Enumerating points:

1. Free market economy exists in Asia. Singapore, for example..is run like a corporation. I want to say it’s a free market economy but it’s only partly free markets. Because of its resource limitations, there is some govt interventions. It is not self sufficient and yet it functions smoothly. So that would be the model closest to what’s in my mind of a free market economy.

2. We are ‘going back’ on a timeline of self sufficiency. A hunter gatherer didn’t have markets. There was no supply chain or cold chain or transportation. They ate when they hunted and foraged the rest of the time leaving a lot of free time. Of course, I am not saying that we ought to go back to being hunter gatherers ..I am just saying that the world has not become smaller physically but the resources have shrunk. It’s the physical dimensions of resources, water, energy etc that must be localized and where we ought to be self sufficient.

My ‘lived experience’ is high density highly populous urban experience.

3. There is no doubt that current Ag practices have to change. Most of it has to go indoors.

4. I also feel that high density living has its advantages as long as the resources needed for the tightly packed people are also accessible.

You mention NYC. It has a good transport network and parks and ingress/egress and homes and offices and shopping. So even though it’s high density, it’s liveable.

I live in a Silicon Valley suburb that is transforming into high density and just high density housing. And it’s awful. Because we have traffic issues and no public transport. The city isn’t walkable and there is no shopping or entertainment and people who work here travel from far off and those who live here work elsewhere. It’s an unformed high density failed city with no ecosystem.

There is a troubling trend (here in California and in urban hearts) where housing is being concentrated with high density goals without providing infrastructure or an eco system. It’s crippling. The local economy suffers..local businesses suffer...infrastructure degrades faster and schools become over crowded. To me..it’s a bad example of high density ..nyc is a workable model of high density.

Mobility and roads will be the key to how successful a city can be..and for that we rely on fossil fuel. But think 100 years down the timeline or a time when fossil fuels becomes less available ..cities may become isolated and they would need to be self sufficient modules that are networked to other city clusters and yet even operating independently, they don’t collapse.

5. I dont worry too much about the cost of technology or labour to create technology. As far as I am concerned, money is something we can print. We will never run out of it. The detail is in the macro and micro economic word wrangling.

Resources ..on the other hand..are finite. Fossil fuel is finite..water, top soil ..the space around us. Regardless of how high density can be packaged as ‘sustainable’, we still need resources to maintain every warm body. A lettuce grown in your hydroponic or soil kitchen garden takes less resources than one that is grown 3000 miles away and is transported and refrigerated and sold in a store and then people are paid to sell it to you and you have to bring it back home. And by this time, the lettuce is likely 10 days from the time it was harvested.

It’s a ridiculous amount of energy spent on lettuce you can grow from seed and pick whenever you want. So why don’t we do this? Why can’t we grow at least half of our food at home? We have a laundry machine and dishwasher and fridge all built in to the house. Why not a hydroponic cupboard that is part of the home construction? Why not a roof top garden or a attached temperature controlled greenhouse like it’s another bedroom or a bathroom. The marginal cost isn’t a lot but energy savings is enormous.

6. Further..think at a larger scale. If a city can grow all it’s herbs and nightshades and greens but only needs to buy grains and nuts and fruits from outside markets, it’s all the more self sufficient. Every city can do what it does best and relies on outside clusters for what it lacks.

7. I have a farm. There is no justification to make a human being work under the merciless sun..bending and picking fruit or lettuce for eight hours a day for minimum wage. We are not doing anyone any favors. Its borderline disgusting to me and highly illogical and unnecessary.