Crises in resource availability, such as food shortages, fresh water availability, electric power over-consumption and the like are a two-faced problem in regard to urban systems. One face is the resource consumption of the urban area itself, the other face is the resource availability from elsewhere to support a given urban environment. So for a given urban area, resource availability runs a huge risk of turning into a “tragedy of the commons”-type of situation, in which total disaster awaits any given urban area if it consumes either too much or too little of whatever resources are available. All the urban areas taken together must equitably share out the resources available if they are all to survive at a sustainable level.
Let’s have a look at these two faces and see how a single face might be created.
One way of framing the resource crises problem is to look at both the pessimistic scenario involving the total exhaustion of resources against the optimistic one, based on technological advancement and the belief that we will develop innovative solutions to solve all the problems posed by the pessimists.
With publication of the 1972 book Limits to Growth, society became conscious of the many threats to continued human existence by factors such as exhaustion of energy, climate change, over-population and the deterioration of ecosystems.
But the techno-believers addressed each and every one of these threats in one way or the other. Consider exhaustion of energy. Here optimists argued that for each source of energy—wood, coal, oil, nuclear, et al—that threatened exhaustion, more efficient substitutes were found in a series of technologic and scientific breakthroughs facilitated by the laws of markets.
So how does this picture look within the specific context of urban systems?
Urban populations through their higher incomes and lifestyle choices typically consume high quantities of energy-consuming goods like refrigerators, nightclubs, cars, red meat and all the other things associated with the “good life.” These choices increase air and water pollution, create heat zones contributing to global warming, trap pollutants leading to environmental damage and the like.
The other side of the coin shows that exhaustion of resources outside a given urban area can lead to resource depletion with the urban environment. This, in turn, can lead to cities imposing austerity measures such as cuts in local public spending and the privatization of public assets.
As noted above, the only real solution to this two-faced dilemma is for each urban area to cooperate and collaborate with every other to ensure that the resources available can be equitably shared for all urban areas to survive and even prosper for an indefinite future.