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Re: Cities/rural--resources (was Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award)





David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@inforamp.net> wrote in article 
>  
<snipped>

> Actually the last tomatoes I grew, I grew on the porch on the south
> side of my apartment block in Tokyo.  I mixed them with the lettuce
> from a farm which I cycled to at dawn every morning.  I paid something
> like $15 to have two square meters for the season, and got tomatoes,
> cucumbers, spring onions, a couple of lettuces, and a few other nice
> surprises out of it.
>  

But a few vegetables do not a diet make.  To support your claim (if indeed
you are really claiming) that a large city can supply its own food, you'll
have to show that cities with population densities of 30-50 people per acre
(NYC--the whole thing, is 41/acre) can feed that many.  That might be
difficult.  First of all you won't be able to get an acre of growing
land/acre of city (even using balcony plots), and even then you better look
at yields per acre.  Just citing one--U.S. grain production, at 3200 lbs
per acre only supplies .2 lbs per day per person.  You can do better with
potatoes, but I don't think those grow well in window boxes.  Getting the
necessary proteins, any significant amount of fruit, and certainly any kind
of variety is really not possible for these population densities using so
little land.  You still need food grown outside the city to support the
city.


> It was all run by the guy who owned the land, a millionaire developer
> who did all this stuff because he liked fresh vegetables too.
>  
> All the stuff I tell you about how much you can grow in the city is
> actual true stuff that I have seen and done.  Unlike you, kid, I don't
> make this stuff up.
> 
> >Oh yeah, I forgot to add. Final output will be measured on final quality

> >as well as quantity. See if you crappy produce could compete with his!
>  
> Toby, you ignorant little squirt, I've done it.  You haven't.
>  
>     

Why do you find it necessary to belittle and demean almost everyone who
doesn't agree 100% with you--and probably most who do?  Do you really think
this behavior strengthens your arguments (as opposed to reflecting back on
yourself)?  I personally don't care what you say about me or others, but I
would like to use these newsgroups as information resources for my classes
and would like students to be able to concentrate on the content instead of
the vitriolic nature of the participants.  Oh well, maybe they need to
learn what kind of folk are really out there with whom they will have to
deal.


>  
>                                                        -dlj.
>  
 
RWT
 


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