I know it’s like standing in front of a large orange oncoming train, but may I please say something about this huge book? It’s wrong in its basic assumption. The assumption (as it says in huge letters there on the cover) is that 75% of us will live in cities by 2050. But that number, along with the book’s 500 pages of similar projections, takes no account of some rather likely discontinuities – the most plausible being what John Michael Greer describes as the catabolic collapse of the industrial civilization that keeps these global cities lit. Global energy, money, food and water systems are in crisis now, for goodness sake – never mind in 2050. Do the distinguished editors of The Endless City seriously imagine that billions more people will want to be in cities when the average supermarket contains three days supply of food – and that’s when things are running smoothly?
