Saturday, July 16, 2011

why do humans congregate in big cities?

TheContraryFarmer | The main reason country people move to town is because that’s where the money is, or so they have always been taught. At some point in every civilization’s history, money becomes the standard by which all things are reckoned, and after that the seemingly simple, laid-back pastoral life is no longer deemed possible. I have watched this happen first hand in our own Appalachia. In some parts of the world migration is physically forced on people by various forms of military or political or economic power. But the mountain people of Appalachia were not exactly forced to leave in most cases. I know personally quite a few of them. Some of them once worked for me when I was running a ditching machine. They claimed to love their mountains and would go back home into the hills every weekend, often hocking their spare tire for gas to make the trip. So why did they go north to the factories?

I think that in some cases, people leave rural homes for quite specific material reasons that are overlooked by economists. I have a theory about Appalachia which I have seen hinted at by only one other author, Richard C. Davids, in his excellent non-fiction book, The Man Who Moved A Mountain. The destruction of the vast forests of chestnut trees by blight in the Appalachians coincided roughly with the Great Depression when the great migration from the mountains to the cities got into full swing. The hill people depended on chestnuts as much as we depend today on corn and wheat. The end of the chestnut meant the end of the hill economy. Could that have been the real reason they left their independent life for the auto factories of Detroit?

I have heard scores of reasons for migration to cities, all creditable, most of them based on reactions to population pressure. But I am still left with an anomaly. If there are too many people living in the country, how do they improve their lot by moving where populations are even denser and competition for jobs even greater? If people are short on food, why would they move to a place where they can’t grow any of their own? Detroit, by the way, is making news today because of a large garden farm being established right in the center of what was once factory fantasyland.

All this migration to the cities seems especially crazy now that we live so much in an electronic world. People still flock to the city for jobs, but the jobs aren’t there anymore. I will probably be ridiculed up one side of Manhattan and down the other for writing this, but I say that the modern large city is a dinosaur, economically and environmentally, and people are slowly beginning to realize it. The extended village is the wave of the future. I look at those energy-sucking skyscrapers and I see very tall tombstones.

8 comments:

nanakwame said...

How romantic Doc, I love the mountains myself. There is no birth of the market, science, or art w/o the metro... as matter of fact our present consciousness is probably recent, since the white children took over the world. Now we can build with an asethetics that can make city/country anywhere  even in our known galaxy. The synethic farming, growing shrimp is some of your area.
As a matter of fact I need some time in the woods, so refreshing. The Appalachian is so _____ The City Rulers have made walkways and bike ways that goes right into it from the Bronx. The only problem is their rich is nesting near the rivers and oceans. Rye Playlands, place I enjoyed as a young man, with those "wild rides" and ocean view is closing this year. Memories -  Peg Leg Bates Place - the ladies wow.

nanakwame said...

btw this sentence is ambious in reflecting "the job markets on the globe", the point is still well taken, maybe we should continue to build substainable "cities" where the "villages" are. Some are doing that quite well.

People still flock to the city for jobs, but the jobs aren’t there anymore. - (City what does that mean in present future?)

CNu said...

a convenient packing house where the two-legged livestock can be aggregated to die in droves..., 

maximum density, maximum yield...., the megacity is the ultimate killing floor.

CNu said...

http://youtu.be/AqCk57Slf3s - like lancing a big fat juicy boil...,

Big Don said...

Sounds like 64130 is beginning to get to you...

Big Don said...

Speaking of human "aggregation to die in droves," -- it's occurring as we speak...in, of course, Africa. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/14/the-biggest-emergency-i-have-ever-seen/

CNu said...

lol,

BD, you're the only person I know of with 64130 on the brain..., 

arnach said...

Maybe BD would prefer 66112...

Master Arbitrageur Nancy Pelosi Is At It Again....,

🇺🇸TUCKER: HOW DID NANCY PELOSI GET SO RICH? Tucker: "I have no clue at all how Nancy Pelosi is just so rich or how her stock picks ar...