A May 29th article by Ned Potter on ABC News’ website describes a vision of what cities might look like in the future. Future cities are predicted to be green: both on the ground and on the roofs, providing acreage for growing crops, reducing the need for storm sewers, and improving air quality. Further agricultural land could be provided on vertically arranged crop yielding skyscrapers, so that we can imagine communities that can produce most of their food locally. The increased green space will also provide increased high quality recreational space for inhabitants.
In addition, cities by their very definition are energy efficient, providing a level of density where economies of scale can be realized when heating or cooling of buildings is required. Architecture 2030 is aggressively promoting the easily attainable goal of carbon neutral, energy producing buildings within 20 years. Buildings that do not produce more energy than they require (through renewable sources) are not likely to exist in the lifetimes of some of us.
Self sufficiency at the urban scale results in thriving local economies and is a highly sustainable situation, from social, economic, and environmental standpoints. One can imagine cities that offer employment to increasing percentages of its inhabitants, reducing the need for automobiles. With efficient public transportation, the need for streets will diminish, and perhaps even disappear one day.
All of this is of course in direct contradiction to the concept of globalization. Global trade to a large extent is dependant on the oil and petroleum industry, and we have run out of oil. Globalization exports jobs and weakens local economies. It is a major driver of carbon emissions, requiring the transportation of a huge volume of goods and people. Globalization is an unsustainable idea, and will be abandoned in it’s current form, either by choice or by necessity.