Is there a real definition that we can all agree on?
Is there a real definition that we can all agree on?
Growth is never sustainable. You have to make it last as long as it can, then replace it with something better.
There is economic growth, defined as the growth that makes the most efficient use of resources. (The investment realizing the greatest economy.) That's not how urbanism has been done this past century, and this is what the sustainability crowd is really screaming about.
As has been proven by the economist Ludwig von Mises, a free market with exchangeable private property is the only way to realize economy of resources. Political property will invest resources arbitrarily and create enormous waste. This is why we have sprawl.
Sprawl is very much a manifestation of the free market at work; the result of individuals trying to maximize the value of their land by selling it to housing developers and big box retailers. The market prefers sprawl because it is cheap and easy. If your theory is correct that gov't intervention creates sprawl then how come places without zoning or land use controls have some of the worst sprawl there is?Originally posted by jaws
Because the government builds the roads and regulates them. If it imposes no regulations on the use of its property it is just as wasteful as if it imposes bad regulations.
[Wait...free market? My understanding was, and correct me if I am wrong, is that a free market is something we do NOT have. We have too many regulations and subsidies to consider what ew have a free market...
According to Wheeler (2004)and his book, sustainable development is the balance of the Three Es (Econony, Environment and Equity).
A concept that basically is not possible under current situation. He suggests what could be done assuming liberal means. Check it out, it is a good book. It is called "Planning for Sustainabilty"
http://www.stoutbooks.com/cgi-bin/st...cgi/65402.html
"Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan." - Winston Churchill
Isn't there a lot of sustainable growth in the Netherlands?
Sustainability can be interpreted in many ways. One way is somewhat synonomyous with perpetual ie. perpetual growth. However, I believe the nu2u is refering to the idea of sustainability that came out of the Earth Summit in Rio in 1987. The formal definition is "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Clearlythis definition is up for interpretation but basically it means not living beyond your means of survival. As CosmicMojo pointed out there are places on earth where development has taken the form of semi-sustainable development that blends economic, social and environmental better than some. Hence, sustainability is an abstact ideal that is difficult to define in tangible terms. In terms of cities and built environments, the Ecological Footprint concept is improtant to keep in mind when examining sustainability. Also, scale is improtant when discussing sustainability.
What you mean then is that you can never reach the state of ideal sustainable growth, in much the same way you can never reach a wholly free market in practice?
But you can reach something that approaches ideal sustainable growth couldn't you?
IMO it's not totally impossible to eliminate political interference with urban growth and achiece near-sustainable growth. In fact, we appear to be heading in that direction in many ways. With the information revolution in the last few decades the public is a lot more informed than it used to be and is demanding a higher level of participation in varios decision-making. At least in Europe. With an increased level of public participation we are moving from a "top-down" decision making system towards a "bottoms-up" system. And "bottoms-up" is one of the basic fundamentals of a free market system. And isn't a free market system something that we regard as a major prerequisite for sustainable urban development?
What I mean is that there is nothing sustainable about anything. Life is not sustainable. One day we will die, humanity will go extinct, Earth will be swallowed up by the sun, the sun will die, the galaxy will die, and the universe will die. (Not necessarily in that order.) To talk of ideal sustainability is nonsense. We don't know how long we have, where we will be in the future and what we will need then.
The basic fundamental of the free market system is the specialization of labor. Public participation is the opposite of that, it is encouraging people to decide things about which they know nothing. It is certainly a very powerful check against the worst political abuses, but it will not result in any progress in urban planning.With an increased level of public participation we are moving from a "top-down" decision making system towards a "bottoms-up" system. And "bottoms-up" is one of the basic fundamentals of a free market system.
Every activity uses resources of some kind.
Sustainable growth uses non-replaceable resources wisely, uses renewable resources in a way that allows the resources to renew, and does not poison the air, earth, or water. The key is a very long-term perspective, not short term. A 50-100 year time frame is a good way to evaluate whether growth is sustainable or not.
Sustainable growth should supply all of the infrastructure needed when the growth occurs and should also cover long term maintenance costs.
You're wrong. The basic motivatin of life is to be self sustaining. This is the essential compulsion and drive force of every specie, to survive and to sustain its existence for the foreseeable future. It can be measured in the behaviour of all species, that its primary interest is to maintain the prerequisites for its existence. If humanity dies (which it will at some time in the future), it will be a logical step in some sort of an evolutionary process, not because it choose to give up its own existence. The same applies for the planet, the sun, the galaxy and so forth.
You can, in much the same way, measure the sustainability of urban areas in terms of how it is influencing the resources that human kind needs to maintain its existence for the unforeseeable future.
This is false as well. The basic fundamental of a free market system is a direct interaction between the agents of such a system without any outside intervention that distorts the outcome of that interaction, whether it be exchange of goods and services or something else. Specialisation of labor is nothing more than a result of such a system, not a fundamental part of it.
The future is an unknown. We don't know what resources we'll need in the future, or in what quantities. Any attempt at measuring sustainability is pure guesswork, and different people will have a different idea of what this guess will be.
Exchange implies specialization. For an exchange to take place, two individuals must recognize that they both own something that is more valuable to the other than to themselves. By exchanging they both increase their wealth. If two people have equal productivity then there is nothing they can produce that will be more valuable to the other than to themselves.This is false as well. The basic fundamental of a free market system is a direct interaction between the agents of such a system without any outside intervention that distorts the outcome of that interaction, whether it be exchange of goods and services or something else. Specialisation of labor is nothing more than a result of such a system, not a fundamental part of it.
In a world where everyone is identical no exchange is possible. It is only when differences are created that opportunities of gain from trade emerge. Instead of producing things that they are comparatively less qualified to produce, people produce the things they are the most qualified to produce and exchange for the other things they need. Thus specialization of labor is the foundation of any exchange economy,
Okay, so we know that you don't think there can be sustainable growth. However, there are societies that have collapsed and societies that have lasted a long time. Often there are the very similar circumstances for the collapsers and sustainers, but the collapsers acted short term and unwisely, while the sustaners acted long term and wisely.
It would help if you would let those of us who want to discuss how to act long term and wisely do that, without disputing every point. Or add something that truly proves that your private sector approach will not lead to problems like mine tailings left behind to spoil future drinking water.
Societies that lasted a long time were based on private property, where one person was responsible for maintaining the value of the resources. Europe's forests lasted for over a thousand year of feudalism even though they were essentially the only source of energy. The lords knew that if they cut down trees at a rapid rate the value of their estate would diminish, so they strictly controlled access to them.
Spoiling drinking water is a problem of property rights. If property rights were respected, there wouldn't be "sustainability" problems.It would help if you would let those of us who want to discuss how to act long term and wisely do that, without disputing every point. Or add something that truly proves that your private sector approach will not lead to problems like mine tailings left behind to spoil future drinking water.
Show me an example of how this works. What society has established this type of property rights? How is it enforced?
Excuse me? Since when were feudal lands "private property"?? My understanding is that was part of a governmental system. It was a different system of governance than what we have today, but a form of government nonetheless.
From wikipedia (I feel so cheap)
Please note the bolded text in particular. (bolding added by me)Three primary elements characterized feudalism: lords, vassals and fiefs; the structure of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land. A vassal was a person who was granted land by the lord. The land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism.
Lords, vassals and fiefs
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony comprised of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the vassal would promise to fight for the lord at his command. Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas, or faithfulness; the oath of fealty is thus a promise that the vassal will be faithful to the lord. Once the commendation was complete, the lord and vassal were now in a feudal relationship with agreed-upon mutual obligations to one another.
The lord's principal obligation was to grant a fief, or its revenues, to the vassal; the fief is the primary reason the vassal chose to enter into the relationship. In addition, the lord sometimes had to fulfill other obligations to the vassal and fief. One of those obligations was its maintenance. Since the lord had not given the land away, only loaned it, it was still the lord's responsibility to maintain the land, while the vassal had the right to collect revenues generated from it. Another obligation that the lord had to fulfill was to protect the land and the vassal from harm.
The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was to provide "aid", or military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal was responsible to answer to calls to military service on behalf of the lord. This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition, the vassal sometimes had to fulfill other obligations to the lord. One of those obligations was to provide the lord with "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision, such as whether or not to go to war, he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. The vassal may have been required to provide a certain amount of his farm's yield to his lord. The vassal was also sometimes required to grind his wheat and bake his bread in the ovens owned and taxed by his lord.
The land-holding relationships of feudalism revolved around the fief. Depending on the power of the granting lord, grants could range in size from a small farm to a much larger area of land. The size of fiefs was described in irregular terms quite different from modern area terms; see medieval land terms. The lord-vassal relationship was not restricted to members of the laity; bishops and abbots, for example, were also capable of acting as lords.
There were thus different 'levels' of lordship and vassaldom. The King was a lord who loaned fiefs to aristocrats, who were his vassals. Meanwhile the aristocrats were in turn lords to their own vassals, the peasants who worked on their land.
The water supply is currently state property, so I can't provide you any example. Since the state is often the principal polluter, it doesn't tend to defend its own property rights in water supply from itself.
And if you must ask how property rights are enforced, go down to your local police station and ask for a tour.
The lords exercised government over their lands, and they inherited and combined their estates through marriage. The highly centralized and bureaucratized system of government that we have today didn't come into being until the renaissance era when monarchs attempted to erode the power of the nobles, with varying success. (France and Spain became highly centralized, while in England and Germany the nobility eroded the power of the crown in its favour.)
If you're interested in the subject I recommend Martin van Creveld's Rise and Decline of the State.
Interesting take, only that water is not really a state issue here, it is a national issue. How does one deal with how canadians pollute the Great Lakes? How does one control how pollution of the GL is principally done through agricultural runoff and corporate covering of the lands with impervious surfaces?
At least in the United States, state and local governments by law are being forced to get rid of CSOs. I do not know of any other program in Canada. So how are we in the great lakes supposed to deal with the chemicals spilled into the OUR water by private interests in other countries? Government in the US is correcting their problem, I don't see this happening in Canada, yet we all drink from the same source.
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
I am not particularly interested in the subject. My only curiosity is concerning the contradiction in your own statements. You constantly argue against "government" and now call feudal lands "private property". To me, that doesn't add up. Feudal lands were not private property as I understand the term. They did involve management with a high degree of personal accountability. But that is not the same issue that you routinely argue against.
"Government" is a concept that has changed radically over the centuries. What we today call government is a system of permanent bureaucracy supported by taxation. This did not exist in feudal times. The lords ran their estates as private business and the king's influence over this business was minimal, although you couldn't say that this was a free market since they retained special privileges that others did not.
Canada gets air pollution from the U.S. as well. The problem is of course that there is no agreement on protecting property from pollution. If both countries agreed that pollution from the other was a problem, they would sign a treaty allowing people to sue in order to stop people in the other country from polluting. But since there is no protection from pollution inside their own borders, and since there is no interest in eliminating pollution other than ad hoc regulation like the "clean air" act, there's presently no solution to inter-jurisdictional pollution.
Ah, perhaps I see.
I read somewhere that Europe avoided complex bureaucracies for many centuries past the time where other places did because Europe had sufficient rainfall that farms could succeed without an artificial means to distribute water. My recollection is that this piece also said, basically, that many empires grew out of the need in the Middle-eastern and Eastern (mayb India?) areas to develop complex systems of distribution for water so that sufficient crops could be grown to support the population on arid lands with inconsistent rain. The need for complex, far-flung irrigation systems required a complex bureaucracy to run it, thus the development of the complex water system fostered the development of complex governmental forms. And these empires periodically collapsed when the society failed to be educated enough to make the necessary complex bureaucracies keep functioning in a healthy, effective manner. As the bureaucracies collapsed, the water system would fail and the region would again fall into a more primitive form of society until a new empire, capable of administering the water system, would emerge and restore civilization to its former glory.
Based on that, I would say that your desire for a simpler time, with old-fashioned forms of governance, is likely in vain simply because there are now 6 billion people on the planet and, thus, we no longer have the luxury of living without complex bureaucracies. Removal of them would likely lead to widespread starvation. Of course, if enough people died, perhaps the simpler life you crave would once again be possible in some places. But, most likely, discussion in online forums with people of similar IQ would likely not be possible under such conditions. I find discussion in online forums with folks of similar IQ's of more value than the simple life of yesteryear. So my hope is that I and others like me can develop a sufficiently complex understanding of things as to make what we have now work better.
Peace.
This flies in the face of all generally acknowledged economic science. If you do not understand how a complex economy works don't make this kind of claim.
Have you considered that Europe's success as a civilization was based on the fact that they didn't have a complex bureaucracy?
Please explain to me how my statement flies in the face of all economic science.
Europe was not considered all that "civilized" compared to a lot of Eastern countries during the time it was Feudal. So I suppose we would first have to define "civilized" before we could argue that point. I am not trying to pick a fight with you. I was merely confounded that you would refer to feudal lands as "private property". You still haven't really explained to my satisfaction why you deem them to be "private property". You seem to conveniently categorize things to fit with some internal view of the world and you rapidly become hostile if someone questions those ideas while expecting others to simply accept your ideas in place of their own. While you aren't really required to be a rational human being, you are required to behave within certain acceptable parameters here. I think you pretty often fail and I grow tired of your constant desire to take offense and lash out when a lot of people here make every effort to remain civil while you act like a jerk. Please either answer my questions with a real attempt to communicate and not your usual hostile attempts to contemptuously dismiss anyone who doesn't kowtow to your unusual views or don't bother to answer me at all.
Thank you.
So what? We know what resources we need now and in what quantities. And since thats the best estimates we've got, than that's clearly the way to go. Besides, there are some very fundamental resources that anyone can agree that are essential for human survival as long as we maintain our current biological form, aren't there? (unless we turn into some sort of oil-quentching fembots, as appears to be just as likely in your mind).
Nonsense. See above
Just my point! Free market exchanges produce specialization. Specialization is thus not a prerequisite of a free market system, but an outcome of it.
Exchange is possible, but lacks the impetus.
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