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How would they feed themselves?
by ricksplat 10y ago
How would they feed themselves?
- morgante 10y agoTrade. The same way that the many countries with net agricultural imports feed themselves.
- ricksplat 10y agoSeems like a very expensive way to do it. Look at most of the big cities. All are flanked by swathes of agricultural land. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, London, Paris ... Yes you can trade - but it's no substitute for having your own food source right there. EDIT HN not allowing me to respond below but yes Tokyo is an outlier - and food as you point out is very expensive.
- rangibaby 10y agointeresting you missed Tokyo there. Japan imports 100% of food consumed regularly except for rice, which is expensive compared to overseas (about $5/kg). Other locally grown meats fruits etc are generally premium items.
- morgante 10y agoSure, and most of those imports would come from the surrounding farmland. It would likely be somewhat more expensive than the current system, but primarily because urban taxes would not be providing agricultural subsidies. Tokyo already does this and food there is not substantially expensive than it is in other alpha cities. Also there are plenty of big cities not surrounded by farmland. Hong Kong and Singapore, for example.
- cheetos 10y agoLocally-grown food is generally more expensive in these areas because smaller local farms do not enjoy the same advantage of economy of scale that global distributors do.
- ricksplat 10y agocitation needed