As Nations Collapse, City-States Provide Centers of Stability

The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not -- and will not be -- one global village, so much as a network of different ones. _FP

As national governments grow larger and more unwieldy, corruption and dysfunction become the new normal. Huge, clumsy new government agencies prove easier to form than to dismantle. Unionised government workers and power-hungry bureaucratic king-pins refuse to relinquish power or benefits, until huge national governments become the harsh taskmasters of an increasingly dissatisfied populace. The situation grows more unstable until it can no longer sustain itself. At that point, regional islands of stability form focal points for new organisation.

...we have to look back nearly a thousand years, to the medieval age in which cities such as Cairo and Hangzhou were the centers of global gravity, expanding their influence confidently outward in a borderless world. When Marco Polo set forth from Venice along the emergent Silk Road, he extolled the virtues not of empires, but of the cities that made them great. He admired the vineyards of Kashgar and the material abundance of Xi'an, and even foretold -- correctly -- that no one would believe his account of Chengdu's merchant wealth. It's worth remembering that only in Europe were the Middle Ages dark -- they were the apogee of Arab, Muslim, and Chinese glory. _FP

Accelerating this shift toward new regional centers of gravity are port cities and entrepôts such as Dubai, the Venices of the 21st century: "free zones" where products are efficiently re-exported without the hassles of government red tape. Dubai's recent real-estate overreach notwithstanding, emerging city-states along the Persian Gulf are investing at breakneck speed in efficient downtown business districts, offering fast service and tax incentives to relocate. _FP

...the advent of global hubs and megacities forces us to rethink whether state sovereignty or economic might is the new prerequisite for participating in global diplomacy. The answer is of course both, but while sovereignty is eroding and shifting, cities are now competing for global influence alongside states. _FP

The author of the FP piece linked above envisions the rise of the city alongside the continuing power of the nation-state. But conventional contemporary thinkers too often lack the historical perspective which allows the concept of the "rise and fall" of nations to become a tangible reality inside themselves and in their writings.

A large number of nations in Africa and Asia are teetering on the brink of Yugoslavia-style dissolution. Whether illogically slapped-together by imperial conquerors without regard to tribe, language, culture, or religion -- or simply having outgrown whatever bounds held them together up intil now -- these booby-trap nations sit waiting for the right trigger to explode and dissolve in smoke and flames.

Larger nations which are intimately involved with these "booby-trap" nations stand to be hurt badly when the IED-nations explode. A chain reaction of exploding and collapsing states could easily result -- particularly when dysfunctional governments intentionally place their nations in extreme risk via unwise policies of debt and demography.

Things fall apart, yes. But they also put themselves together, afterward. Consider how the pieces may choose to re-organise.

Saving Our Crumbling Urban Landscape

Cities of the western world are beginning to collapse from the inside out. As criminal and other non-productive classes displace the productive classes, large cities across the developed world are watching their inner cores crumble. Inner city redesign, refurbishing, and gentrification can only be successful in the long term if the city's tax base can be maintained -- and its crime and unemploment rates kept under control.

One answer is to build a new industrial city focusing on small scale craft and specialty manufacturing with high value added. We're seeing a precursor to this in the rise of [urban] organic farming and artisanal products of all kinds. TV shows featuring hip young carpenters renovating homes or gearheads tricking out cars and motorcycles make these professions seem glamorous. Magazines targeted at the global elite like Monocle scour the world in favor of the finest handcrafted products from old school workshops, building demand for these products. The New York Times Magazine recently did an article making the case for working with your hands, and also noted how digitally oriented designers are rediscovering the use of their hands. Perhaps it is no surprise that sociologist Richard Sennett turned his attention to the idea of the craftsman. In short, making things, craftsmanship, and quality are back in fashion.

The challenge for urban economies is to develop [a new industrial city] and put it on a sound industrial and economic footing. One key might be to inspire people to start these craft oriented businesses by tapping into people's desire to purchase ethical and sustainable products. We increasingly see with foods and other items that people want to understand their provenance, to know who made them, how, with what, and under what conditions. Often today businesses catering to this desire are small scale “Mom and Pop” type operations, but there is no reason they can't be done at greater scale, or expanded into areas like organic food processing, not just organic farming. American Apparel has done just that by manufacturing low cost, stylish clothing “Made in Downtown Los Angeles. Sweatshop Free.” at scale, for example.

Beyond craft products, reinvigorating small scale, specialty fabrication and other businesses, to rebuild an American version of Germany’s Mittlesand, creates another, often ignored option for urban economies. Quality, flexibility, responsiveness, and a willingness to do small runs are keys. These businesses can also underpin product companies higher in the value chain. They start building an ecosystem of local companies and expertise that can be useful for related or spin-off businesses. Jane Jacobs, and before her the great French historian Fernand Braudel, noted how cities could incubate many new enterprises because all the diverse products and services they needed were available locally. If you need to scour the globe looking for custom parts and services, it can quickly overwhelm a small business. _NewGeographic

The developed world is learning that outsourcing all of its manufacturing and production may not be the best idea. While China has built a large cash surplus by acting as the west's surrogate manufacturing sector, many regions of the western world have gone from prosperous to quasi-impoverished.

City planners and managers need to begin thinking in terms of "city-state" operations. Helping to develop local and regional sources for raw materials, food, and manufactured goods can improve the bottom line for both the city and the surrounding countryside.

One of the less considered products for local and regional production, is energy. But with the coming of bioenergy, more of a region's energy supply may well be accessible at close range.

Food, energy, housing, sanitation, education, medical care, entertainment, recreation, manufactured goods, large construction . . . Most cities are better suited for some of the above than others. But with a bit of imagination and better technologies, cities may be able to supply a larger portion of their own needs -- and boost their faltering economies at the same time.

The demographic problem -- the shrinking numbers of the innately talented with the rising numbers of the less talented -- will continue to be a challenge for Europe and North America. But persons of lower innate talent (lower IQ and EF) can be much better educated and trained than at present. By completely transforming and reforming our outmoded educational system and replacing it with a 21st century approach free of union thugs and government bureaucrats, the crime and unemployment figures can be improved even in the face of the ongoing demographic transition.

Can City-States Save the Third World?

Paul Romer (via A Thousand Nations) describes a system of "Charter Cities" distributed about the third world, modeled after Hong Kong and Singapore. These chartered city-states would be "in the third world but not of the third world." In other words, the rule of law and economic dynamism in these city-states would provide an environment of living and choice distinctly different from the squalid and corrupt living conditions currently prominent across the third world.

In fact there is a Charter Cities blog that provides much more information about this topic. If you are interested in the concept of city-states and how cities drive the economies of the world, check out the blog and the video above.

Trying to save the third world is well and good. But at this time, the first world itself is in a quite precarious position. Demographically, the populations that fueled the rapid improvement of living conditions in the developed world are shrinking. Social programs that are dependent upon large numbers of younger generation taxpayers appear to be losing their financial support. Educational systems that once provided vital grist for the mills of progress, have been corrupted into special interest bureaucracies of indoctrination. Vital resources that should be invested in future technologies and industries are being squandered on phantom crises created from fudged data and faulty models.

If the vital core of the developed world is to survive current suicidal tendencies by the majority of its citizens, it may well need to learn some vital lessons from the charter cities movement. For example, what type of "charter" would protect a city from being carried away in a lemming's rush by all too frequent "popular delusions and madness of crowds"? Such chaotic fads and fashions of disaster and quasi-suicide are all too frequent.

Romer's vision of saving the third world with charter cities is bold and courageous in comparison to the dieoff.orgiasts of the left who dominate large parts of the developed world's governmental, academic, and media infrastructures. It is a vision worth observing to see what comes of it. But it contains elements of wisdom that first worlders could learn from in their own planning for the future.

As Nation States Fall, and City States Rise , What of the Micro - Nation?

Today, just 40 city-regions account for two thirds of the world economy and 90 percent of its innovation. The mighty Hanseatic League, a constellation of well-armed North and Baltic Sea trading hubs in the late Middle Ages, will be reborn as cities such as Hamburg and Dubai form commercial alliances and operate “free zones” across Africa like the ones Dubai Ports World is building. Add in sovereign wealth funds and private military contractors, and you have the agile geopolitical units of a neomedieval world. _ForeignPolicy_via_LATNB

The new blog: "Let a Thousand Nations Bloom" is dedicated to the idea of the micronation. One form of micronation that is already familiar to Al Fin readers is the seastead. But micronations could occur in other forms such as sea-floor habitats, polar colonies, artificial islands, orbiting colonies, perpetually floating or flying atmospheric colonies, and so on. Most of the desirable real estate on Earth may be taken, but imaginative and creative persons can often take the undesirable and make it desirable. But can they protect it once it is made valuable?

The current issue of the WFS Futurist magazine looks at the issue here and here (via LATNB). A more comprehensive look at the issue can be found at seasteading.org.

For several convergent reasons, many nation states are in danger of collapsing. Nation states within tribal lands were often poorly conceived at the start, and increasingly expensive to maintain. Without massive aid from the developed world, many third world quasi-tribal nations would have long since collapsed.

Other nations in the developed world are in danger of collapse from demographic implosion: the failure to breed. Nations such as Germany and Japan that were under such a compulsion in the 1930s to expand at the cost of world war, are now finding themselves shrinking every year. The same story can be told in Spain, Italy, Greece, Eastern Europe -- and especially Russia. Demographic collapse, at varying rates. The transformation from one type of world to the other is apt to be tumultuous.

The election of Barak Obama in the US may well prove to be the catalyst in this transformation. As the economic, military, and moral standing of the US steadily falls, the subsequent vacuum will be felt worldwide. The threads of the world fabric may unravel far more quickly than anyone believed possible, without the strong moderating presence of a world hegemon with America's pedigree. A world that has China as its hegemon would be a far different world than the one we know.

Power and importance will be relegated to the region and city-state, over the nation state, as central governments face the limits of government action head on.

It is important not to dwell on the incompetence of the Obamas and the Putins overly much, although they seem to have the talent for doing almost everything exactly wrong. The key focus should be on mitigation, and on laying the foundations for better prospects in the intermediate term. That can only be done with a realistic assessment of the current situation. Such an assessment must swing wide of most conventional wisdom, and consider the unthinkable.

High Above the Bloody Streets Below

Welcome to the future, where city streets are war zones between drug gangs and sectarian militias. A world whose cities are like Beirut of the 1980s, where the sounds of firefights, car bombs, and bloody martyrdom greet one's ears more commonly than sounds of birds singing or children playing.Having been financially and morally depleted by the Obama administration of the early 2000s, the United States had long since lost its ability to keep trade routes safe, or to ride herd on trans-national criminal organisations and religious terrorist groups. At street level, it has become a free-for-all, worldwide. People of means began looking for higher ground.

The world's elites decided to create cities in the sky, in an attempt to escape the cheapness of human life on the streets below. By paying "protection fees" to street-level gangs and militias, the sky-cities' street level foundations and ground access were protected, for the most part. The last sky city to be brought down by the gangs was in Singapore of 2049. Subsequent brutal reprisals against the streets of Singapore by the triad owners of the felled Sky City left most of the island freehold uninhabitable to this day.
The rise of China as world hegemon in the early 2020s paved the way for expansion of third world corruption to Europe, North America, and Oceania -- regions formerly supportive of property rights and rule of law. Finally, as China itself fragmented into warring factions in the late 2020s, the entire world became a place without law. The teeming masses of the third world discovered that the developed world lacked the will to defend its borders. Soon there was no distinction between third world and first world.

Crime lords and militia leaders have no use for space launches, so every year another irreplaceable satellite falls flaming back to Earth. During the 2030s, nuclear arsenals finally fell into the hands of the gangs, and a few short nuclear wars quickly thinned the ranks of would-be nuclear terrorists and warriors. Several warheads turned out to be duds, and a few thousand self-styled nuclear submariners took residence in Davy Jones' locker. They lacked the competence to safely pilot the aging sea monsters -- particularly the Russian death traps.

As the skies of the world once again grow dingy with coal and wood smoke, all pretense of protecting the water and air of the planet are abandoned. Any species that cannot fend for themselves will suffer the fate of the dodo. Rain forests are slashed and burned, and huge pit mines gouge the surface of every continent and large island. This is the rapidly poisoning world that the many leftist environmental movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries made possible, through their quasi-terrorist tactics against the world of law -- a world that was quickly shrinking under their noses. It took only an Obama presidency and the lack of any credible opposition for the "Greens" to finish off human economic freedoms and any chance for a clean prosperity that might carry men to the stars.

And so the wealthy few -- many of them crime lords themselves -- huddle in the uncertain safety of the sky cities. Listening to the bombs and gunfire far below. Forgetting how close the world had come to climbing out of the primitivity of lower human nature -- but now mired in the stinking, choking future of perpetual sectarian and criminal warfare.

H/T Inhabitat and Time

Tallest Building, Largest Ship

Despite global economic doldrums, Kuwait is building a 3,284 foot tower-construct destined to make the 2,300 foot Burj Dubai feel like an also-ran. The new Mubarak towers will consist of three interlocking spiral towers with moveable aelerons on the trailing edges. The construction is meant to serve the practical purpose of making efficient use of real estate for housing purposes. As described, the building will almost contain self-contained cities within a city -- like an urban arcology.

Although the three-pronged design keeps the high-rise from swaying, it doesn’t counter the choppy winds that whip around the uppermost stories, which can cause damaging vibrations. So Kuhne is trying something never before done on a building: giving it vertical ailerons, the normally horizontal flaps on the trailing edge of aircraft wings that control rolling motion. The ailerons, which are only three to six feet wide, run the full length of each edge of the towers and mechanically adjust to redirect the changing winds around the structure and scatter the vortices, mitigating vibrations.

The Mubarak’s size is intended to accommodate Kuwait’s explosive population growth, with seven 30-story neighborhoods stacked atop one another, each with apartments, offices and hotels, and four-story “town squares” linking them. Even the height has a cultural significance, Kuhne says. “One thousand and one meters for [the classic Arabian fairy tale] One Thousand and One Nights. It’s the difference between bragging rights and telling a story.” _PopSci

In Florida, the world's largest ship -- The Oasis of the Seas -- is being constructed. Although not exactly a seastead, it is approaching the size of an actual "floating city." It will have room for 6300 passengers, and features an outdoor tree-filled park.

Royal Caribbean engineers widened the hull and split the box in half, erecting two six-story towers of cabins on either side, with enough space between them to fit the football-field-size park.

To maneuver this new giant, three 20-foot-tall propellers pull rather than push the boat through the water. The propellers are mounted on swiveling pods along with electric motors (powered by diesel generators in the ship) delivering the equivalent of 30,000 horsepower. This system is more efficient, because it eliminates the need for a long drive shaft, which typically creates drag under the ship. The propellers can rotate 360 degrees, so they also act as the steering system, allowing the captain to make adjustments in port of as small as one foot. _Popsci

The ship will feature a huge central atrium offering views of a central recreational area.

It is easy to conceive of a few small design changes that could turn the Oasis of the Seas into a full-fledged seastead, capable of sustaining a full-time living, working population at sea for extended periods of time. All that is lacking is the workable business model that would provide the income to replace expected passenger fees.