It is not a megacity, using the correct terminology; with a population of 6,371,773 the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is the fourth largest in the United States. It is in a state which has its own power grid serving a population of 25.1 million residents and, as I have heard, it is quite stable. We have the natural resources to keep it running. The only problem we have is in the power distribution. Severe weather can leave many homes in the cold.

Water is a problem where I live. We have had several droughts in my life time with water conservation measures in action.

We have ozone alert days and people are encouraged to carpool or take public transportation.

As I have said, even in a recession we are growing so I am not seeing a decay until the end of this decade at the earliest.

As I said in another tread, I would head South on U.S. 67, one of thirteen major routes, if we had to get out of Dodge. And since I know the area around U.S. 67, I know some alternate routes in the event something is not moving.

Jeanette Isabelle

I think you need to expand your field of vision.

So Texas has it's own power grid --- what if a disgruntled group of employees decide to take it down, having the knowledge and access to do it?

What is the source of water for the DFW area? Is it dependent on power? Oops! How long do you think business would continue as usual without water?



Neither DFW, nor Texas, nor the U.S. are economically independent entities. The world is now totally interconnected, and dependent on each facet working.

Weren't there some reports in January that Texas was somewhere between 18 and 25 BILLION DOLLARS in the hole? That means broke or close to it, to me. Have things improved drastically in the last six months?

If as few as four countries (even small countries) default on their loans to the U.S., economists estimate that will be the beginning of a world crash, a spiral of collapse that, once begun, can't be stopped.

Our federal government is broke, printing money to make up part of the difference, and fueling a recession. The last I heard, 46 of our 50 states are also broke. Where do you think this is going? No quick fixes seem to be in sight.

If our economic woes worsen, and we go into a severe 'Greater' Depression, is it just going to be the rest of the country, with Texas down there cheering us into solvency? I don't think so.

Sue

Not for long, the Texas interconnect is being integrated into a North American grid via the Tres Amigas SuperStation. The future Tres Amigas Superstation will become a supercritical node, which could cause a cascade failure of all electrical power in North America. Even more astounding is the high temperature DC superconductor technology being planned for its operation. Lets hope the liquid nitrogen plumbing and pumps are up to the job. 30GW into a single node would make for quite a bang.

Lets hope its not a ruse for an Anti-hydrogen production facility. Thats some pretty dangerous stuff to store and handle.

I suspect that you're 180 degrees out of phase with the cycle of deterioration and rebuilding in cities. Deterioration started in the 50s as the combination of easy mortgage creation, tax benefits, highway building outside cities all combined to gut previously vibrant cities and create suburban sprawl.

In some ways this process has been slowing down and may have reversed in the 90s. The housing crisis was one of the clearest signs that the reversal of the process is well under way. The mortgage deduction has been mentioned as going under the axe. That, and a whole lot of people are questioning assumptions about the received wisdom of 'home ownership', really renting from a bank until you clear the mortgage and state through property taxes, versus simply renting outright.

The Watts riots in 1965 and Chicago riots in 68, and a whole lot between and after were symptoms of what happens when cities are emptied out, face declining tax bases, but browner people are stuck, unable to move out to the suburbs because of red lining and discriminator lending practices. It wouldn't have been so frustrating for them stuck in the cities if jobs had stayed but with a unemployment rate many times that of their white counterparts, deteriorating physical situations, overstressed services and wide swaths of unoccupied housing it was only a matter of time before they rioted.

The cities are not back to what they were in the 50s but the shine has come off the 'good life' in the suburbs while many cities have shown remarkable improvements in livability.

Some of this shift is also being driven by energy costs. Fact is that city dwellers use less energy per person, and are generally healthier, than their suburban counterparts. Living in a city where you can walk to most of what you need to get to, where public transport makes makes up the difference, where vehicle ownership is entirely optional, means you spend less time in traffic, save money, stay healthier, and are more attuned to your neighborhood.

Cities are machines for living. They are also economic powerhouses. In any disaster cities are gong to get emergency services and relief faster and in great abundance. Partly this is because that is where the people are, partly because that is where the money gets made, and partly because that is where the people who make the money hang out.

Ok, I'm confused.

Not that I disagree with all that you say Art, but a city, by definition, contains a lot of people. The same bunch that will be competing for limited resources after a major disaster.

Out here in suburbia, I can find water (creek), food (rabbits, deer, wild turkeys), fuel (deadwood in the nearby forest) and have room for a garden. No, I don't walk to work, or take public transport (don't see how that is healthy) but I do take walks around my neighborhood and into the surrounding woods. "More attuned to my neighborhood" - does that mean I know where the bangers and dealers hang out so I can avoid them?

One big thing - disposal of waste. I can dig a latrine if forced to. I can burn my garbage if I have to. What about a city, where trash piles up during strikes. Heaven forbid a lack of water for toilets.

I think I will stay out of cities.

And they work well only when well balanced. When something goes out of whack (economic disaster, natural disaster), the sheer number of inhabitants vs commodities available causes a lack of balance.

Cites are heavily dependent on incoming materials of all kinds: power, food, water, useful goods. Cut off any ONE of them and what happens? Stop two or three of them?

Sue

I don't see that happening even with disgruntled employees. If something goes down, others would notice it quickly. I am confident in our power grid. A bigger problem would be a power distribution center.


The biggest threat to our water supply is a drought.


That sort of problem can affect any place and it may even be catostrophic but unless the economy freefalls, I don't see decay any time soon since we are growing even now.


I have not heard of this. I have heard that the Department of Transpotation is strapped for cash. Therefore it would seem other state departments would be hurting as well.

Jeanette Isabelle

Now I see a problem.

Jeanette Isabelle

There's a flip side, too. Access to power from other grids when the Texas grid is short of power will prevent blackouts and increase the reliability of the grid. Like when those recent winter ice storms led to blackouts in Texas--if spare capacity from, say, California could've been shunted to Texas, those blackouts might have been preventable.

Actually, from what I've read, Texas could be heading for a power shortage in just a few years. New regulations will require Texas power plants to be upgraded but electricity rates are quite low now so the upgrades may not make financial sense and the utilities would rather shut those gas-fired plants down. Eventually, supply and demand will raise rates enough to make those upgrades worthwhile, but in the meantime, Texans may suffer with barely enough capacity and perhaps more blackouts.

While I agree that a lot of progress in commerce, technology, and many other facets of civillization were made possible by cities, there can certainly be a point where cities are too large for their own good.

Cities--especially megacities--are such complicated creatures, it's hard to really make blanket statements. And they are different from each other so what works in one place may not work in another. New York City and Tokyo are vastly different on many levels from Lagos and Rio de Janeiro.

However, as the human population continues to climb, more and more cities will enter the ranks of megacities, so it's certainly an important issue.