I think it's time for a small recap: I'm not talking in CO₂ terms but in pollution terms. The actual fashion of carbon score etc is an economical and political move, not something tangible and scientific.
In such terms I state that in a spread living we can have a spread economy as well. Witch means we need to move LESS goods around the world for less distance. For instance where I am (French Alps) it's a good climate for trouts farming, chicken farming, production of lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, ... NOT that much but enough if we are in a de-centralized economy to nourish A BIT the resident population. Oh yes it's not enough. But it allow to move significant less merchandise thanks to that small fraction. We can't make shrimps, we can't make enough milk for butter, cream, cheese and direct milk to drink but in a de-centralized economical model it's economically sound develop as much as possible such local resources and so the fraction of long-haul food logistics we need it far reduced. Similarly in single-family homes there is room to stock foods AND the interest of doing it witch means a lot less packaging and so less logistics for them. For instance instead of buying sooo many bottles per year I buy oil in 5 or 10 liters jar, I drop the oil in small oil cruets for normal usage. Similar for wine/beer/vinegar. Instead of buying small individually packed cheeses I buy large ones and freeze all I can freeze, stock in the fridge those who can last few MONTHS and so on. Summing this allow to pollute LESS than being concentrated in small areas and small buildings. USA suburbs are too dense and only residential to be sustainable, a Rivieras is a place where homes are not one attached to another and only residential but a mix of residential and commercial small buildings with enough space around for nature.
So no, I do not makes an error giving up large highways. Certain goods will be more expensive, favoring a local-first economy. Diversification is pushed instead of being massacred so we have our MAIN source of innovation and strength.
That's is. Beside that: do you think tall buildings in cities are eternal? Did you try to imaging how to rebuild them when they'll be EOL? Try just to compute such costs.
I suppose you agree we need economy of scale: where is now economy of scale? We have megafactories, factory-states, consumer-states, ZERO economy of scale ANYWHERE. We do not have real innovation anymore, just popularisation and improvements of existing tech/new use of old tech. We have reached evolutive limits in most areas. What's the future you imaging?
> I'm not talking in CO₂ terms but in pollution terms.
The topic was "If we all cycled like the Dutch, global emissions would drop 700M tonnes".
Some forms of pollution are more critical than others.
> it's economically sound develop as much as possible such local resources and so the fraction of long-haul food logistics we need it far reduced
We had such an economy. Turns out canal and then rail are far more efficient at moving goods than roads. So much so that canal and then rail hubs became important towns and cities.
Cheap fossil fuels then made road transport more economical, allowing suburban and exurban sprawl, like what you enjoy.
> I buy large ones and freeze all I can freeze
You know that people who live in the city can do that too, right? We keep bulk foods in our basement storage, where it's dark and cool.
In the US, Latter Day Saints ("Mormons") believe they should have a three months to a year of food in storage, and many Mormons live in Salt Lake City.
> do you think tall buildings in cities are eternal
"Tall buildings" is a common misdirection by people who don't like cities. "Tall" can be 5 stories, like the one I live in, or it can be 100 stories, like a skyscraper.
No buildings are eternal, including rural ones. Tearing down and building a new 5 story building with 20 apartments is not hard. Likely cheaper than tearing down and re-building 20 free-standing houses. Have you computed the costs?
And a lot of people live in urban areas in detached houses, and "with a mix of residential and commercial small buildings with enough space around for nature."
> ZERO economy of scale ANYWHERE
I can't see how anyone with a basic sense of production history can make that claim.
Even on a physical level, big cargo ships are much cheaper per ton-mile than smaller ones. That's why we have 20,000 TEU+ container ships.
> Some forms of pollution are more critical than others.
Definitively not CO₂... It was chosen just because we can lower it, while we can't with other pollutant...
> We had such an economy. Turns out canal and then rail are far more efficient at moving goods than roads. So much so that canal and then rail hubs became important towns and cities.
That's a VERY interesting point: back then being in a certain place means live better than some other places, so people concentrate. Now? Allow me to quote a little bit more talking about stocking foods, yes it's possible everywhere there is room to store. In dense European cities there is no room for significant storage, the more a building is newer the less space it offer. We start to see people looking for OLD buildings to have more room just to WFH in hybrid (absurd) setups. And that's pose another issue: in dense EU cities there is no room to evolve. Try Google StreetView in some cities of the center and south. How can you rebuild a building without road access (YES, in some large EU cities some "poor housing" was built in the '60s with ONLY stairs to access on the side of a hill with a single road, lately they added some lift, but still NO ROAD nor no room to make one). How can you even plan to demolish a building where such activity demand to relocate 100+ people and blocks few roads FOR MONTHS in places so dense that there is no alternative path or there are very few and obscene?
I do not know enough USA average situation but in center and south EU cities are dead, there is no way to evolve them behind relocating their resident and rebuild them from scratch a thing so expensive nobody even imaging it, and since relocation is needed anyway better to build something without such horrid evolution problem.
Now on economy of scale: what's produced these days in cities? In EU and I bet also in USA on average almost NOTHING. IN the past cities was the place where all artisans go, so where there is competition, and the innovation, low price and specialization. Now only few giants produce, all the rest resell their goods directly or use their machines to produce something with the raw materials the giants supply. We have reached the point of having restaurants without kitchens, they got a different menu per day, packed often pre-heated food on time, they just serve it. We have dishwashers of some vendors made to "work best with our dishes" and so on. That's why I say there is no more economy of scale.
> Even on a physical level, big cargo ships are much cheaper per ton-mile than smaller ones. That's why we have 20,000 TEU+ container ships.
Sure they are cheaper, but they are JUST A PART of a logistic chain. They are cheaper IF there is a mass production, mass shipping, mass unloading in a restricted area. Actually such cheapness is unsustainable. Did you remember the "panic" where the Ever giver stranded in the suez Canal? In IT terms the name is SPOF.
The idea of the world as a factory, just-in-time productions etc have proven to be cheap WHEN ANYTHING GOES WELL, and a damn disaster when anything break even a little bit. A civilization can't take such risk. That's why we see back in fashion the self-sufficient model, witch alone can't work either, NK Juche policy as a good example. Ancient Roman's have a proverb in medio stat virtus (in the mean lie the virtue), witch means we can't be self-sufficient, and we can't be all specialized in a just-in-time giant factory. We can't be in the contryside nor in city. We need a mean way, that's the Riviera model.
In such terms I state that in a spread living we can have a spread economy as well. Witch means we need to move LESS goods around the world for less distance. For instance where I am (French Alps) it's a good climate for trouts farming, chicken farming, production of lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, ... NOT that much but enough if we are in a de-centralized economy to nourish A BIT the resident population. Oh yes it's not enough. But it allow to move significant less merchandise thanks to that small fraction. We can't make shrimps, we can't make enough milk for butter, cream, cheese and direct milk to drink but in a de-centralized economical model it's economically sound develop as much as possible such local resources and so the fraction of long-haul food logistics we need it far reduced. Similarly in single-family homes there is room to stock foods AND the interest of doing it witch means a lot less packaging and so less logistics for them. For instance instead of buying sooo many bottles per year I buy oil in 5 or 10 liters jar, I drop the oil in small oil cruets for normal usage. Similar for wine/beer/vinegar. Instead of buying small individually packed cheeses I buy large ones and freeze all I can freeze, stock in the fridge those who can last few MONTHS and so on. Summing this allow to pollute LESS than being concentrated in small areas and small buildings. USA suburbs are too dense and only residential to be sustainable, a Rivieras is a place where homes are not one attached to another and only residential but a mix of residential and commercial small buildings with enough space around for nature.
So no, I do not makes an error giving up large highways. Certain goods will be more expensive, favoring a local-first economy. Diversification is pushed instead of being massacred so we have our MAIN source of innovation and strength.
That's is. Beside that: do you think tall buildings in cities are eternal? Did you try to imaging how to rebuild them when they'll be EOL? Try just to compute such costs.
I suppose you agree we need economy of scale: where is now economy of scale? We have megafactories, factory-states, consumer-states, ZERO economy of scale ANYWHERE. We do not have real innovation anymore, just popularisation and improvements of existing tech/new use of old tech. We have reached evolutive limits in most areas. What's the future you imaging?