[This is a work in progress post orienting the reader to my research, as I make my research plan and invite feedback and direction from readers who are also interested in the same topic]

Right now I’m figuring out what I want to work on. I think that I might want to work on problems related to cities and Urbanism, either for a city government or an adjacent organization, but: What kind of city should I be investing my time into understanding and improving? Should it be a big, established city like NYC? Ecovillages? Small to medium sized charter cities in places that will be climate resilient?

Part of the framing of this question comes from my fears of civilizational collapse, but I don’t have a fleshed out model about what I should be concretely worried about, what could go wrong, how will those things impact different cities differently, etc. Should I be preparing to live in an ecovillage that’s mostly self-sustaining when needed, or can a place like NYC be prepared for future climate-related issues (not just disastrous weather events, but climate refugee intake, disruptions to supply chains, etc).

The next two books I’d like to read on to help me understand this better are Urbanism for a Difficult Future and Megathreats.

One interesting question to me is what levels of density can be supported by different technologies and infrastructures? If our future is solar and growing our own food, that can’t support the density of fossil fuels or nuclear.