Baycrest
We’re an urban species. Globally 50 per cent of us now live in a city. In Canada that number is over 80 per cent. We’re no longer surrounded by agricultural fields or forests or wild nature. There are more of us living closer together. There are more of us living.
Cities are more populously dense which is a good thing for us and for the planet. Living where other people live means we can share things. When we share things we tend to lessen the amount of items we need or time needed for tasks — time to pick something up that our neighbour could share with us time used to get to work because work is where you live. We can share a drill share a chore like shovelling snow in front of our homes share spaces so we can live and work in those same spaces. We can share the roads. When we share we reduce the energy demand on building and running things. Research tells us that living together — living close to where we work and play and shop — requires less carbon consumption.
But the global population is increasing and more people are migrating to cities to live and work. There’s increasing demand for urban infrastructure for pipes buses roads schools parks homes food. We can’t simply share our way to meeting these demands. A complete rethink of our lives is needed. There’s only so much land on which to build new neighbourhoods and extract resources. There’s only so much ecosystem “supply” to service our demands of food water shelter living.
Wait you think. I can go to the grocery store for food. I turn on the tap and the water is clean. I have a bed to sleep in. And if I don’t have any of these I just need to work harder and make more money to get these things. A city will flood. There’ll be ice storms that bring down trees and power lines. There’ll be a drought and I’ll have to water my lawn less some food crops will fail. A pest outbreak will decimate the supply of oranges in Florida or California or Mexico but we can import them from somewhere else. That’s the magic of the grocery store supply chain. Besides all the bad is just a cycle. Things will be better again. Waters will recede ice will melt pests will be sprayed and killed. I won’t have to change my lifestyle. I’ll get what I need. That’s how the system has worked and will continue to work. The global supply chain will feed my demands. The things I demand might be a little harder to get cost a bit more to dig up but they’ll be there for me.
This way of thinking is not uncommon. It’s what can happen when the supply-chain system removes us from the consequences of our demands. Being urban has tended to separate us from the natural environment. We’ve lost our connection to the food we eat the water we drink the materials that provide us with shelter. Cities have tended to grow outwardly to supply us with new homes. Growing out meant removing nature and replacing it with homes and lawns and roads and malls. We’ve lost the memory of how we respond to the environment how to work with it. We’ve disrupted or destroyed natural ecological processes without understanding or realizing the repercussions.
Forecasts predict 60 per cent of us will be living in urban centres by 2050. We’re going to become more global and there’s going to be more of us — perhaps doubling in population. As we become more urban more global and more populous we need to completely revisit the structure of our lives of our cities and of our global connections.
We need to reconnect with the environment. Our global food supply chain will have to change so that one-third of our food does not go to waste as it does now according to the United Nations Environment Program. We need to restructure cities so that we’re not dependent on the automobile and stuck in traffic for what amounts to nearly a week every year. We have to change our behaviours that disrupt the planet’s ecosystems. We have to implement the precautionary principle that demands an action be proved harmless before it’s allowed to proceed. We need greater data and research to understand the consequences of our actions and how to change our behaviours. We have to rethink what it means to be urban and global. We need to be surrounded by more trees and wetlands and grasslands and wild nature not parking lots big box stores and sound walls. We have to tax what hurts both us and the planet including consumption waste carbon and financial transactions. Those funds will have to be used for what encourages us to share to be healthy to restore and protect nature and to continue researching and understanding what it means to be urban and global and connected. What living in the 21st century actually entails.
Steven Snell is a professional city planner with a master’s in urban planning. His columns focus on spatial justice and the city. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him on Twitter @stevenpsnell.
