Community

The fundamental building block of living things is the cell.  The cells combine into organs, the organs systems and the result is an integrated whole, a functioning organism engaging the environment; taking up energy, growing, dying and being reborn in endless repetition and variety.  Our settlements behave in much the same way weaving the sustenance we need with shelter, services and culture.  The principles of organization evinced by organisms can be applied at the appropriate scales for individuals (cells), villages or neighborhoods (organs), and the city (organism).  Essentially we are confronted with a fractal.  Following the scale upward from cell to ecosystem to planet we observe a continuous, uninterrupted cascade of interconnected energy.  Everything is alive in its own way and offers practical knowledge as we seek the return to an environmental connection that fundamentally we all share.

As we contemplate American cities, the trend toward gigantism is striking: giant power plants, road systems, buildings, infrastructure, giants everywhere.  Gigantism begets centralization, a concentration of service or resources that supports a large segment of the local population.  A commonly used phrase is “economy of scale”.  Our energy sources are far removed.  Such systems give up efficiency through friction and transmission losses as they supply “nutrients” like water and electricity.  If a system fails, thousands may be inconvenienced and, in the worst case, at risk of health consequences from minor to fatal depending on the situation.  The Northeast Blackout of 2003 is a prime example of a systemic failure on a massive scale that affected the eastern United States and Canada.  In the United States fully 40 million people lost power, one seventh the total population.  This is astonishing given the apparent sophistication of our electrical grid, but it happened nonetheless. 

We can conclude that a number of choices we have made illustrate flaws within our infrastructure.  As the extent of the service area grows, so does the possibility of an inevitable systemic failure.  Perhaps gigantism, rather than being a servant, has become our unintended master.  When we couple the pitfalls of large scale with recent surges in energy costs, the picture takes on a grim countenance.  And as we contemplate energy, the thread inevitably leads to oil, a finite resource that is the foundation upon which our civilization now precariously rests.  We have a problem in that we are roughly midway through the available oil on the planet.  The commonly used term is “Peak Oil”.  As we pass peak, the relentless, growing demand for oil from the United States, China, India and Europe exceeds supply.  As a result, prices begin an inexorable rise.  There is some debate about whether we have passed the world-wide peak or not, but there is little doubt that we are very near if not beyond this milestone.  When peak oil demand is coupled with locations in many unstable parts of the world, the fragility of the situation is starkly illuminated. 

We are faced with nothing less than the reinvention of our planetary economy based on the sun, choosing, or being forced to choose, an energy source derived as is by every living thing.  The nature of this choice is critical now.  The reality is that we are engaged in a race we cannot win.  At this point a seamless transition is impossible.  We know we will finish behind, but the critical question is how far?  If our cities begin this work in earnest now, the difficult transition will be less daunting.  Every day wasted is irretrievably lost.