Vertical cities

[tater]

The most popular fruit in the US is banana. Unless you live in Hawaii (they have really good, local bananas), this means they are not local. 

Regarding the small farm paradigm, how many other people will that 100 acre farm feed? Looks like the typical figure given is something on the order of 1.2 acres per person. An acre of city holds little over 100 people, so you need something like 100X the number of city acres as farmland.

[YNM]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Just look at any nowadays capital city.

A pyramide-like bunch of skyscrapers (the wannabe arcology) surrounded by endless fields of cottages with hundreds of thousands kilometers of roads, pipes and cables per city.
The only conceptual change: replace the roads between the skyscrapers and connect them into a bound structure.

Or, let's recreate tiny villages neatly arranged, cover Mother Earth with the system and everyone uses bikes !

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

You already are moving all these millions every day.
But currently you move them by cars, buses, etc - and just don't see them at once. Currently you are moving them for 100 km, in arcology - 1-2 km.
From POV of the system in whole, the total amount of moving objects will stay the same, while the distance decreases for dozens of times.

And nothing prohibits to take down a section of the arcology, previously disconnecting it from the pattern.
But then it's much easier to rise its replace if you have a ready building scaffolds aside - its neighbor sections. Already with energy, water and transport.

Not needed with my proposed way of dissolving things up instead of concentrating it down.

2 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

"Using up" farmland is the result of the current paradigm of factory monocrop farm methods that rely on chemical fertilizers to maintain the bare necessities of fertility.  You could basically grow corn in sand with that system, but that's not the point.  The main crop that is grown by these huge factory farms is corn, which is used to feed literally everything from livestock to cars (ethanol) to us.  Just try finding a processed food product that doesn't contain some form of corn in it, its hard. 

Food costs in this case are determined by transportation costs and spoilage rates, but a small, diversified, family sized farm of about 100 acres can sustain not only the family that owns it, but be their sole source of income from selling direct to the end consumer.  With this intensive level of farming, it is easily possible to provide the entire planet with healthy, natural food from local sources.  Vertical farming is quite frankly, a silly idea made by people who have very little experience farming and no experience in sustainable farming practices.

Sugarcane ? Rice ? I know they're still staple food... You should generalize it to staple food.

I agree with your POV though. This, people, is the reason why we had the term urbanization, and why most government are against it. Although we have to adapt with anything that came from the local area, so certainly you can't have red apple in the Middle East or dates in Europe, the ecological effects are smaller, and you don't need to build massive contraptions.

One more thing to look at, though :

I'm surprised that the most densely populated countries doesn't really have everything in a city... While the sparse one does.

Edited April 15, 2016 by YNM

[tater]

What is the definition of "urbanized" in that image? My state is the size of many of the countries on that map, and our population density is 6.62 people/km². That doesn't even count that fact that over half the people in the state live in Albuquerque. None the less, the whole US (look at Alaska! is "75-100% urbanized."). That image is nonsense.

Perhaps it is by nation, and expresses the % of the population that lives in urban areas? That I'd buy. In which case the US is tiny pockets of people, and vast areas of nothing (far closer to reality).

[YNM]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Perhaps it is by nation, and expresses the % of the population that lives in urban areas? That I'd buy. In which case the US is tiny pockets of people, and vast areas of nothing (far closer to reality).

Guess that's the case. Maybe Asia is just so dense they gave up dissecting things into cities XD

But you can certainly see what I'm talking about... Even with everything on ground level, things can get pretty dense...

[tater]

Except it says nothing about density.

It has to be saying that X% of the population lives in "urbanized" areas, not that 75-100% (for example) of the US is at urban density, that's nonsense.

Edited April 15, 2016 by tater

[YNM]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

It has to be saying that X% of the population lives in "urbanized" areas, not that 75-100% (for example) of the US is at urban density, that's nonsense.

Correlate the two maps... and you'll see, big cities isn't what you need. Urbanized areas is about an area which is "invaded" by people from other areas, moving from "rural" to "urban". Look at India ! I mean, maybe it's not the greatest thing you can have but they still live there ! They don't need to import any foods or distribute staple food around... (self sustain, to say !). Maybe the big cities of the US should be dissolved out ? Arcologies are just boosting urbanization... not gonna work around here.

[Stargate525]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Power density of radiant energy ~ 1/distance².

To create the same power density on the receiving antenna you would apply in transmitter  (1000/10)² = 10000 less power when you are in 10 m from the receiving antenna, rather than when you are in 1 kilometer.
So, as transmitting devices power decreases many times, the total energy lost decreases in turn.
It's much easier to keep warm a ton of cow, than a ton of mice.

 

You've made the correlation for me. It's easier to warm that single cow (a single transmitter) than the thousands you'd need in a tower. Sure, you lose a little on the power, but that's more than made up for with less networking bandwidth, ease of repair, and the centralization of the device.

[tater]

Urban areas use less resources than the people spread out, however. 

[AngelLestat]

Is hard to keep the speed of this topic.

20 hours ago, tater said:

5-8 stories is a vastly different thing than the skyscrapers pictured in the video, connected by lobbies. I'd add that individual buildings, even large buildings, are a totally different concept than a "sky city" that is purpose-built as a single structure.
A better model might be to create zoning/tax incentives to make the most use of vertical space. So you'd get some perks for including outside space (which would require it be built to hold soil, and a large % must be plant life)  above ground level, but it needs to be some relationship to the total floor area of the building (X times floor area to encourage multiple outdoor bridges). Also give tax breaks, etc for connecting buildings after the fact. So you build a such a facility, then I build one on the land next door... we arrange for my sky lobby to attach to yours, and we both receive a tax incentive. You want or more natural city growth, and this would provide it.

Yeah, those 5 to 8 will be like minimun, with also few areas at ground level to let enter the sunlight, but you will have also another continue surface at the 8 floor level where you can see higher structures rise from that.  
There are two ways to do this.. one will be with construction rules, anyone can make their buildings but fulfilling all integration rules that the city requires.
The other way is like you mention, the state is always in charge of common infrastructure, in this case the common infrastructure would be a base structure design for all the city (just for vertical support and to deal with smart resource management). That way will be more uniform esthetic, it will require higher taxes and lower investment from the private sector.

19 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This is an 3rd world problem, 
3rd world is 30-60 year behind, their issue is not building gigant cities who they could not afford and would collapse because of mismanagement before people move inn, 
Yes its another issue cities are pretty robust as in manages large scale disruptions pretty well and organic. How will this mega-building work then someone hack the ventilation system or during an blackout? 

18 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

The world is seeing explosion in the middle class because Asia and South America is largely where we were in the 1940s. What's happening here is going to happen to those countries in 30-50 years, and will happen to Africa when and if that mess ever gets sorted out. We're buying their stuff because it's cheap, but we more and more unable to employ ourselves, which removes those people from the consumer pool.

OMG O_o XD,  what are you two saying?   30 to 60 years behinds??  1940?  south america?  hahahaha..  This was an answer to my country example? If it was, that  is clear lack of info about the rest of the world.
We have the same things you have..  the only difference is average income..  we earn 3 times less in average, we save money in other things but we keep our technology thirst the same,  that's it. 
In fact, development speaking we may be even more advance in farming technology and machinery, we are at the same level of spain in health research.
Yeah you may have some people living as many years ago far of cities and in remote locations, but this also happens in USA or in the whole world, does not apply to the whole country or region.

18 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

We're both outsourcing and automating. We don't have the manufacturing jobs because we are both a) replacing the line with robots and b) legislating that a line worker be paid 50-60x more than the same-skilled line worker in a foreign country with laxer laws.

Your first paragraph is true for makers; a more efficient mill will make more flour. However, that does not increase the demand for flour. Prices drop. Your miller can't reduce the cost of the mill, but they can fire one of his mill-runners, thereby maintaining his profit. In a normal, healthy economy that's okay, and the mill-runner will find a different job.

But we don't have a normal, healthy economy. Replace the mill with the self-driving car and drones. You'll see full adoption by the transportation industries as soon as the public allows it, let's say 5 years. In five years, you've eliminated 80-100% of all jobs whose primary job is driving: truckers, cabbies, chauffeurs, deliverymen, mailmen. 4 Million jobs gone in 5 years. Where are they going to go? Their skill is obsolete. you've removed that cost on your products, yes, but you've simultaneously taken a cudgel to your consumer base. It's happened before where rapid technological innovation has stagnated and killed an economy, and it's not a guarantee that it recovers.

media content creation is being heavily attacked by traditional media or being subsumed by it. Follow the attempts to pass more stringent restrictions on copyright and fair use law for that story. It's not more efficient, it's advertising delivery. Access to information does not magically create profit, especially when the majority of the country is an employee, not an employer.

You are making a common mistake..  try to view economy as a whole aiming to understand it or predict it is pointless.
You cant, nobody can!   What science does to understand things?  They divide the problem until they find the basic pieces and principles, then understanding that, they can make predictions (inside a certain frame of reference (who does not contain much variables).
Economy is the same, no even a computer (today) can predict the consumer choice and the strategic decisions of each individual on the world..
So if we can understand this problem from the basic principles of economy in which for each individual there is a higher chance to choice the best cost efficient option and then generate extra profit with that (because it saves time or money), and with that extra profit it generates work and profit to others, then we can start to understand how economy works, we can even compare with reality, we have many examples of new breakthroughs or changes who bring profit to the whole world...  then there is no reason to think it will be different this time, because new opportunities and works always arrive (if it happens at a decent human speed), a very different thing would be the development of an AI.
Which it happens super fast, and from 1 year to the next people discover that an algorithm can replace and take better decisions than any other intellectual job, so we lost our purpose more than a job.

14 hours ago, YNM said:

Consumption time for goods can't be predicted ? Why should it differs in an apartment ? I understand you're talking about the ability to average things out but in any case, tall buildings needs more interior lighting, even at day. That means more power consumption. Oh yes roads needs lighting (at night only) but a more clever road lighting shouldn't just safe energy but also avoids light pollution.

Ok, example number 1 did not work.. I will try in a different way.
This is similar to the case of predict how many coins will fall head or tail.  
If you drop 3, there is a considerable chance than 3 fall head, or the 3 tail..  But if you increase your coin number to 1000 for example, you will be able to predict with enough certainty that 45% to 55% of the coins will fall head. That amount of certainty is what allows you to calculate your storage needs without overstate, to not delivery a lot of power, etc..  For each good and services.
I made those calculations a lot of times, believe me, because another extra cost comes from investment (credit) and payback time, You can reduce by 10 times the cost to accomplish the same thing in some cases, more if you add other services and products.

14 hours ago, YNM said:

You don't waste much structural construction... Have you ever look at the foundations for skyscrapers ? If you're talking that the low level buildings around is supporting the much higher building, that's another way of saying that you brought the base of the foundation a few floor level up. Not much difference.

In a house... The supporting columns can be as thin as the wall. (no, seriously.)

Houses also need foundations, the amount needed for each case like buildings depends on the type of grounds, if you add the meters for each single house, you end up with a similar amount of meters for the whole building replacing all those homes, also each time buildings are lighter and industrialized, as the one planned in China, tall as burj khalifa (but much bigger) and it will be made in 1 month.  

14 hours ago, YNM said:

I guess now I can understand your POV. The same thing happens in Indonesia, where almost all things are cultivated in Java with Sumatra practically used for palm plantations, Borneo as place for logging and coal mining and other islands either too dry or is still in wilderness. Food prices are higher on other island because of the transport required, but otherwise is cheap here. Blame it on staple food uniformity (rice, which before have been more diverse including wheat, corn, cassava, sago and tuber which all are more suitable for other islands) but still other things are distributed from Java to other island too.

But it has nothing to do with Argentina, because almost all foods are cultivated here, the only difference may be taxes, that are considerable high here, but in world average..  30% to  50% of transport cost has to be normal, then we need to add distribution cost and seller store cost. 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

OMG O_o XD,  what are you two saying?   30 to 60 years behinds??  1940?  south america?  hahahaha..  This was an answer to my country example? If it was, that  is clear lack of info about the rest of the world.
We have the same things you have..  the only difference is average income..  we earn 3 times less in average, we save money in other things but we keep our technology thirst the same,  that's it. 
In fact, development speaking we may be even more advance in farming technology and machinery, we are at the same level of spain in health research.
Yeah you may have some people living as many years ago far of cities and in remote locations, but this also happens in USA or in the whole world, does not apply to the whole country or region.

30-60 years in large scale sosial trends like population growth and priority of environment and pollusjon reduction. Population growth changes in the generation perspective. 
Environment has not been seen as an major problem up until recently in many countries as poverty has been an larger one, this has also been mostly correct strategy, but you see the same pattern as you had in the US and Europe. 
Regarding some infrastructure like telecommunication you have the benefit of no legacy structures who is cheaper to patch in the start. Same as many European cities are unsuitable for the traffic they have. Rome is probably worst as they had this problem 2000 years ago

Another argument against the megabuildings in the first world is that you have an stable and aging population with  mostly decent housing.
Who are gone pay for the structure? Who will move into it?
Makes some sense in countries with rapid groing cities and serious housing issues.

[Stargate525]

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

OMG O_o XD,  what are you two saying?   30 to 60 years behinds??  1940?  south america?  hahahaha..  This was an answer to my country example? If it was, that  is clear lack of info about the rest of the world.

We have the same things you have..  the only difference is average income..  we earn 3 times less in average, we save money in other things but we keep our technology thirst the same,  that's it. 
In fact, development speaking we may be even more advance in farming technology and machinery, we are at the same level of spain in health research.
Yeah you may have some people living as many years ago far of cities and in remote locations, but this also happens in USA or in the whole world, does not apply to the whole country or region.

I'm not insulting those regions. However, you cannot argue that sociopolitically and economically, these countries look more like 40s and 50s US than 2016 US. Using South America, the continent has one country, as far as I can see, that's making their own branded cars. Only one (a marcopolo bus) I have ever seen or even heard of. In any regard, the production of those home industries is massively outstripped by American and European manufacturers (Brazil only just matched the withered US home production last year).

In short, those regions are packed with factories turning out the product of companies that were fifty years ago turning out product in Europe and the US. They are HEAVILY manufacturing and raw materials-based. The traditional first-world countries are not, and have not been for close to 30 years.

Quote

You are making a common mistake..  try to view economy as a whole aiming to understand it or predict it is pointless.
You cant, nobody can!   What science does to understand things?  They divide the problem until they find the basic pieces and principles, then understanding that, they can make predictions (inside a certain frame of reference (who does not contain much variables).
Economy is the same, no even a computer (today) can predict the consumer choice and the strategic decisions of each individual on the world..
So if we can understand this problem from the basic principles of economy in which for each individual there is a higher chance to choice the best cost efficient option and then generate extra profit with that (because it saves time or money), and with that extra profit it generates work and profit to others, then we can start to understand how economy works, we can even compare with reality, we have many examples of new breakthroughs or changes who bring profit to the whole world...  then there is no reason to think it will be different this time, because new opportunities and works always arrive (if it happens at a decent human speed), a very different thing would be the development of an AI.
Which it happens super fast, and from 1 year to the next people discover that an algorithm can replace and take better decisions than any other intellectual job, so we lost our purpose more than a job.

You're assuming a perfectly rational consumer. We aren't. Efficiency is not our primary goal. We will buy a less efficient car because it is more comfortable, or made in a specific place, or looks better. We will choose food that's horrible for us because it tastes good. We will drive hours past a store to go to the one where we like the cashiers. We will purchase the quick fix that will break in a year instead of paying twice the cost for one that will last twenty.

Your mistake is equally common, and more detrimental to your argument. Computers can't predict the economy (economists will argue with you on that one, by the way), because we cannot predict irrational behavior, and the economy is influenced by quite literally EVERYTHING ELSE.

[AngelLestat]

6 hours ago, magnemoe said:

30-60 years in large scale sosial trends like population growth and priority of environment and pollusjon reduction. Population growth changes in the generation perspective.

Population growth is not related to country development. 
Environment and pollution..  Any south american pollutes less than the average citizen from development countries, even adding the amount of clean sources they might have, if we are talking on clean technology %, I have to admit that Argentina is very delay, because we just go out from a bad government that last 12 years, lucky for us we made a good change this year. But Uruguay (our neighbor) is the country with higher % of wind energy in the world. Chile and Brasil are fine too. 

Quote

Regarding some infrastructure like telecommunication you have the benefit of no legacy structures who is cheaper to patch in the start. Same as many European cities are unsuitable for the traffic they have. Rome is probably worst as they had this problem 2000 years ago

Another argument against the megabuildings in the first world is that you have an stable and aging population with  mostly decent housing.
Who are gone pay for the structure? Who will move into it?
Makes some sense in countries with rapid groing cities and serious housing issues.

As I describe.. any country has terrains that convert for residential or other uses, there is no need to change current infrastructure, cities are always growing, so you can start from there, new villages or towns appear all the time in places where before there was only a cropfield, if you sell those lands and you give them structure and organization, you increase the profit.  

5 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

I'm not insulting those regions. However, you cannot argue that sociopolitically and economically, these countries look more like 40s and 50s US than 2016 US. Using South America, the continent has one country, as far as I can see, that's making their own branded cars. Only one (a marcopolo bus) I have ever seen or even heard of. In any regard, the production of those home industries is massively outstripped by American and European manufacturers (Brazil only just matched the withered US home production last year).

We have a lot of car factories here, that is what it matters,  you will said that Iceland is not a high developed country because they don't have its own car brand? 
Brands belong to private investors, and those does not really care about country limits.
We can not compare on production or PBI of each country, because for example USA has 7,6 times more population than Argentina, with 3 times higher salary (in average), Brasil has the same salary than Argentina, with lower population than USA.
We can said we have a delay on salary range..  which may reduce some of the infrastructure, that is true.
But from the context of this discussion we have access to the same technology than any first world country.   

Quote

You're assuming a perfectly rational consumer. We aren't. Efficiency is not our primary goal. We will buy a less efficient car because it is more comfortable, or made in a specific place, or looks better. We will choose food that's horrible for us because it tastes good. We will drive hours past a store to go to the one where we like the cashiers. We will purchase the quick fix that will break in a year instead of paying twice the cost for one that will last twenty.

No, I am not making that assumption, these are my words:
"for each individual there is a higher chance to choice the best cost efficient option"
It does not matter if some choice different.. what matters is the common trend. 

Quote

Computers can't predict the economy (economists will argue with you on that one, by the way), because we cannot predict irrational behavior, and the economy is influenced by quite literally EVERYTHING ELSE.

Heh are you sure that economist will argue that?  because I learn this argument from 2 economist view and other sources, but well you seems to agree in this point.. but not sure if is due irrational behavior.. it is because is too complex, even if all decisions are rational, due offer, demand and trends.

Edited April 16, 2016 by AngelLestat

[YNM]

5 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Ok, example number 1 did not work.. I will try in a different way.

This is similar to the case of predict how many coins will fall head or tail.  
If you drop 3, there is a considerable chance than 3 fall head, or the 3 tail..  But if you increase your coin number to 1000 for example, you will be able to predict with enough certainty that 45% to 55% of the coins will fall head. That amount of certainty is what allows you to calculate your storage needs without overstate, to not delivery a lot of power, etc..  For each good and services.
I made those calculations a lot of times, believe me, because another extra cost comes from investment (credit) and payback time, You can reduce by 10 times the cost to accomplish the same thing in some cases, more if you add other services and products.

Yes, that's why I understand you're talking about the ability to take an average. The amount of things stocked can't be too large because otherwise it may either end up unconsumed or if you're someone who likes things "fresh" it's not gonna work.

But so the same thing can be accomplished if you live in a more spread area. Look at the two maps that I and tater provided, correlate them... and with almost everything else, you'll realize the problem of the west.

5 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Houses also need foundations, the amount needed for each case like buildings depends on the type of grounds, if you add the meters for each single house, you end up with a similar amount of meters for the whole building replacing all those homes, also each time buildings are lighter and industrialized, as the one planned in China, tall as burj khalifa (but much bigger) and it will be made in 1 month.

Certainly not as much steel and concrete, which is faar more expensive than rocks or masonry.

5 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

But it has nothing to do with Argentina, because almost all foods are cultivated here, the only difference may be taxes, that are considerable high here, but in world average..  30% to  50% of transport cost has to be normal, then we need to add distribution cost and seller store cost. 

Really ? That's sounds really high...

Some rationalization that I have here : A kg of meat cost ~ Rp 120.000 .

A single, fat (probably >300 kg) cow costs about Rp 25.000.000 - that's ~Rp 80.000 to Rp 90.000 (because there's a lot of organs). 30 - 50% sounds really high. Especially when the goods are cultivated not far from the market, like in here !

(yes, you can see small scale vegetable plantation within the city center and even a patch of rice field ~15 km from the city center ! Considering the population in the conurbation of Jabodetabek (40 km across) sums up to ~20 million people...)

 

EDIT :

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

30-60 years in large scale sosial trends like population growth and priority of environment and pollusjon reduction. Population growth changes in the generation perspective. 
Environment has not been seen as an major problem up until recently in many countries as poverty has been an larger one, this has also been mostly correct strategy, but you see the same pattern as you had in the US and Europe.

Yes ! Why should we care about recycling when our goods are packaged in leaves ?

The reason why we're considered poor is because you set the standards. Eating meat and whatnot. Three times eating here costs as low as Rp 25.000 (less than 2 USD !) . Even lower on more rural areas.

Edited April 16, 2016 by YNM

[lude]

Asia is so dense that if all people lived as closely together as Singapoorians we'd all fit into Switzerland and if we'd live so dense as in the now gone Kowloon City of Anarchy in Hong Kong we'd not even need half the space to fit ALL mankind.

[YNM]

Yes, but living too, very, very dense like that isn't a good idea either. Hong Kong is a port city which is powered by trade, imports and exports (of high-tech goods at most) and is so Singapore, so you're back to square one on providing things with local produces. (my bet on finding all consumables in Singapore are from Indonesia or Malaysia, and in Hong Kong from mainland China.)

I'm pointing my hand to places like SE Asia or India, where it's fairly, really dense but (fairly ?) self sustain. Arcologies mainly resort to the self sustain path so with continents in a longer experience with the problem you people of the west just faced it's weird that you directly resort to making bonkers contraption.

Though, in the defense of non-Asian, America and Europe lacks noticeable volcanoes - source of natural fertilizer. We have loads of volcanoes and you can harvest fields three times a year, four at best. India also have the same thing (deccan traps ?).

Edited April 17, 2016 by YNM

[tater]

Multiple harvests may have more to do with low latitudes (longer growing seasons). I live only a few hours north of Mexico, but as an example, it snowed pretty hard at my house today.

[YNM]

10 hours ago, tater said:

Multiple harvests may have more to do with low latitudes (longer growing seasons). I live only a few hours north of Mexico, but as an example, it snowed pretty hard at my house today.

Hmm, geographical reasons then... But I did read (Nat Geo mag) that in Borneo, you can only harvest once a year, at best two.

Was lurking around World Bank data, saw that the average US people have access to more (actively used) cropland than India or Indonesia or China or other asian countries. Probably this should have something to do with either the amount of consumption, or the yield, or the development rate, or something else. Some impressive datas there really.

--------

Anyway

On 15/4/2016 at 3:04 AM, AngelLestat said:

You are making a common mistake..  try to view economy as a whole aiming to understand it or predict it is pointless. You cant, nobody can!   What science does to understand things?  They divide the problem until they find the basic pieces and principles, then understanding that, they can make predictions (inside a certain frame of reference (who does not contain much variables).

Economy is the same, no even a computer (today) can predict the consumer choice and the strategic decisions of each individual on the world..

Google is attempting it though. It already can predict disease outbreaks and whatnot out of searches, who knows what power does the search keywords of the masses have !

Edited April 17, 2016 by YNM

[Stargate525]

2 hours ago, YNM said:

Hmm, geographical reasons then... But I did read (Nat Geo mag) that in Borneo, you can only harvest once a year, at best two.

Was lurking around World Bank data, saw that the average US people have access to more (actively used) cropland than India or Indonesia or China or other asian countries. Probably this should have something to do with either the amount of consumption, or the yield, or the development rate, or something else. Some impressive datas there really.

If you look at that stat, it's hectacres PER PERSON, not overall. The US is higher because we have a much lower population than India or China, despite them having more total cropland.

[AngelLestat]

On 16/4/2016 at 9:50 PM, YNM said:

Yes, that's why I understand you're talking about the ability to take an average. The amount of things stocked can't be too large because otherwise it may either end up unconsumed or if you're someone who likes things "fresh" it's not gonna work.

But so the same thing can be accomplished if you live in a more spread area. Look at the two maps that I and tater provided, correlate them... and with almost everything else, you'll realize the problem of the west.

Ok, not sure if I follow you.. how can you accomplish the same thing in a spread area?  Not sure what evidence points the 2 maps.. because we can not compare different country politics and conditions.

On 16/4/2016 at 9:50 PM, YNM said:

Certainly not as much steel and concrete, which is faar more expensive than rocks or masonry.

ok, but terrain cost increase all the time (because population and the PBI of each country increase).
We can also compare the cost of terrain in a city vs the outsides..  the cost increase a lot, why?  because the benefits to live close to everything also increase a lot. 

On 16/4/2016 at 9:50 PM, YNM said:

Really ? That's sounds really high...
Some rationalization that I have here : A kg of meat cost ~ Rp 120.000 .
A single, fat (probably >300 kg) cow costs about Rp 25.000.000 - that's ~Rp 80.000 to Rp 90.000 (because there's a lot of organs). 30 - 50% sounds really high. Especially when the goods are cultivated not far from the market, like in here !
(yes, you can see small scale vegetable plantation within the city center and even a patch of rice field ~15 km from the city center ! Considering the population in the conurbation of Jabodetabek (40 km across) sums up to ~20 million people...)

What is "A single, fat?"   A cow or a pig? or something else?
Also meat is easier to transport due its big density.
In my example I detail that is 30 to 50% from the productor profit, so if 1 ton of corn has a production cost of 100$, and the productor will sell that to the distribution center at 170$ and he has a 50$ profit for each ton, then it means he paid 20$ to transport that ton to the distribution center.
That example means 40% of transport cost from the productor profit as I detail in my first example.
Then you need to add the transport cost from the distribution center to the different stores.
Of course if you need to do only 100 km the cost would not be 20$, we are talking about an average of 300km + taxes.
Because some crops only occur in certain climates, these means far distances from your location.

On 16/4/2016 at 9:50 PM, YNM said:

Yes ! Why should we care about recycling when our goods are packaged in leaves ?

The reason why we're considered poor is because you set the standards. Eating meat and whatnot. Three times eating here costs as low as Rp 25.000 (less than 2 USD !) . Even lower on more rural areas.

heh, nice.

22 hours ago, tater said:

Multiple harvests may have more to do with low latitudes (longer growing seasons). I live only a few hours north of Mexico, but as an example, it snowed pretty hard at my house today.

I imagine you live in the west, Arizona or California, above 1000mts ?
What are El niño effects there?

12 hours ago, YNM said:

Google is attempting it though. It already can predict disease outbreaks and whatnot out of searches, who knows what power does the search keywords of the masses have !

Yeah they have a lot of info on people interest and trends..  they can include all that in a massive neural net to learn and predict that.. but the algorithms are hard and the amount of data huge, so I guess this will be possible within 7 to 10 years.

[tater]

New Mexico at 1981m, but the snow was more widespread, even at lower elevations (Denver got clobbered by a blizzard). Still, the point is that the farming season is somewhat constrained compared to say California, where the climate in the major farming areas almost never freezes.

[YNM]

23 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

If you look at that stat, it's hectacres PER PERSON, not overall.

Which more or less translates to a larger field for each person, which naively means larger harvest for each person. That's why I also considered the amount of harvest each square km (different land fertility should also mean different yield) as well as the time of harvest (when you can harvest all the crops four times a year of course there's going to be more food than if you only harvest twice a year).

Which, I guess, is the basis for the statement "if everyone live like americans we'll need four Earths (landmass ?) of arable land".

12 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Ok, not sure if I follow you.. how can you accomplish the same thing in a spread area?

Well, by the lack of time delay for delivery (we already ruled out farming arcology right ?). After all, you'll need to store a fair amount either way.

12 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

ok, but terrain cost increase all the time (because population and the PBI of each country increase).
We can also compare the cost of terrain in a city vs the outsides..  the cost increase a lot, why?  because the benefits to live close to everything also increase a lot.

So will be with making everything more spread.

What I envision (oh, how dictator !) is more like small settlements surrounded by equally divided lands around it, so you'll have no problem of transport, as well as no problem of increasing land value. Yes, there're industrial cities, but they only do industry and not everything else. And it won't be as centralized as today.

12 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

What is "A single, fat?"   A cow or a pig? or something else?
Also meat is easier to transport due its big density.
In my example I detail that is 30 to 50% from the productor profit, so if 1 ton of corn has a production cost of 100$, and the productor will sell that to the distribution center at 170$ and he has a 50$ profit for each ton, then it means he paid 20$ to transport that ton to the distribution center.

Of course if you need to do only 100 km the cost would not be 20$, we are talking about an average of 300km + taxes.
Because some crops only occur in certain climates, these means far distances from your location.

I said cows. Slaughterhouses aren't that sparse here.

Hmm... I assume your corns are kernels ? If so then it's not wise to compare the two. Consider un-kernel-ed corn (corn still with it's cob).

12 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Of course if you need to do only 100 km the cost would not be 20$, we are talking about an average of 300km + taxes. Because some crops only occur in certain climates, these means far distances from your location.

Which is what we should avoid. Here, we distribute cows, not the meat.

Unless... spices... well, that's something we can't avoid, it seems. (I know how expensive spices in northern countries are.)

I'm not very good at knowing your people's problem right ?

Edited April 18, 2016 by YNM

[Northstar1989]

On 4/12/2016 at 10:07 AM, tater said:

In the US distribution is a tiny % of total cost. Single digit. only 11% of the carbon footprint of food comes from transportation, the rest is production.

Carbon Footprint =/= Cost.  I'm talking about dollars-and-cents COST of transporting food.  Not just from the farm to the warehouse, but more importantly from the warehouse to the store (which is often accounted for differently than "Transportation" costs as "Distribution" costs).  With food grown in the same building people live, it becomes a possibility to have people work part-time in the farms near where they live (more for diversity of activity and the chance to work with plants than as a major source of income) and collect part of the produce as the reward for their labor.  This cuts out both transport to the warehouse AND to the store- as well as the need for retail clerks, managers and such to run as many grocery stores (which tend to be rare anyways in the downtown parts of cities) in the first place...

Let's not also forget that part of the reason transport in the USA is "cheap" is large because we have a well-developed long-distance transportation infrastructure built and paid for generations ago (although much of that infrastructure is now falling apart, and won't be usable for much longer- thanks mainly to the Congressional Republicans' policy of "Starving the Beast"- that is, refusing to fund almost ANY infrastructure repair or maintenance projects unless certain laws are repealed requiring contractors to pay higher-than-market wages to the construction and maintenance workers on these contracts...)  However in many other (especially developing) countries this does not hold true- and systems that reduce the need for construction of infrastructure in the first place tend to be much more cost-effective in such places.

 

All this is NOT saying that Vertical Cities make economic sense- because they don't.  You save a *little bit* on transportation and distribution costs (I never said it was a lot- despite some individuals mis-quoting me to try to give what I said that appearance), but you get saddled with a HUGE construction-cost burden that massively outweighs it.  Construction of tall buildings would have to become MUCH cheaper before vertical farming would make any economic sense...

A side-note: the main benefit of vertical farming is, once more, having an easily-controlled environment not subject to the vagaries of weather or free-roaming pests.  For that reason UNDERGROUND farming is actually cheaper than aboveground farming if you do it in abandoned coal-mining tunnels and such (the safer ones not in danger of collapse or full of toxic chemicals).  And not a heck of a lot more expensive than aboveground (that is, more expensive in the short-term, but in the long run it eventually pays for itself) if you dig out NEW tunnels for it.  But, the cost of building such a controlled environment in a skyscraper is MUCH, MUCH higher and simply doesn't make any economic sense.

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

On 4/12/2016 at 0:37 PM, tater said:

If this concept is cost effective, someone will build it. That's the only way something like this should ever happen, frankly. Some private entity should pony up the money (with zero subsidy) and have a go at it.

*cough* With ZERO subsidy?!  Are you MAD?!  EVERY, and I mean EVERY major agricultural or transportation system we have today benefitted (or continues to benefit) from heavy subsidies to help it develop at some point in its history...

No.  If the technology/system were cost-competitive today (which, as I've already stated, it's not- at least with current construction costs) then it should ABSOLUTELY be subsidized to help balance the costs of people adopting a new system and competing with an established one.  Or the existing systems all heavily taxed to help change the balance of costs- but that's likely to be a lot less popular... 

 

Although such a discussion is more-or-less pointless when it comes to vertical farming, it's MASSIVELY relevant when it comes to something like Electric Cars.  Or renewable energy.  Or underground farming.  The existing system ALWAYS has a massive amount of wealth, political capital, and sunk investments built up- and they DON'T go down easily to a newer, better system.  At least some subsidy is ALWAYS necessary to level the playing-field, because otherwise established players will CRUSH a new technology that antiquates their own, even if that means selling at below-cost for an extended period of time to do so... (generally, they'd rather lose a little money now than lose a lot of money later, when a new industry obsoletes their own...)

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

On 4/9/2016 at 2:33 PM, Robotengineer said:

But you said that as the average and median wage go down it would solve itself. From what I've read and seen low wages tend to push people out of the urban areas, not bring them in. 

That is incorrect sir.  History shows that lower wages on a national lever draw people into cities, not drive them out.  Jobs tend to be easier to find in cities (especially important when nation-wide wages are low, and the welfare system is minimal), and you can survive there without a horse/car to get where you need to go.  It's actually the rise of a middle class that could afford cars to commute long distances into cities every day that drove the creation of suburbs in the first place...

The existence of a minimum wage well above the market-price of labor has had the odd effect of driving people out of cities.  Mainly because the minimum wage is so much above market-prices for labor that employers tend to pay it wherever they can- which means wages at the bottom tend to be more or less the same in cities as in the countryside.  Without such a high minimum wage, wages would be higher where demand for labor is highest- which tends to be in cities thanks to the concentration of industry and commerce... (also, labor unions do much better where industry and commerce are concentrated rather than diffuse- and tend to further drive up wages in cities...)  Additionally, a high minimum wage makes it feasible for more people to afford cars to commute from suburbs into cities each day- an arrangement that makes living in suburbs but working in cities VASTLY more feasible...

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

To clarify- none of this should be taken as my endorsement of suburban sprawl, low wages for workers, the destruction of labor unions, or the abolishment of a minimum wage.

In my opinion (actually, when you look at the economic value of a worker to an employer vs. what they are actually paid in a free marker capitalism with a competitive wage system like the United States, this a matter of economic FACT, not opinion...  A worker's efforts might be worth $24/hour to an employer, yet he might be paid only $8/hour and the rest is siphoned up the corporate ladder- and this would be worse still with a lower minimum wage where employers could pay workers the market-value of their work- that is the lowest wage they could get away with based on the oversupply of labor vs. available jobs...) workers receive far less than their fair share of the economic pie (although a high minimum wage is the wrong way to change this- a Universal Basic Income is a better option, as it creates far less economic distortion and better income-securtiy...)  I'm just elucidating how each factor affects this issue.

 

Regards,

Northstar

Edited April 20, 2016 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

On 4/10/2016 at 0:19 AM, YumonStudios said:

Because people hate GM crops.

Energy costs are probably too high for underground farming due to needing artificial lighting. And I doubt mining tunnels have enough ventilation...

People hate/fear GM crops out of ignorance, not because there are good reasons for it.  With time, these altitude are likely to change- either out of education or necessity to continue eating in an increasingly populous world...

Also, how do you think they calculated the cost of underground farming?  Or tabulated costs when they actually built working test-units to confirm their assumptions? (it turns out the costs were actually lower than they assumed, in fact)  Of COURSE they accounted for energy costs.  And no, they aren't too high- that was the point.  The controlled environment allowed such massive gains in productivity as to outweigh the energy costs, and very nearly outweigh the costs of digging the tunnels (so, using existing tunnels it's cheaper- but digging new tunnels it's initially more expensive until you amortize the cost of the tunnel over many years...)

 

Regards,

Northstar