Cities Built on Fertile Lands Affect Climate

Devar writes "While cities provide vital habitat for human beings to thrive, it appears U.S. cities have been built on the most fertile soils, lessening contributions of these lands to Earth's food web and human agriculture, according to a study by NASA researchers and others. Though cities account for just 3 percent of continental U.S. land area, the food and fiber that could be grown there rivals current production on all U.S. agricultural lands, which cover 29 percent of the country. Studies like this one may lead to smarter urban-growth strategies in the future."

Comments

Re:Smarter Urban-Growth?

[Rick the Red]

Near where I live is a fertile valley, which is now mostly paved over with a sea of warehouses. Meanwhile, the hills on either side of the valley are largely undeveloped. Why? Because it's cheaper to build in the valley and ship in food from elsewhere than it is to build in the hills and grow food locally.

Recently, the last agricultural business in the area -- a dairy -- was shut down because cow poop was getting into the river. Never mind the oil and gasoline run-off from the sea of asphault all around the dairy.

Oh, and where does our food come from? South America and the irrigated deserts of California. Los Angeles can't get enough drinking water; they're draining the Colorado River dry before it reaches the sea, and still they can't get enough water. Yet they grow rice in the desert!

And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.

Disappearing Farms

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that here in NYC we used to have loads Long Island potatoes in the stores. Now we don't have any. I am not talking about 50 years ago, I am talking about 15 or 20.

Maybe the potatoes in in the store are from Long Island just not labeled as such. Maybe they have been out competed because of cheap transportation costs but mostly I think it is because as you drive out on I-495 (The Long Island Expressway) you see miles and miles of suburbs most of which used to be farms.

The lack of urban planning in America has been a major irritation to me since I moved temporarily outside of New York City. I lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia for a few years and in Stutgart Germany for a half a year.

Stutgart was laid out as little clumps of Urban areas mixed into farm, woodlots and vinyards. There were vinyards in the middle of the city. Plus you could walk or bike ride for miles on trails from one part of town to the other and there were trains everywhere.

New York City is very dense. The whole world should not be like that, but it definitely should not be like the miles and miles, 50+ miles of suburb that surround it. The worst is places like Raleigh Triangle that has no city, just urban sprawl alon highways. I haven't been to California, but I get the impression that large sections of it are like that also.