Mesopotamia
The first cities arose along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia five millennium ago. The impetus for such centers seems to have been for the "storage and distribution of food,"(1) and its subsequent defense.(2) The growth of cities has to be studied along with the parallel growth of the agricultural revolution,(3) -- a revolution that would change the face of the world forever. Before the time of great innovations in the field of agriculture, people had to be spread across the land so they could hunt and collect food such as berries: "hunting and gathering required a minimum of two square miles of territory to produce the food for one person."(4) With the rise of agricultural practices, more and more food could be produced in a smaller area, enabling people to come together to form basic communities; the farmer could begin to feed more than his or her own family. For cities to form, "a fraction of the population first had to be freed from cultivation."(5)
The cities of the world grew from such humble beginnings to the point that urbanization is now threatening the very food supply that enabled its existence in the first place. Urban areas include not only the primary city, but also its suburbs and the sprawl that goes hand in hand with both. Urbanization is threatening our food supply in North America, along with other countries around the world. How has it come to this? Our civilization began in rural areas, on beautiful countrysides and in picturesque enclaves and river valleys scattered across the planet. Will there be any of those places left, if we want to go home again? Could there ever be an exodus of people from some of the huge and miserable cities, to clean fertile locations, where it would be possible to live off the land? Soon there will not be a 'going home' for anyone, and it is happening faster than any of us would like to admit. What made cities grow to such size? And how is urbanization affecting prime agricultural areas in specific regions of California, British Columbia, and Ontario? What are the implications for humanity if these trends continue at the rate they are going presently? What are the repercussions for Planet Earth, as we know it today?
The birth of scientific agriculture may have given cities their beginning, but it was the forces of industrialism that led them on the path towards great expansion.(6) It was the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century which caused cities to swell with people hoping to improve their economic position by getting jobs in the factories.(7) Many of these urban areas grew up in the middle of prime agricultural land which is now lost forever.(8) Cities were in existence at the beginning of the 19th century, but "only two percent of the world population lived in them, and not more than fifty cities had populations exceeding one hundred thousand."(9) And hand in hand with industrialism came employment opportunities on a large-scale and millions who were being displaced from farms due to the mechanization of agriculture, flooded into the cities. In 1800 only six percent of the American population lived in urban areas; by 1850 it had grown to fifteen percent and by 1900, forty percent of the population was living in the cities of America.(10)
As people began to pour into urban areas looking for work, it soon became apparent that adequate housing was insufficient and it was during this period that slums began to appear and spread like a cancer. At the same time as migration into cities continued, more and more factories were built and people were forced to live closer together, for economic reasons. The growth trend which sees the population explode within a small area of space is called 'implosion' by demographers and this seems to characterize the phenomenon of the 1800s.
With the building of the manufacturing sector came the necessity of railroads, highways, and an expansion of the industrial base. In The World Cities, Peter Hall calls the:
Growth of white-collar occupations of all kinds without a doubt the most important single explanation for the growth of the world cities in the period since 1850. Also retail trade grew in most metropolitan cities faster than did the demand of the immediate population; for these centers provided a shop window for national and international markets. Certain types of manufacturing industry women's fashions, men's tailoring, jewelry and precious metals, high class furniture were distinctively metropolitan tradesSuch goods have to be made in close and immediate contact with the final purchaser and specifier.(11)
People went to the world's cities for reasons such as employment, educational institutions, health care, public services of higher quality, and the opportunity to earn higher wages.(12) Urban growth continued until the end of World War I when war production had begun to cause strains(13) in the very fabric of North American cities. Enormous numbers of workers were needed in wartime production on the home front, causing considerable pressure on cities' transportation systems and housing facilities.(14) The people who could afford to leave the cities did so at this time, and suburbs had their birth.(15) Many continued to leave throughout the 1920s and 30s when the Depression hit cities particularly hard.(16) This exodus exploded after World War II and has been labeled 'deplosion' by demographers.(17) The depression was subsiding with help from the war-induced economic recovery and millions of veterans were returning with the ability to buy homes through financial incentives from veterans associations and government loans.(18)
Millions of people were now able to buy houses instead of renting and they preferred to envision homes with white picket fences instead of the decaying urban cores that cities were offering. Cities were just too dirty and too crowded for many people, and most wanted to own their own piece of land, however small it was. Communication systems had improved and the wide-spread ownership of automobiles enabled families to move out of the cities(19) and still be able to commute to work "making large-scale dispersion of populations feasible."(20) As a result, the need came for highway systems, causing great destruction of agricultural lands by using approximately 6.5 hectares of it for each kilometre of road or highway built.(21) Other prerequisites are airports which take thousands of hectares of land for their construction, as well as garbage dumps and landfills, often built on agricultural land. Garbage significantly contributes to the shrinkage in our farmland, as Ontario loses 0.6 hectares of land to garbage everyday.(22)
The rapid growth of suburbs in North America can be seen as almost chaotic, with little planning and little servicing.(23) City dwellers simply looked at the flat, rich agricultural lands that surrounded their cities and wondered how much it would cost them to buy the farmers out. As one farm fell to suburbia and then another, it was almost impossible for any of them to hang on: suburbanites also began to complain of the noise plows were making and the smell from the animals.(24) The farmers were offered so much money for their land that, coupled with pressure from several different interest groups, they could see no other choice but to sell out. Urban growth "removes hundreds of thousands of acres from production each year,"(25) not only in the United States and Canada, but in many fertile farm belts around the world.(26)
In the twentieth century, new industries have joined the old: industries which include computer technology, communications, and "custom-built electronic apparatus for scientific purposes."(27) These types of manufacturing businesses must be close to the consumer and therefore, must be located in or near large cities. During the last few decades, we see another stage in the growth of urbanization because many city centers are no longer conducive for industrial production. On account of high rent prices, high crime statistics, and urban core decay, many manufacturing activities are now found on the periphery of metropolitan areas where lower rent and lower taxes can be found.(28) This is especially true for paper handling companies like credit card ones that do not need face to face contact to conduct business.
In many revitalized downtown cores, only national and international companies, having the need of good communication contact with the public will be found there.(29) Workers in these occupations, like corporate law, can afford to live in expensive condominiums in the areas they work. This further contributes to the displacement of low and middle-income residents out to the fringe, "creating epic urban sprawl."(30) Almost all the cities in the world exhibit outward growth, with peripheral areas demonstrating more rapid growth than the cities themselves.(31) This coupled with the population explosion of the twentieth century, marks a dangerous trend. Statistics show that nearly eighty percent of those living in the United States today, live in urban areas.(32)
California is the most important agricultural state in America and produces forty-two percent of its fruit and forty-three percent of its vegetables.(33) California is important for the subsistence of Americans and also is a very financially lucrative state which brings in billions of dollars from agricultural exports every year. Why then, if its importance is so apparent, would Californians allow "acre after acre of California's orange and vegetable cropping areas to be taken out of production every year in order to meet the water needs of thousands of people who, each year and in ever-increasing numbers, invade Los Angeles?"(34) This land should be protected and other ways found to develop long-term solutions for their water supply needs.
By 1960, already three million acres of high quality Californian farmland was lost to urban areas.(35) One third of the prime agricultural land was gone by 1980,(36) and predictions for the year 2020 show that more than fourteen million acres of the southern state's highest quality farmland will have disappeared.(37) "The best farmland is not randomly distributed, and is often associated with cities:"(38) much of the agricultural land in California has already vanished beneath suburbs like Orange County in the Los Angeles Basin and the Santa Clara Valley, south of San Francisco.
Seventy percent of the Santa Clara Valley was listed as prime agricultural land by 1949, but much of it is now lost to one of San Francisco's suburbs: San Mateo. The people of San Mateo found the farmland very desirable for housing developments and offered some of the farmers up to $15, 000 an acre for their land.(39) How many could resist the money? Who can blame them? However, if these trends continue, California will be unable to feed her own population, nor the rest of the United States; certainly, it will be unable to export food to the rest of the world, and that means us.
Although the United States and Canada have very different population numbers, and the "proportion of the population classified as urban has been slightly higher in the United States,"(40) Canada still has a very similar trend in metropolitan growth since the 1850s.(41) The suburban areas of Canada grew steadily since World War I and are continuing to display similar patterns, with urban populations almost doubling between 1951 and 1971.(42) There are regional and provincial differences in rates of population increases in Canada, but overall, the trend is similar with our southern neighbor. An example is the city of Vancouver and its surrounding areas. It has shown rapid growth in suburban developments and continuing urban sprawl.(43) Urban sprawl areas will eventually merge with a city just as Surrey's did in ten short years during the 1950s, becoming enmeshed with metropolitan Vancouver.(44) The lush Fraser River Delta system runs through the area of Vancouver and provides sixty-five percent of the agricultural industry in British Columbia.
During the 1950s, Vancouver stretched in four main directions, with much of the land being developed into single-family suburban housing tracts.(45) The loss of prime agricultural land in the Fraser Delta was quite high during this time, especially in the areas of Surrey, Richmond, and Delta.(46) The depletion of farmland can also be attributed to urban industrial growth, embracing nearly ten thousand acres alone in the area of Vancouver, located along the Fraser River.(47) So much prime land was lost along the delta that the province was forced to pass the Land Commissions Act of 1973, requiring 77, 165 acres of agricultural land within the greater Vancouver district to be preserved.(48) Nevertheless, the population explosion in the area, particularly in the last ten years, has put great pressure on the zoning regulations.
Vancouver has been called the 'San Francisco of the North' and has the second largest Chinatown in North America after San Francisco, due in large degree to the 1997 deadline given by Communist China to regain control of Hong Kong, causing a massive exodus into the Vancouver area. These people have brought their wealth with them, buying as much real estate as they can. What land are they buying?
Although it is hard to believe, there is still farming going on in metropolitan Vancouver, but much less than has been seen in the past. Some of this decrease is due to "absentee owners of 19, 330 acres of traditional farmland."(49) What will happen to food production along the Fraser River Delta system will only be evident in the future when the population in the area has leveled off.
Many of the same trends can be seen across Ontario. All a person has to do is visit Ottawa and its suburbs to see how many farms once existed there, with only a scattering still remaining. Ontario has some of the most prime agricultural land in Canada and exports help to feed all Canadians, however, it is also one of the most urbanized and industrialized regions of the country with high numbers of people. Isn't that one more reason to have this land diligently protected by the government? Alas, it is not. For example, the Niagara Fruit Belt of Ontario, lying between Niagara-on-the-Lake, St. Catharines, Lincoln, and Grimsley is in serious trouble.(50)
The area has been subjected to urban pressures associated with sprawl from St. Catharines and negatively affected by the abundance of cars, rapid post-war population increases, and newly built highways all before the 1970s when plans to prevent unregulated land use were implemented.(51) Farmers also contributed to the problem by selling off sections of their farms for large sums of money. By "promoting urban sprawl in this way, farmers added to a further problem the frequent incompatibility between urban and rural functions."(52) There was a bitter conflict between environmentalists and developers in the 1970s which ended with the 1981 Regional Niagara Policy Plan being implemented. This plan offered safeguards against future developments.(53) The judgements incorporated within the document had no value during most of the 1980s when population levels fell to an historical low, and recession caused a decline in manufacturing industries and housing developments all over Ontario.(54)
By the late 1980s, the economy began to show improvement, and people began to build homes again on the unique agricultural land of the Niagara Fruit Belt. The government is still trying to make compromises in the region, but many of the farmers who suffered through the 1980s are in desperate financial straits and are asking for help from any level of government; if they do not receive any, their common belief is that they should be able to sell since there is such a great demand for urban land. Land is needed to expand the highway from Hamilton to Niagara Falls, and to accommodate new industrial parks and motels. These urban pressures are real and are infringing upon a very important tender fruit and grape growing area of Canada.
Only two other areas in Canada can accommodate this type of agriculture: the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and the Kent-Essex area of southwest Ontario; both are also high frost risk regions.(55) Recently, permission was given for new houses, schools, golf courses, churches, retailing, and warehousing to be built in the Fruit Belt: "the countryside is seen as the answer for cheap urban land."(56) But how much will it cost us in the future? High prices in Toronto are forcing people to look at the Niagara region for affordable housing which will eventually make it an outer suburb of the big city. Pressures from urban centers all over Ontario are diminishing prime farmland needed to feed Canadians.
There may be many differences existing amongst the people of our world, but one thing that is universal is the reality we all must eat to sustain our lives. Without food, humanity can no longer exist; people will die of hunger. Lack of rainfall for crops, soil degradation, desertification, and soil salinity are factors that contribute to terrible physical hardships and famines. We see these types of situations through the mass media and are concerned there are so many people who have little or nothing to eat; all the while we fail to realize that by allowing our cities to grow without interruption, we are rapidly starving ourselves. Urbanization is threatening our food supply all our the planet. We need only to look at the Goulds which was once a heavily farmed region outside of St. John's, Newfoundland. Presently, much of the area is taken over by single-family homes.
The rapid loss of agricultural lands is prevalent throughout the world and clearly shows that crops cannot compete with the sprawl that is characteristic of cities. These sprawling areas are now beginning to grow together and are forming megalopoli like the Boston-Washington corridor. We have reshaped our planet so drastically that most of us live far away from our source of food, allowing increased amounts of preservatives and pesticides to be used to allow products travel time over great distances. Urban centers have forgotten their existence is dependent on the rural areas that surround them, and have illusions they are self-sufficient. In reality, cities rely on faraway places for their food, fuel, and water, which often comes from distant reservoirs. In addition, the continued increase in population rates is adversely affecting the carrying capacity of the planet, making aspects of food production much more worrisome and problematic.
Wasn't it Ghandi who said that we must be the change we wish to see in the world? It is up to each of us to realize there are consequences to our decisions and actions -- consequences for the future. We must be aware of them. It seems many people do not think about tomorrow or how they will be able to feed their children, they are more interested in living life for the day, seizing the moment. What about tomorrow?
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