Two of the important tenets of the environmental movement are public transit and local food. Has it struck anyone else that these might be conflicting goals?
Practical and pervasive public transit demands density: the maximum number of travelers and destinations in the minimum number of square miles.
Local, beyond-organic agriculture requires more farmers per capita., farmers with substantial land in between them. Farmers in close proximity with non-farmers. Low density.
And it's not just a matter of high or low population density, shared transportation or personal transportation. Urban living is human-centered living on a large, industrial scale. Low-intensity agrarian living is nature-centered and non-industrial -- anti-industrial. Could a hybrid society comprised of modern cities, ringed by farmland, and separated by open space develop organically? Could it support a consensus culture? Are those things among our goals in the first place?
(Yes, I'm still reading The Omnivore's Dilemma)
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