Deena Flinchum raised an important point concerning population in the comment on “Lessons From PRT and “Mass” Transit” posted on 22 May.
Sustainability is not a simple or easy to achieve objective. Sustainability is beyond contemplation without Fundamental Change in the current population trajectories at the regional, continental and global scales.
As noted in “The Shape of the Future,” any consideration of sustainability must address the overlapping spheres of Economic, Social and Physical reality.
In the Social sphere, social stability must address three overarching areas of concern:
Making all humans citizens (democracy)
The number of citizens (population)
The way citizens treat one another (genocide, slavery / subjugation, bigotry / discrimination / xenophobia / the equitable distribution of resources)
Population is obviously key to any discussion of sustainability.
We also argue that achieving a sustainable trajectory for civilization is not possible as a direct goal.
There is an interim launch pad and that platform is functional human settlement patterns. Until citizens understand how to create functional settlement patterns they will not have to tools necessary to address the far more complex issue of sustainability.
It is in this context that we link human settlement patterns and sustainability together.
Without this linkage fantasies like:
The religion with the most souls wins, or
The nation-state with the biggest guns wins are rampant.
These myths are almost as silly as the assertion of Anonymous 8:10 PM who said:
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, they (illegal immigrants) are welcome. After all, most of them will vote Republican, if we let them.
“Would you rather have them here working for us, or over there competing against us?”
Competing for what? The nicest lawns? The cleanest windows?
If potential immigrants become key contributors to Balanced Communities in El Salvador or Ivory Coast that is much better than their contributing to unbalance and over-consumption in Greater Houston or Washington-Baltimore New Urban Regions.
EMR