealing.
More to the point, large cities aren’t the problem, they are simply a by-product of our technological success and over population. If we depopulated all of our “big” cities, we would simply trade one set of problems for another.
We have almost seven billion people on the planet, try moving all of them into communities that are small enough to “self govern”. Never mind that there would be conflict between the small cities; tribes, if you will, as they overshot the carrying capacity of their hinterlands. Ultimately, people would band together into larger groups for self defense. I think you can see where this is going.
If we are to solve our problems, we need to look beyond the deeply ingrained bias against cities and analyze the root causes of our problems.
Greg,
Yes, every form of refuge has it’s price. I actually perform that song and I love the Eagles.
But to your point regarding the necessities of cities. The original establishment of cities were for protection and to accommodate the butcher the baker and the candlestick maker economy prior to the industrial revolution when transport by horse necessitated close proximity.
Note that my article refers to “big cites.” Most manufacturing takes place in smaller cites. I grew up near Muncie and Anderson Indiana where between the two there were more than 10 major industrial manufacturing plants, neither are large cities.
In my home town of Dunkirk Indiana, farming and manufacturing lived side by side with two large glass plants, yet the town population was around 5,000 at its peak.
I flew a couple of senior United Airline Stewardess’s on a flight-seeing trip when I was flying in Talkeetna. They hung around our village for a few days and joined in with the locals for cookouts, music and simply “hangin’ around.
When they left, they said that they envied me. When I asked why, they said it was because I was “somebody.” They continued that everyone knew me and spoke to me and asked my opinion about the fishing, flying, etc. They explained that in New York, that they lived in an apartment with three locks on the door, were constantly guarded against muggers, and didn’t know the neighbors.
They saw themselves as anonymous faces in a massive sea of humanity.
As far as living without technology, I have and I love it. Technology in many ways helps us to overpopulate and to exploit our natural resources at ever greater production which in turn will limit our the time that humans can maintain on earth. I wrote much on this subject in my book.
The root causes of our problem is exponential growth…too many people live in too small an area; the very subject of my article.
Thanks for taking the time to give your perspective.
I agree that exponential growth is major problem, and technology can be the enabler that allows the former, although it doesn’t have to be.
Ultimately, the “mega” cities like New York, London, Beijing and Tokyo and others will depopulate. However, Peak Oil will make distribution of products to thousands of small, widely disbursed centers prohibitively expensive.
Economies of scale are needed to sustain commerce. An urban geographer can determine that threshold, and oil costs will determine how far we will be able to ship things.
That said, in the future, small towns will probably resemble those of the early 19th, or 20th century, depending upon the level of collapse. That might not be all bad; but in many ways, it won’t be that good either.
I don’t have much; don’t expect much and don’t want much. I live 14 miles outside a town of less than 200 people. We have no telephone lines to our area. But we also do not have a lot of the big city mentality invading our space, yet.
I like big cities, mostly because it gives many like minded people a place to gather and live away from others, like me, whose thoughts and expectatons are alien from the city dwellers.
One thing I do not like about the big cities, is the masses that back candidates like McCain and Obama who are ruining our great nation at a very rapid pace these days. All mostly because the big city thinkers become too busy with many nothing projects that they have no time to educate themselves, so they use the sound bites from their TVs for that process. And most do not want to be un-cool, so they continue to vote themselves and the rest of us deeper into the gutter, because, “you can’t throw your vote away on someone who does not have a chance of winning”. Of course their definition of winning and mine are very differnt also. My definition still includes integrity and character. But then this is just one of the many reasons I choose to live far away from that and those who choose to be alien to my beliefs. -bb
Billy B and Greg,
It appears that this article has once more brought out the deep divisions that exist between Americans.
These are the divisions that I fear will not allow our country to ever again come together as a nation. As the economy worsens, the divisions will become far more evident.
We can add Country vs City to the list of Liberals vs Conservatives, Pro Life vs Pro Choice, Guns vs Anti Guns, Higher Taxes vs Lower Taxes, Big Government vs Small Government, etc. etc. etc.
How will we ever become one nation again?
Mike, you raise an interesting issue. Can 300 million people agree on anything? If we assume that people are educated, reasonable and open-minded; then yes, we should be able to reconcile differences. Assuming there is some overlap in our positions.
But here is the really interesting part. Although there is a great deal of diversity of opinion in this country, and there are real differences, those positions are being exploited and deliberately polarized by the wealthy and powerful to prevent the masses of people from uniting against them regarding issues of economic justice, environmental and political reform. Let’s face it, for all the perceived and real differences, we have a great deal in common. Most Americans are being victimized in the same way, by the same oppressor. If the Blacks, Hispanics, Anglos, men, women, theists, atheists, Jews, Christians, etc., ever united on the issues of economic justice for the masses and environmental concerns, the plutocrats and oligarchs wouldn’t stand a chance, and they know it.
They have embarked on what is probably the greatest propaganda effort in the history of mankind. They have divided and conquered, despite being very badly out numbered. The American people need to wise-up, set aside our differences for now, and unite on common ground before it is too late.
Greg,
I couldn’t agree more regarding the cause of the division. The two party system need each other far more than we need them.
I have often said that the greatest threat to our political system would be for all of the voters to wake on the same morning.
Most people are educated by sound bites and their perception of which candidate will further their own personal lifestyle.
The one possibility of bringing people back together is a common cause that poses severe enough consequences to the multitudes as to result in laying our differences aside for the common good.
As strange as it sounds, a depression of sorts could be just what the doctor ordered if it were determined that our government was the cause; both sides of the aisle I might add.