That is what a free market economy does and does well compared to the alternatives-- i.e., it provides for the most efficient allocation of scarce resources while maximizing net present wealth. When LCF makes sense is when it serves the purposes the individual, not the purposes of a dystopian anti-car political movement.

Personal freedom. Yes, certainly... But, it has evolved... To, the point where everyone tries to emulate, the Jones's... Nay, make that, to beat the Jones's... Show wealth, successes.. Instead of moderation where everyone , maybe should, even "probably"? should, The toe the line for society, to survive the present changes in the world.... JMO

You don't think people have been trying to "get ahead" throughout human history?

Of course they have... and in general that was a step ahead for their progeny. BUT Today, where the next 3 months "profit" for a company you work for controls where things are headed for the whole world, it becomes, a totally different outcome in the long run... as I see it....

I certainly agree that corporate behavior is distorting and ultimately undermining functioning market economics, but I think that's a distinctly different discussion.

Yes, it is. But, it is still connected... Why is the car culture king? Well there is/are a lot of reasons in the background, but Profit trumps most I suspect...

LOL - I am the one actually arguing for the free market.

And yet this is your favorite subforum.

Your personal lifestyle may well be sustainable, and of course you are free to live it, but for many rural residents it's an illusion that country living is somehow greener than city living. They occupy more space, drive more, need more energy for home heating and other uses, it takes more energy to deliver mail and parcels to them, their malls and mall parking lots take up more space, and in those and many other ways, they strain nature in general far more than if the same number of people lived in a fairly compact neighbourhood; and most of them eat food produced some distance away by somebody else, just like city people.

The LCF movement disapproves of rural America. Shocker.

It's definitely greener out here. Had our first spring rain the other day and you could smell the green. Delightful.

Generally speaking, malls are more a function of suburban living than rural living. I haven't been in a mall in years, but ironically the only mall that exists in the greater metro area I live near is located in the city.

Undoubtedly delivery of services is more efficient in densely populated areas. But there are downsides as well. Heat island effects and stormwater/wastewater concentration are two that spring to mind. Social issues also tend to increase in high density populations.

All human existence impacts the environment and regardless of where they live it is the increasing number of humans that will exacerbate these impacts. I'm not convinced the clustering more people closer together provides any great solution. I think the two most significant steps forward that we could make now in terms of lessening negative impact of humans on their environment would be to eliminate fossil fuels and control population growth. I have hope for the former.

Again, this is not about you. Thought experiment: If all those people currently crammed into your nearby city spread out at your density, do you see that lessening their impact on the environment?

Actually it seems meat production trumps all bad things us humans are doing to the world. as I understand it's effects, it's number 1 in what is considered the worst thing we do...

So your point is that soccer moms aren't contributing CO2 to the atmosphere, or that their contribution isn't significant because it is one small demographic among all the other demographics that cause CO2 emissions?

Are you also implying that it's stupid to care about polar bears, or all non-human life in general? What about human life? Is it stupid to care about that? What exactly is not stupid to care about, iyo?

And when you talk about symbolism, do you not consider symbolic thinking dogmatic? What exactly do you think 'dogma' means? Does it have an actual meaning to you or is it just a word you like using as ammunition in your vitriolic rhetoric?

Consider the opposite. What happens if most of the rural population moves to the city. This tends to happen when rural economies collapse and the results are not pretty. I think in a moderately well functioning society, human population distribution works itself out pretty well.

If there's sudden migration due to a crisis that's a different thing.

What I meant is that if your region had evolved differently so that all of the 200,000 or whatever people living in Tallahassee instead lived on rural lots, they would need a lot more resources than they do now. They would need a lot more buildings - a separate house for every family with no apartment blocks or row houses to reduce land or materials. They'd need a lot more roads - instead of 10 houses sharing 300 feet of frontage, each house might have 300 feet of frontage. They'd need a lot of schoolbuses. They'd have to use a lot more of the existing farm or wildlands. None of them would walk to work or the store and fewer would bike, and those who already drive would drive farther. They'd need to own more cars. You'd have a lot more neighbours and would have a harder time finding a place where you didn't have to see them or deal with them, if that is what you like about your current location, and the spring air would smell a tiny bit less fresh.

Now apply the same logic to the millions currently packed into Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. That's a lot of lost idyllic rural solitude.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of considering people and/or communities to be a inherent problem that needs to be solved biased on a theoretical and subjective sustainability index. It's too judgmental.

You mentioned that we needed "solutions". What do you think needs to be solved?

Yes, but specifically in the context of when it''s not harmful to people and communities.

Harm is going on all the time. Limiting or reversing it is already in order. We're just debating how to do it. Oslo thinks the way to do it is to have more cycling and public transit downtown, and fewer cars. That's a great idea. However you said you are also in favour of
and you also saidFine - how are you going to make rural living more sustainable, for the majority of rural residents who aren't actually farmers or whatever? Not all of them are going to have nearby rural jobs they can bike to like you.

Belief that global warming during the last half of the 20th century is caused by humanity's release of CO2 -- and by extension, is caused by soccer moms driving SUVs instead of LCF, which in turn is killing polar bears is an example of dogma --i.e., belief based on emotions that must be taken on faith, like religious beliefs that cannot be verified by the scientific method.

I can't suggest specific examples because every community is unique, but when issues can be addressed without harm to the community, do so.
The other part of that is simply accepting that every community and lifestyle can't match the sustainability of ideal communities and lifestyles.

It's kinda sad LCF is like today's politics which has degraded into one side against the other, rather than trying to identify what each has in common and concentrating on that.

Two glasses half empty equals an empty glass.

First of all, dogma isn't directly defined by emotions but by rhetorical/superficial knowledge divorced from deeper understanding. It is possible to believe the things you're saying in a dogmatic way, which is what you and others like you promote by talking about these things as if they're random events that otherwise have nothing to do with each other.

In reality, it is perfectly logical to look at the amount of fossil fuel burned throughout the 20th century for all sorts of reasons, and believe that polar ice melting is at least partially caused by that. What's more, it is perfectly reasonable to break down large-scale phenomena, such as 'fossil-fuel burning,' into narrower categories, such as soccer moms, who burn relatively large amount of fuel if they drive around a lot to shuttle kids to all sorts of different activities.

So, no, claiming that soccer moms are contributing to polar bear habitat loss is not dogmatic unless you don't understand the logic behind the claim. What is dogmatic is believing that driving is a necessary fact of life when you've never actually considered what it would take to LCF. In many ways dogmatism is nothing more than just 'going with the flows' of culture without critically thinking about why culture is the way it is, how it could be different, and/or what freedom you have as an individual to make your own choices independently of cultural norms and prescriptions.

+1, well said.