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Peter Newman: Cities Must Adapt or Face Collapse
December 2nd, 2008 by Peter NewmanIn my first blog post, I suggested that we need to respond to the present economic crash in ways that do not undermine the basic cause of our dysfunctional global urban economy. The issues of peak oil and climate change are exposing the weakness of building our cities with growing car dependence.
Resilient Cities is a new approach to how cities must adapt or they will collapse in the light of the major challenges of peak oil and climate change. Fundamental reductions in fossil fuel use are now being driven by demand constraints imposed by climate change governance and supply constraints due to production declines in petroleum fuels. Resilient Cities suggests how cities can respond to such challenges as an economic opportunity, though the book also outlines how “Collapse City,” “Ruralized City,” and “Divided City” responses are also possible though highly undesirable.
“Collapse City” is the only option for a number of people who see the history of cities that do not adapt quickly enough. This can happen but is more terrible than even the most pessimistic can imagine.
“Ruralised City” is how permaculture advocates believe that cities must be broken down into self sufficient food production areas rather than continuing as cities. Cities are most unlikely to diminish their historic role in providing new opportunity and innovation; spreading cities out into lower density because it will be good for food growing undermines their resilience. Local food growing will be more important but cities will not be replaced by food-growing suburbs.
“Divided City” is where market approaches alone are used and the wealthy rapidly move into eco-enclaves with all the good transit, cycling and walking as well as green buildings; the rest of the city then descends into Mad Max suburbs desperately trying to cope with transport and land use no longer suited to a carbon and fuel constrained world.
“Resilient City” will make available to everyone all that is beginning to happen in the eco-enclaves of cities growing in their demonstrations of resilience.
My next blog post will start to show what this can mean and how we can begin to change our cities towards resilience…
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Peter Newman is Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is the co-author of Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems, Green Urbanism Down Under, and Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Peter,
It would be very beneficial to simultaneously develop and link to your model, a model of diversified rural sustainable economies, where information and communication technologies enable the level of education and coordination that occurs in cities, leading to a power relationship that is symbiotic rather than parasitic (city-based processors and wholesale buyers able to pay farmers less than it takes to grow the food, etc.). The linkage can partly take the form of descriptions of what the rural areas can create and its implications, including rural-based distribution systems that sell to markets and / or end users in the cities, cutting the power of the traditional middle-men. If wealth is not hemorrhaging from rural to urban areas, then rural economies can rapidly strengthen, and people will not be driven to the cities in hope of economic opportunity. If there is systematic identification and communication of sustainable and profitable environmental services for each ecosystem (in BOTH rural and urban areas) other disadvantages of rural areas can also be remedied, and the systems requirements of cities can be met more efficiently. Would you like to discuss these ideas in more detail?
December 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Greetings, Peter!
My name is Dana Miller, and I am with Transition Denver. I see you are speaking in Boulder in an event cosponsored by Transition Boulder County, CU and the Urban Land Institute.
Are you presenting in Denver during your stay in Colorado? If not, can we explore some possibilities with you?
February 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
[...] two major challenges or they will collapse. The book discusses four possible outcomes for cities: “collapse,” “ruralized,” “divided,” and “resilient.” Rather than dwelling on doomsday predictions, the authors choose hope, saying that we as humans can [...]
July 19th, 2010 at 5:28 am
I just took a look at your website,and I find it