Permaculture Cities

Two-thousand seems like a reasonable limit, but permaculture can support something on the order of 150-300 people in a densely settled area. It’s never supported anything more than 500 without requiring massive inputs from outlying areas, whether in trade, tribute, or taxes. It still slips into the ecological definition of a city, “a settlement so dense as to require the importation of resources.” That makes cities fundamentally unsustainable. With a permacultural city, you basically want a city that doesn’t meet the definition of a city, or a city that can support itself. But you can’t support 2,000 or even 1,000 people living in one, dense settlement off of any sustainable subsistence base, humans just need more food than that.

I’m thinking, talking about cities and things, that it might be more useful to talk in terms of population density than actual size. You could have an extensive area, all one settlement, but at what point does it cease to offer the concentration of diversity offered in a city?

I don’t know, I don’t have the historical facts, but I think that this might be unique. I said before that I don’t think that this could arise in the normal course of time because the knowledge and techniques of bio-intesive have never been congruent with a human populace adapted (to a certain extent) to cities before. So, I don’t know if historical precedent applies. I understand that groups bigger than that have either broken up or become cities in the unsustainable sense (by the way, i think that in these terms, we need a different definition of city - one that isn’t unsustainable by definition) but there are social factors to consider as well as need and vision. The sheer number of settlements out there in the world that could be classified as cities means that there is going to be a greater variety of attempts to make this work than has ever been seen before.

In a way, I see the opposite of this, that you have a greater chance in a smaller setting, in a way that might almost seemed forced, as one doesn’t have to go through this process of searching and finding those who fit right with them, you, and the others around you, all work together, giving and taking, to create these strong links, regardless. I suppose if that doesn’t work, one could always take off and see where that leads them…

Yeah, I see your point, and Jason said a similar thing earlier. There is a lot more social togetherness in a tribal setting, and it sort of allows or forces strong links to devlop where they might not otherwise. Then again, maybe this isn’t always a good thing becuase it limits the total viewpoints in the world - maybe mozart would have been born into a non-musical tribe and never become a musician.

Every society wastes a certain amount of potential. You just have to minimize it. Tribal societies minimized that, in all the ways we’ve so often discussed. Our own society maximizes that waste by setting up a tiny elite, and only giving a real chance for someone from that tiny minority to flourish.

But I agree, we really need to talk about population density and food density. So do you mean, say, two-thousand people, living by permaculture, putting them at something like 15 per square mile? (If a horticultural village has fields out to half a day’s journey, and we can estimate that at 5mi., then a village of 150 lives on an area of about 10 square miles, or 150/10 = 15 per square mile) So your “city” of 2,000 would spread out over an area of over 130 square miles. It would take you 13 days to walk across your city. Imagine two and a half Pittsburghs, only populated with just 0.6% of the current population of just one Pittsburgh.

Like you said, you really want population density. That gives you a population density lower than a horticultural village, where 150 people live in a single village, or even a hunter-gatherer band, where up to 30 people live close together. To say nothing of how you’d ever have productive permaculture scaling up like that, without regard to permacultural principles like edge or zone 5. I think that really gets to the heart of why a permacultural city contradicts itself.

Maybe this post should actually go under the Dunbar’s number story. . .

Anyway, I see the anonymity of city living and the easy dismissal from social groups as forcing a situation of many weak links, a wide and shallow network of social contacts. I’ll raise my hand and volunteer as poster child.

Yes! If you had no choice whether to find a way to get along with your small group, they would accept you and vice/versa and you wouldn’t need the vast catacombs of tiny social niches of people just like you, that you can find living in a big city (like, ironically, those-who-rewild). Your links would grow strong as a result of constant interaction about stuff that really matters to you, not just liking the same hobby or whatever.

Okay, if you went with 10 square miles - a days walk - as the maximum size and the reasonable limit of 2000 as a population, than that gives you a density of 200 people per square mile, which is still a lot lower than most modern cities. Given that, you would have more green space on ground level than cities do now, and now they have a lot. This is higher than both the village and the tribe density, as the tribe moves over a large space. I talked about the edge thing already and zone five, well zone five is mostly a learning zone, it never is meant to provide much food, and with the zone five bieng only a days walk away at most, it is still pretty accessible.

[quote=“yarrow dreamer, post:26, topic:774”]Anyway, I see the anonymity of city living and the easy dismissal from social groups as forcing a situation of many weak links, a wide and shallow network of social contacts. I’ll raise my hand and volunteer as poster child.
If you had no choice whether to find a way to get along with your small group, they would accept you and vice/versa and you wouldn’t need the vast catacombs of tiny social niches of people just like you, that you can find living in a big city (like, ironically, those-who-rewild). Your links would grow strong as a result of constant interaction about stuff that really matters to you, not just liking the same hobby or whatever.[/quote]

Yarrow dreamer, what you say really hits close to home with me, but I’ll move my discussion of it over to your new thread.

But how will you feed 200 people per square mile? Permaculture doesn’t produce enough food for that. You’ll need agriculture, and outlying farms bringing food in even for that density.

Zone 5 provides a lot more than just learning. No, it doesn’t produce food directly, but all of your areas that do produce food do so because they interact with zone 5. Edge means the interface between two ecological zones. Zone 5, wilderness, gives you your ecological vitality. It gives you the homes for other-than-human animals that make permaculture so productive. You can’t have a forest edge without first having a functioning forest, and wilderness needs space to remain healthy and viable. Remove zone 5, and the productivity of permaculture comes tumbling down to almost nothing, little more than what you’d get from a small conventional farm with low yield-per-acre. Which explains why you never see permaculture effectively scaled up, with permacultural gardens put up right next to one another. That whole idea comes from the logic of agriculture; when you do that, you cease to practice permaculture at all, and become just another farmer. Yet, if you don’t do that, you can’t produce enough food to supply even the modest cities you’ve outlined. Which brings me to why I’ve always said that cities fundamentally, by their very nature, cannot sustain themselves. We need to look outside of cities, and remember that the good things about cities really have nothing at all to do with cities!

Here is another aspect of this discussion that I haven’t seen addressed in this thread.

Even within a village or city, if the food production of the vegetation is enhanced in some way, all of the creatures (not just humans) that rely on that food will move in to take advantage of that increased amount of food.

The town that I go to to do my shopping and town stuff is a small town, 4000 people. There is a big tradition of gardening and home food production and preserving here. Quite a few fruit trees and stuff. There is also a huge population of deer that lives in town. You see them everywhere, any time of day. Bears are also commonly seen in town especially from July to October.

It might sound like hey, that’s a bonus! But hunting in town is difficult. Protecting a crop by hunting doesn’t really work. All it takes is a night or two and a couple of hungry bears to wipe out a lot of ripe fruit, not to mention damage to the trees as well.

So I guess my point is, creating higher density concentrations of quality food attracts others who will want that food and sets up a situation where you have a resource that requires protection.

I think it’s better for the food resources to be more dispersed.

Well, I think we can assume draconian measures to crack down on other-than-human life as par for the city course–fences, scarecrows, perhaps even some organic pesticides and the like. Permaculture offers a lot of ways to keep other animals out already, but obviously a “permaculture city” will play pretty fast and loose with the criteria of permaculture, including abandoning it altogether if it means to support 200 people per square mile.

Okay, “intruders” can be useful and helpful to a system if the system is managed right, they can actually increase yield - the objective is to be like a climax ecosystem - right? I admit that the version of permaculture you would have in a city would not be the same as you would have in a village - you would have to lean more towards bio-intensive as opposed to strict permaculture, but this kind of thing can be scaled up. And, as hey victor pointed out, you bring in natural “intruders” and the line between ecosystem and garden becomes blurry.

The difference between the city and agriculture type permaculture, which would be an oxymoron, is that you are not creating one big garden in the city, but a lot of small ones. You are scaling up, but not all together, becuase is garden is micromanaged and delineated from each other one - there is no reason that gardens have to miles apart to be considered separate, micro-gardens.

But if you don’t have enough space between gardens, then you don’t have a healthy zone 5. Which means you have no edge–a garden up against another garden does not an edge make. Even if you have something between, but you don’t give it enough space to fully develop its own ecology, you’ve got the same problem. Hence, different subsistence technologies give you different food densities. The yield per acre of a permacultural garden sits pretty high, but that seems a bit deceptive, because you only have a figure so high because of all the zone 5 around it, giving you that healthy, productive edge. You really need to take that into account when you figure your yield per acre, which vastly increases the acreage, which drastically reduces your yield per acre. Put gardens close enough together for this plan to work, and you’ll see their productivity plummet to something less than typical agriculture gets.

In fact, your plan describes precisely the way every horticultural villages lays itself out: a village surrounded by each members’ gardens, spread out around the village. But to keep garden productivity up, they need to be spaced out apart from each other to produce edge, and you can only cover the area you can readily get to. As a result, they only produce enough food to support a core community of a hundred or so people. What would your plan do differently that would support thousands of people?

Most of the productivity of the permaculture garden is not at the edge where it meets zone five, at least that is my perception, I could have some misunderstanding about permaculture. From my perception and small practice, the most productive areas are at areas at edge with another species - inter planting or integrating animals. As another option, bio-intensive (http://www.growbiointensive.org/) doesn’t focus at all on edge and can improve both the soil and yield.

My idea is that the gardens would actually be most extensively spaced out around, on top of, and inside the houses, not the city, though some might be necessarily spaced around the settlement. This allows you to cover a much larger area, but can only work becuase of taking advantage of modern buildings (mostly - it is possible to do this with smaller structures, but harder, which might be another reason why know one has done it yet). Am I completely off my rocker?

Most of the productivity of the permaculture garden is not at the edge where it meets zone five, at least that is my perception, I could have some misunderstanding about permaculture.

Well, at least no more than most permaculture instructors. This gets into one of the secrets to permaculture’s success that doesn’t get much play amongst its practitioners, but all of those insects, animals, and bacteria that make zones 1-4 thrive rely on a healthy zone 5 for their own well-being. You can also take a look at the forests adjacent to Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm as a similar example. Without zone 5, the things that make permaculture work all go away.

As another option, bio-intensive (http://www.growbiointensive.org/) doesn't focus at all on edge and can improve both the soil and yield.

Jeavons’ data on yield, well, let’s just charitably say that it raises some suspicions. See Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden for more discussion. Personally, I think of “biointensive” as, if not a total farce, then at least mostly a farce.

My idea is that the gardens would actually be most extensively spaced out around, on top of, and inside the houses, not the city, though some might be necessarily spaced around the settlement.

Then you would have far, far less acreage, and far less yield per acre, than even the Mayan “garden cities” or modern Havana. Relying solely on what you can put inside a city’s limits, even a very spaced-out city, you’ll never get enough food to feed any kind of significant population. You’ll definitely have to start spacing out fields radiating out from the city in all directions, as new farmers have to walk out to their fields. Which brings you right back to the calculations we talked about earlier. You end up with a population of a few hundred, because you can’t feed anything more than that.

This allows you to cover a much larger area...

No, that covers a smaller area. A much smaller area.

ut can only work becuase of taking advantage of modern buildings (mostly - it is possible to do this with smaller structures, but harder, which might be another reason why know one has done it yet). Am I completely off my rocker?

How does a modern building increase the amount of area you can garden? You can do some trivial amount of gardening through windows, but only what you can crowd around the outer wall, and because you have to isolate these plants from a larger ecology to do this, you reduce their yield. On the rooftop, you should have a chance to replace the area you lost by having the building in the first place, but that misses the point. How much soil do you have on the roof? If you have enough to replace the soil that the building sits on, then the roof will collapse. If not, you have plants growing in very little soil, so they can’t grow as well or as big. Rooftop gardens certainly make a marked improvement from bare rooftops, but they seem downright pitiful compared to the same area of actual soil.

Okay, Jason, I see your point about edge - most creatures that we need can’t live directly in our gardens - though some can - that makes sense. I also get how these creatures rely on ecological services, as the have been so called, that are provided by wilderness, much as we do. However, though there has to be wilderness, that raises the question of how far away the zone five has to be. Is five miles too far? I don’t believe it is, especially is the line is blurred, as it is in permaculture.

I have the book, but I don’t quite know what you are talking about, then again, I haven’t read it in a long time, I should do that again (and need to, its almost time to start planting). Unfortunately, I can’t find my copy, maybe I lent it to someone, I should really keep track of things like that :). I’ll take your word on the biointensive stuff, though if there is anywhere else I could get that perspective, I would welcome it. Taking it that what you say is true, thanks for informing me. The rest of what I am saying still stands separately.

No, that covers a smaller area. A much smaller area.[/quote]
Yeah, I phrased that sentence wrong, what I meant to say is that it allows you greater density and population, as the spaces occupied and the spaces devoted to food production can overlap. About the need to have fields outside the city, we really need statistics on how much space it can take, minimum, to feed a person, do you know of anything like that? I found something like 15 000 square feet for the standard American diet, which means that 2000 people could be fed on a little more than a square mile, but that seems wrong. The footprint data suggests something more like 20 000 square feet, but that would still only be 1.4 square miles for 2000 people. If that is correct, that could easily fit inside a city.

A verticle structure for living, one with many stories, allows more people to live in a smaller footprint. I think this is what is meant by “modern” building , although the materials used to support such a tall building are not really sustainable. but in theory, the more “house” you can vertically stack, the more ground you have available to garden. I don’t think that’s really an issue, your house takes up like 1000 square feet of footprint now, and you need several acres for your food. halving your house does not double your acreage, it’s a drop in the bucket.

although it seems the conversation has drifted past the “social mobility” thing, I’d like to note that tribal culture doesn’t have to kill that. If, say, you don’t really like the tribe you grew up in, then at the next festival, you try to form a strong enough bond with another tribe that they take you home with them. Marry into a culture you like better. If our new tribes generally had a policy of accepting outsiders who were willing to adopt their ways, then we don’t really lose much ability. I would encourage traditions of exchanging young adults for a year between tribes at festivals. Make it a right of adulthood that you must live with another tribe for a year and learn their ways. You go with Tim’s tribe, Tim goes with yours. Next year at the festival you are exchanged back. Well, if anything happens to Tim, Tim’s tribe keeps you. This might be a pre-req to trade between tribes, or a means of securing peace.

Lastly, I just want to encourage you. If you think that such a community could function, then by all means try it. If it works, then you’ve got a new method of living. If it doesn’t, then either your people break apart in to villages or they become part of the die off, but no shame either way. part of what I like about diversity of strategy is that any could work will work. We can analyze and plan and raise concerns all day, but in the end it has to be tried to see if it works.

I actually really like that idea andrew, it makes a lot of sense, and has so many benifits, both for the people involved and for the tribes as whole. It would allow people to really see that there way wasn’t the only way of life and that there are other options out there. I think it would increase the ability of people to vote with their feet, one of the things that I think is so important to ensuring the cultural evolution that we see in tribal worlds. However, I still think there is something to be said for cities, for constant, day to day, rubing up of so much diversity. I think that is one reason, a long with writing that has allowed such a high rate of innovation within civilization.

We can analyze and plan and raise concerns all day, but in the end it has to be tried to see if it works.
Yeah, you make a really good point here. This is one reason that city planner is still on my list of potential career oppourtunities, I just need to find a town that is willing to try some really different things, some how, I can't see many big cities willing to take this kind of chance. Small cities and towns - places which, by post-collapse standards, will seem to have been massive cities, however, are anohter story all together. Transition towns in the UK are somehting that seem to have potential, for instance.

And theres craploads of um! Ai was looking at the WWOOF UK(http://www.wwoof.org/) farms the other day… there are soooo many people “working towards self-sustainability” in such a small area!

Yeah, I was thinking about taking a year off to do a wwoof trip before I go to university, the program looks so cool, and with so many opportunities to learn all kinds of skills, practical and social.

There are a lot of people working towards self-sustainability all over the world(my favorite in the UK is http://transitionculture.org/), though for some reason Canada seems to be lacking. I’ve always noticed how somethings may be more wrong (okay, a lot of things :)) in the states, they have more people trying to fix the wrong things too.