I have been noodling ChrisinGa's comments in my previous post. One of his lines really got my attention:
I guess I will just have to disagree with all of you. We already see today suburbia contracting back into the core of the cities today. We already see the highway system, its bridges, and drainage systems falling apart.
Resources will be drawn into the cities all along the way. Sure large scale farming will receive resources. Most especially those along rail lines and those that are drawn into what was once suburbia. And we are also likely to see manufacturing come back to the states.
There is no doubt that there will be a process the transforms us from what we are today to what we will be. But I can assure you with the vast majority of the population in the cities that with the exception of farming rural America will get the short end of the stick in nearly every category first.
"Resources will be drawn into cities along the way." That line went on, over and over again in my mind all day... "along the way"... My sense is that Chris is right, only he puts the "along the way" well into the future, and I am starting to believe (not finished thinking about it, but wanted to expand the discussion) that his "Resources will be drawn into cities along the way" has likely been going on for some time, may well continue for some time, but is closer to the end than the beginning.
Look at the U.S. banking center, New York. The only thing keeping the lights on in New York is the Federal Reserve. The Fed has engineered an environment whereby the big New York banks and hedge funds can borrow money for nearly ZERO and take the proceeds and buy long maturity bonds. The Fed has telegraphed every move to this crew along the way, and these folks are printing money.
That does not mean that that strategy won't end badly... I think it will... but it does comport with Chris' idea about resources being drawn in. The money these banks/funds are making on the spread is coming from somewhere... the gain is somebody's loss.
My view of Mega Cities as technological islands that need to import everything ALSO comports with Chris' view AND my assertion that this is already well under way. The resources HAVE been being drawn into the large cities, and I would assert that the tipping point for the failure of that phenomenon is not that far in the future for the mega-cities in the nations importing the most Oil.