Post Oil Megacity

Future Hi pal Alex Steffan of World Changing (my favorite blog) has written an excellent piece about how cities can thrive in a post-oil world. He has given me permission to re-post it here. [link to original post]
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The kind of city we're building is a pivot point upon which prospects of a
bright green future turn. As we come to the end of cheap oil and run up against evidence that carbon is changing our planet more suddenly than most would have thought, we're realizing that the pattern of suburban sprawl which for the last forty years has dominated North American cities (and influenced cities around the world) was a really dumb idea. Whatsmore, those suburbs themselves face real challenges, and may in their current incarnations be doomed.

On an urban planet, these sorts of dangers raise disturbing questions. Much
hinges on the pace of innovation and the speed with which we embrace needed reforms. Can we replace an economy whose every fiber vibrates with the logic of cheap oil and careless pollution with one which runs on renewable energy, heals our surrounding ecosystems and creates no waste?

I think we can. James Howard Kunstler strongly disagrees. In a recent
speech, Kunstler savagely (and in a strange way, somewhat joyfully)
announces that we're screwed:

"The world - and of course the US - now faces an epochal predicament: the global oil production peak and the arc of depletion that follows. We are unprepared for this crisis of industrial civilization. We are sleepwalking into the future. ...

Right here I am compelled to inform you that the prospects for alternative fuels are poor. We suffer from a kind of Jiminy Cricket syndrome in this country. We believe that if you wish for something, it will come true. Right now a lot of people - including people who ought to know better - are wishing for some miracle technology to save our collective ass. ...

The future is therefore telling us very loudly that we will have to change the way we live in this country. The implications are clear: we will have to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do. The downscaling of America is a tremendous and inescapable project. It is the master ecological project of our time. We will have to do it whether we like it or not. We are not prepared.

I think Kunstler's wrong, dead wrong, but I encourage you to read his remarks anyway, because some bits Kunstler's terriblisma are probably a fair representation of some of the disasters the developed world will face if cheap oil ends and we've done nothing to prepare ourselves. (Other bits are factually wrong, and others still are just plain silly, part of the weird anti-modern apocalypse dance that environmentalists find
themselves so prone to these days.)

But I don't think we will, in fact , meet this crisis with inaction. I think
we will meet it -- many are already rushing to meet it -- with guts, vision,
intelligence and innovation. And one of our central tasks is the creation of the
post-oil megacity.

(more...)

Given that we live on an urban planet, and given that the predominent urban form is (or is soon to be) the megacity, we need to figure out how to create the systems, technologies and practices which will make a bright green future work.

People like Kunstler don't believe that's possible. Or they believe it is possible, but think we aren't up to the job. Nonsense. We haven't created them all yet, true, but upgrading one's civilization isn't a job you finish overnight. I would argue, however, that we're developing some of the key pieces already:

smart growth and smart places, calming traffic and creating livably
compact cities, like Vancouver;

Large-scale renewable energy projects combined with smart grids and distributed power;

Green buildings, especially homes and workplaces which are greatly more efficient, filled with bright green products and appliances;

Sustainable transportation systems;

New methods of industrial production, leading to a second industrial revolution where waste is food and lifecycle thinking is common;

Innovations in urban form, including the greening of the city by reweaving the natural and built.

The list could go on and on. The point being: this is all stuff we know how to do now. We can rebuild it. We have the technology... or at least the ability to create the technologies. There are hundreds of examples on this site alone. And what we can do today is only the beginning. Yes, the situation is serious and the consequences of failure grave, but we're also growing more and more able to deal with that situation.

What we lack is the vision and the will. The vision we're starting to get -- every day a new plan for rebuilding some key sector of the global economy on new, radically more sustainable lines crosses my desk (take, for instance, Lester Brown's vision of a gas-electric hybrid/ wind power economy). The will is taking a little longer. But I don't think we'll get that will by promoting apocalyptic scenarios.

I think we'll get it by imagining a future worth fighting for, and cities worth building.

Posted by Bennu at February 13, 2005 12:31 AM