RE: The New Urbanization
I think EM has nailed it this morning about how the new urbanization works. One aspect of it that he hasn't mentioned, and is almost heresy to bring up, is that urban cultures are dominated by human values and don't give a flying fig about Nature or non-humans. While it is only natural for people to be fascinated by people, I find they get boring pretty quickly, especially when compared to a nice hike through the forest or a boat ride out on the bay.
While I am only an "n of 1" (sample size), my guess is that there will be a phenomenon of post-urbanization, not of the post-apocalyptic kind that is most easily imagined, but where people like myself figure out that the good life is living out of the cities, like TJ in his French paradise. The early post-urbanizers will be people of advantage who can retire in such places or who have businesses in cities that they can live on. But I suspect over time, more and more people will figure out how to live relatively simple, comfortable lifestyles in rural places, nothing like the abject poverty that drives people to the cities in the first place.
I suspect that urbanization is a transitional stage of humanity, a useful stage to get our organizational skills together. But along with it comes all the pollution, consumerism, etc that are endemic to cities, not to mention urban culture (sic), which like the religion of our parents that we grew up with, is so bad, yet familiar, that we don't know realize how bad and destructive it can be. (ie. Elmatador's Puritanism)
Even TJ's kids realized immediately that having a green world to roam around in is a wonderful thing. TJ himself will be a little slower coming to the same conclusion.
-dan |
