SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to A Fresh Face in Hell. I'm your host, Jonathan Evanson. Every week we talk to someone new and interesting, somebody intellectually curious, somebody who will hopefully renew our faith in this cold, cool world we live in. A Fresh Face in Hell. Humans repeatedly build major cities in places that are geographically dangerous. Why? Because the immediate rewards seem more important than the long-term risks. Phoenix, anyone? Los Angeles? Well, my guest today, Jeff Gibson, author of Badlands, the Geography of Cities That Shouldn't Exist and Why They Do, compares geography to an anglerfish whose glowing lure attracts prey towards hidden jaws. Cities are similarly drawn toward valuable resources, strategic advantages, or seemingly free land. Well, today we're going to explore this contradiction with this week's Fresh Face in Hell, Jeff Gibson. Jeff, welcome, buddy. Thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to uh get into the nitty-gritty details of geography with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, me too. And just cities in general. I remember reading that book, City of Quartz, about LA years ago and just how the urban design of the city was made to be riot-proof. I thought that was so fascinating. And this kind of put me in a similar mind space. So I am also excited to dive into this. So historically, we tend to assume that humans build cities strategically on trade routes, uh, you know, rivers, coastlines, but that is not always the case. Uh in Badlands, you offer three primary examples of ill-advised cities that were founded on very specific terms under a condition you've termed geographic debt. Now we're gonna we're gonna go into it. We're gonna basically do a world tour today of all the cities because you you break down some shorter, shorter sections on other cities. We're gonna go through like 20 cities. I'm really excited because it's kind of a world tour of like perilous cities. Um so walk me through these first three, though. And let's start with um Johannesburg, South Africa.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Johannesburg, South Africa. Uh, the largest city in South Africa, in case uh listeners didn't know. It's not Cape Town. A lot of people like to think it's Cape Town, but it's actually Johannesburg. Uh it's it's an interesting place because, you know, when when I was writing, you know, this I have a chapter sort of on this subject when I was writing this, you know, it was all about sort of like what attracts people to land, even at first glance, that looks and seems inhospitable. Like you would look at it and you'd be like, nah, I don't want to live there. Uh, why would I live there? Um and so there is, of course, a reason uh why people did end up living there, and that is um what I termed the the shiny object. In this case, it was uh one of the largest um gold deposits the world has ever seen before. Um and so they sort of established a large city uh inside this region where there's not really any water. It's sort of built on this continental divide where water sort of naturally runs away from it. Um and even today, uh a city of I I don't remember off the top of my head, but a few million people, um, most of their water has to come from a whole other country, right? Not just another part of South Africa, a whole other country. They are dependent on the small exclave country of Lesotho uh for their water, which is, you know, challenging to a degree.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So that's kind of similar to how Los Angeles, the whole LA basin is sort of dependent on the Sacramento River. So that water's coming like 500 miles.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yes. It's similar, uh, except you know, that water is still coming from California. It's not even coming from another state, really. I mean, they do have uh water coming from the Colorado River, um, which is uh another thing. Uh, but it's ultimately it's still within the same bureaucratic bounds of the same country, right? So as soon as you cross over into another independent country, now there's you know international trade deals, there's there's things that that country wants. There's there's a whole myriad beyond the logistics of moving water, which is in and of itself a huge what is the name of the country that has the water? Lesotho.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Uh Lesotho, which I've never heard of. And you know, Johannesburg, South Africa is just such a famous sort of like uh, you know, uh financial center. Because in the diamond mines there too. I mean, as well as the goal. So like, but it seems like Lesotho would have them over the barrel. Like and they do too, you don't exist without us, and yet I don't hear about Lesotho as any sort of global political political. I've I'm gonna be honest, I'm ignorant. I've never even heard of Lesotho.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

I mean, and most people haven't. They're they're a small country. They are uh they're a mountainous country, um, and they're completely surrounded by South Africa. So if you look at a map of South Africa, you're gonna see a little donut hole uh shape uh within within the country, and that's Lesotho. And they're um considered to be like you know, the snowiest country in Africa, which a lot of people don't associate the continent of Africa with with snow, uh, but they actually get quite a lot because they're just a mountain, mountain country.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

And because they get snow, watershed, that's pretty smart. I mean, who I mean, were they who's the smart ones here? I mean, if L Lesute, were they a country first?

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Uh they actually have a very complicated history. Uh it basically boils down to so South Africa in general, very complicated country. You know, there was a lot of British and um there were sort of a Dutch uh uh Afrikaners, yeah. Yeah, Afrikaans, um sort of, you know, you know, war and you know, give and take and tugging, you know, whatever, uh you know, over order over the land as a whole. Um, and then there was also the indigenous peoples uh of of South Africa. And Lesotho was sort of born out of like sort of the last stand of indigenous peoples um, you know, during this you know, English and you know Dutch sort of uh uh era. And just through sort of shrewd political maneuvering, they managed to convince the the British colonial government at the time, of which they were a colony, to keep them independent from uh the rest of South Africa as they were sort of pulling everything together into one entity. And that's sort of how it was sort of borne out as a very simple explanation, of course.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

But so it's just so different than the indigenous people of North America who who inherited land or were you know granted land that has no resources, just scorched earth in the desert. Lesotho actually gets the entire watershed. That's the entire watershed, yeah. Well, so then what is the danger for Johannesburg?

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Well, the danger is you know, they they they sort of they can run out of water. They are I mean, they it's not that they it's not that they will run out of water. It's just that they, you know, Johannesburg as an entity, as massive as it is with inside this area, um, their danger is is simply that they've overtaxed their natural geographic limits. And that's why they are now, because of that shiny object, the diamonds, the gold, um, they're overtaxing their geographic limits, and now they're having to reach into another country to get to get things that'll help them survive, right? Um Johanna's very fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

It exacerbates the matter because it's my my understanding is mining almost anything takes a lot of water.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yes, mining takes a lot. Like it's it's very, I mean, right, it's resource intensive to get the resources out, right? Um and you can say that about pretty much any sort of extractive industry. I mean, you can say that about you know crops, right? It takes a lot of water to put into it so we can get those crops out. Uh but mining is particularly um what's the word that I'm looking for? Uh very challenging.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So now let's move to a city that has too much water. Uh Venice, Italy.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Too much of the wrong kind of water, too. Uh yeah, Venice. Venice is a a fascinating case of, you know, I think everybody pictures Venice, you know, as this, you know, almost paradise. It's Italian, it's romantic, you take boats everywhere, there's canals everywhere, there's you know, nobody drives anywhere because it's literally, you know, kind of a floating city out inside the middle of um of the sea there. And that's all well and good to a degree. And the reason why Venice was is is the reason why Venice became Venice in the first place is because they needed something to protect them from, you know, others, right? From from from tribes, you know, from kingdoms, you know, you know, that that were constantly raiding them. So they sort of fled onto this, you know, this area where they could sort of have this natural moat. Um and the reality is that, you know, as climate changes, and you know, and climate's always changing, right? As climate changes, you know, there's there's more there's more water in the oceans and the seas. And so when you're uh you know sort of a uh uh a city sort of within the middle of a body of water, one that's you know inherently, you know, playing this constant game with with the with the sea, when there's more water, eventually the water surges up, you know. Um you have a particularly bad storm, now all of a sudden a lot of parts of your city are are underwater. And so that's that's Venice's problem.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

They have some unique engineering problems that they have to constantly deal with, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:41

So Venice has a myriad, and I I don't know all the the details of sort of the city planning um that goes into Venice, um, but they do have a myriad of of, for lack of a better term, uh yeah, uh zoning codes that that buildings have to follow. Um, and and increasingly those codes are being adapted for the new reality, right? So if you were to build or rehab uh a current building in Venice, you're gonna have to rehab it so that it can endure um larger swells, um, because otherwise you're gonna build something that's gonna be flooded, you know, every five years or something like that. Um and so, you know, one of the things is is simply lifting up the buildings higher, right? That's that's that's a strategy that cities around the world that are dealing with sea level rise are now employing. It's like, okay, well, we can't you can't fight the ocean. Um, I mean, you can to a degree, and we can talk about that a little bit later, but ultimately one of the things to do is to just raise things up. Um, that buys you, well, quite a bit of time, actually.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

So I don't, I'm just trying to picture it. I remember I it was I think it was one of those uh Bankheist thriller movies that took place in in Venice. Uh and I think there was like some underwater views of the cities. And I I don't re I mean, so do these buildings go all the way down? I mean, is there a foundation in the thing or some of them just almost like floating?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

No, you wouldn't just have a floating. No, they they are they are they are bolted down into the ground. So it's it's very I I again I'm not I'm not 100% certain what's going on underneath Venice. I do know a lot more about Amsterdam, another city that's sort of built under sort of the sea level, um, as well as places like Boston, um, Boston, Massachusetts. Large parts of these cities are they they take these big wooden poles and they drill them as far down as possible um into sort of the soft clay until it hits that, you know. It's like a pier piling. Exactly. Exactly what it is. Yeah. And so they'll they'll establish their buildings on top of that. And that gives them a really solid foundation. Um and it lasts hundreds, you know, thousands of years in the case of Amsterdam. Um with no no adverse effect.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

So Venice clearly, I mean, it's pretty clear to see what the problem is with this. Is the the ocean, I mean, if they get a big enough swell, that could be uh that could be uh tsunami or something like that. That that that city is extremely vulnerable.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

They are in a relatively safe area with regards to that, right? The the Mediterranean Sea um is a relatively calm body of water. They're not it's not like the open ocean, they're sort of topped away.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

That's true, it's sort of sheltered, yeah. Okay, so uh uh this one's similarly another one that I I has to deal with the uh you know uh natural threats. Uh we're gonna go halfway across the world here to Oklahoma City, a place people really don't know very much about, except we as Seattle lights know that they took our basketball franchise. But let's talk about Oklahoma City and its uniquely perilous uh position and why why anyone thought it was a good idea to have a settlement in Oklahoma City.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, OKC. It's a fascinating, uh very fascinating history of uh and and a good lesson of what happens if you um just sort of set up a literal line on the sand and a timeline and say, okay, after this time, there's me a gunshot, go get as much free land as you can possibly claim, um, and just see what happens. Because that's literally how Oklahoma City, as well as a number of other cities within Oklahoma, got their founding, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

There was a land homestead homesteading act stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I mean, it it it was to a degree. It wasn't like the other homesteading acts, which was a little more um, you know, slow rolling out. This was like, you know, quite literally, there was there was a day and day and time, and like after that moment, you know, there was a race, a literal race, chaos, just you know, everybody rushing towards um areas where where they could claim land. Um and so Oklahoma City sort of, you know, one day was nothing. It was a you know, a dirt pit, you know, it was just dust and you know everything around. And then the next day was uh city of thousands of people. It's you know, it's it's literally called Boomtown for you know a reason that's it's right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

I didn't know it was called Boomtown. That makes perfect sense when you explain how uh it was like a bonanza, like okay, free land. Okay, I thought it was more of a slow rolling out. So let's talk about why Oklahoma City is uh, you know, vulnerable.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah. Well, so there's there there's there's a couple reasons. Um one is something I didn't really put inside my book because it just felt uh a little too off the beaten path, um, but we can talk a little bit about it. But the most obvious uh reason for for why Oklahoma City is a challenging area is because it literally sh sits in the crosshairs of Tornado Alley, right? This is, you know, Oklahoma gets so many tornadoes every single year, so many vastly huge tornadoes that it's really not that uncommon for us to hear about, you know, one sort of going through and ripping through um a large part of the city or suburb or a nearby area, you know, these category, you know, EF5, you know, EF4 tornadoes that um, you know, we've created very big, you know, blockbuster movies about, right? Um that's that's the Oklahoma, that's where Oklahoma sits. Um and just happens to be the location where, you know, the reason why so many happen there is because it happens to be the the exact confluence of three sort of uh uh climate systems sort of converging. Um and of course, you know, when you're given the opportunity to get free land, you're not thinking about the possibility of a really large tornado setting setting down anytime soon. But also that's the way the earth moves. That's the way the earth happens, right? Um and so they just sort of created this city in the crosshairs of one of the most volatile atmospheric systems that the world has ever really known.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

I'd imagine that uh like wildfires in California, earthquake, it would be really hard to. I mean, do they have you probably wouldn't be able to get tornado insurance there. So like just as a homeowner or something, you're already you're dealing it with the whole other risk of, okay, I'm gonna buy a house here, but like there's a whatever, 2% chance that a tornado's gonna rip up my neighborhood, you know, by the roots and and I'm I'm shit out of luck.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, it's a it's a good question. I think um I and I don't know whether tornado insurance is is available. I I obviously I don't live in Oklahoma City myself, so I don't I don't have to engage inside that sort of business, but I would imagine that there's, you know, if if we look at sort of California and the wildfires and the earthquakes, um you know, these are you know, it's like a broad swath of destruction, right? It's just gonna like run through tens of thousands in terms of an earthquake if it's large enough, you know, uh hundreds of thousands, you know, a million different people, um, you know, homes and stuff. And that I could see why insurance companies would shy away from that. Uh a tornado is more like a scalpel, right? It's gonna come down, it's going to sort of like carve like a little path. But Oklahoma City itself, um, you know, isn't in danger of being completely wiped out. Um, right. It's it's sort of like a it's like a maneuver. It's like, you know, well, I mean, eventually.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I mean, yeah, eventually the numbers could catch up at just one swath at a time, death by a thousand paper cuts. So uh engineering can postpone geographic consequences, but rarely eliminates them. Um let's talk about some of the past examples of cities who've paid the price for their geographic short-sightedness.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Uh yeah, there's actually one in my backyard here. Uh so I live here in Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon still very much exists. Um, but there actually used to be uh another city um that I mean, is is now not really anything. Um it used to be called Vanport. Um and Vanport was a city that was born out of the early sort of 1900s, you know, sort of, you know, more people come, you know, moving into cities, and then, you know, World War II uh and World War I hit, and so it was like this need for like these kind of like manufacturing cities, right? So to sort of like get a lot of people into like one area and they they would all work in like factories. Um Portland was very much um a part of this, and sort of the way that they they did this was they created this new city called Vanport. And Vanport is sort of close. So if you look at a map of Portland, um Portland's along a river called the Willamette River. Um, and then there's the the mighty Columbia River, the big river of the Pacific Northwest, that also runs sort of along the northern edge of Portland. Vanport was sort of pushed up towards that northern edge of the Columbia River.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Um and so kind of by uh uh what you would call it, where they filmed Goonies and kindergarten.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

No, Goonie, well, Goonies was filmed out in the coast pri primarily.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Oh, okay. That's right that you were talking about where the the confluence of the Pacific. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

So this is the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia River. So it's it's still within the Portland area.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

40 miles, 50 miles inland kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Um, and so it's it was just sort of pushed up against this really large river. And sort of there were there's always been levees sort of like established there. Um, but the reality is that you know there's gonna be like really large rains. There's there's gonna be really, you know, you know, heavy rain periods, there's gonna be a lot of snow melt periods. Um, and the the Columbia River, like all rivers, is going to swell um during, you know, heavy rain years and it's gonna shrink during light rain years. You know, it's a natural ebb and flow of rivers. Um the danger for Vanport was that it was built inside a what's also called a slough, which is sort of this sort of mixing area of river and sort of like uh you know marshy land, sort of sort of paved over with it's within what's called the CMZ, the channel migration zone, I think. Exactly. And so what had happened was there was a really big year of of of snow melt and rain, and you know, the the mighty Columbia River broke the levee, flooded Vanport, and instantly overnight, Oregon's second largest city at the time, um, just behind Portland, vanished. And it has never been rebuilt, it's simply gone. Um, that that city no longer exists, aside from inside the history books.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Um that's kind of crazy. I've never heard of that. Yeah. It's a like a natural occurrence of what they did to uh when they uh when they built the dam, uh when they built the Grand Coulee Dam, there used to be a called Vantage, right, on the Columbia River gourd. And when they when they built the dam, that city was just overnight. Like now it's a hundred feet underwater or whatever. I'd never heard of Antport. That's interesting. Um, I love this because this is a little trip around the world. Uh uh let's go all the way across the globe again to and talk about uh Jakarta, Indonesia.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Oh boy, Jakarta. Jakarta, Indonesia. Um for people who don't know, it's the it's the capital, or it's the that's a whole other thing. Quasi-capital of of the country of Indonesia, which is, you know, again, most people probably don't know this. It's the fourth uh largest country in the world by population. Um there's something like 240 million people living inside this sort of island country, um, of which a hundred and fifty million of them live on the island of Java, which is where Jakarta is located. Uh Jakarta.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So we could go back up a second. You said it's the fourth biggest populated country in Asia. In the world. At only 250 million? How could that be?

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Well, so there's uh China. There's the two billion, and then over and then India 1.4 billion. Okay, and then the United States at 340, Indonesia at 250.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I mean Russia's smaller than that.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Russia only has about 145, 140, something like that. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, what what about this Brazil? Brazil's about 220, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

They're about 30. See, I'm learning all kinds of stuff from the geographer here. I didn't I mean I knew Russia was so big and I knew it wasn't very populated density wise, but I thought there were more than 140 million people.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I mean, this is this is my world. I I I basically look at population and and physical geography, you know, all day, every day as I, you know, sort of track who's who's where um and then try and find interesting stories about like why why that is the case, right? Um but yes, all the all that's to say is Indonesia is a surprisingly very large country by population. Most people wouldn't wouldn't really realize that. They don't doesn't register, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

They'll think Japan um you know before they'll think right right well so then how many people are in Japan? That's the other one I'm forgetting.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Japan's a little over a hundred million um but they're decreasing quite quite fast. Their population is not is no longer growing um and they don't have much of an immigration. Japan?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah I that like Tokyo just greater Tokyo's like 25 million or something.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

But that's but yeah it's it's again it's it's like a it's like a trick of the geographic mind almost.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Okay so what's the problem with Jakarta Indonesia?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

So Jakarta is is actively and so similar problem to Venice but on a much larger scale and they are actively sinking belit beneath the ocean um and it it happens to be a mega city right so there again there's about 20 to 30 million people depending on how you count uh the population of Jakarta sort of the metro area um and it's an interesting city because Jakarta again most people don't don't really realize it was it was built by the Dutch um originally it was a it was a Dutch colony called Batavia um and the Dutch are are well known as to be to to be masters of of the ocean of of water management right you know amsterdam and large areas of of the Netherlands is is underwater and they've reclaimed land from the ocean and so you know during the time of colonization obviously they'd already done a lot of this in the Netherlands they started their Dutch East Indies uh sort of colony system and sort of in Southeast Asia and they needed a a base a home base and they looked at sort of the the geographic position of Jakarta sort of the north part of Java and sort of all the trade routes and everything that had these sort of spice islands over sort of closer to Papua New Guinea and they're like this would make for a great base has like a nice wide shallow ish um uh bay establish that and and because they're the Dutch you know they're like well we can just sort of do the same thing that we did for Amsterdam and sort of become masters of the the water here. As it turns out uh Java and Indonesia quite tropical um and the Netherlands not um and when you introduce something you know that sort of planning into a the tropics it doesn't hold up as well right so there was you know there's swamps there's you know mangrove rainy season yeah there's the there's monsoon season right and the Netherlands doesn't know monsoon season they don't they don't know how to deal with that and so it just became this spectacular failure for the Dutch um but but it kept going on and in in Indonesia as it became independent kept building you know all of their their resources into this one city um until again you know just like a lot of places are dealing with now sea level rise is coming um and Jakarta is largely under you know under the sea level it's it's there's there's a lot on top of it it's sinking a little bit you know and the water's rising and so large parts of it are sort of being flooded regularly and they they you know they're trying to build walls and it's like how much can you use a historical precedence for this I saw an IMAX on it about 10 years ago but I don't remember where it was I don't even remember what continent it was it was an ancient city that basically disappeared because of a global climate change it had been in it had been living in a drought oh yeah for 200 years.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

I don't remember what city this was it was an ancient city no longer exists they had been living in a state of drought for 200 years or or something like that. And then then the drought ended and then the monsoon season returned and then the city almost disappeared overnight.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

But I just well I that's not very helpful because I don't yeah I I I don't know specifically what city you're talking about but I will say that this uh this historic precedent uh does happen you know you know time and time again you know droughts and monsoons and like you know people assume because something is the way it is for a hundred years that that's the way it'll always be right we have very short short uh uh you know frame of reference for our lives right we we sort of assume that these are trends that'll go on forever and it's like well the earth has its own own timeline you know um a year to us is a second to the earth um so a hundred years is you know a couple minutes and you know at certain points you know things will change for the planet and that's that's kind of the geographic debt that's that I sort of talk a lot about inside the book. It's like you know we're all we're all accumulating a geographic debt to some degree. And at some point the earth will change and you'll have to pay the balance.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So I'm gonna move again from a city with a too much water problem to a city with that doesn't even have their own water supply.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

I mean let's and it's one of my least favorite cities in the world uh Phoenix Arizona well Phoenix Phoenix can be a a really cool city I I actually quite like it a lot um and to be fair they do have uh to a degree their own water source right they have a they have an underground aquifer um and they do get water from their nearby mountains it's just they've grown so far uh above and beyond what their natural water source can provide and so this this is a city um you know I I think most of your listeners are probably going to be familiar with with Phoenix as an entity you know but it's it's you know built inside a desert the Sonoran Desert a very hot very dry desert and they do have a monsoon season so like you know every year but it's just not it's not that much and it's sort of all at once. And so what they've ended up having to do is tap into the Colorado River. The Colorado River is you know 100-ish or so miles away and they built this very large project to funnel water from the Colorado River all the way over to Phoenix and provide the city you know with with with the water that it needs and as well as all the crops that surround it which is always something that people don't quite understand that Arizona has a very large agricultural industry um even though it's largely a desert, right? Because people don't necessarily need the sun chlorophyll and all that and photosynthesis right as it turns out yeah it's it's easier to is as it turns out it's easier to move water than it is to move the sun and having the sun is very important. Which is why people like to grow things like lettuce which is a very you know sun intensive and water intensive crop uh in Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Um and there's just so many attractive things to I mean old people like it it's like the Miami of the West because you know old people can't they don't want to slip on their porch and break a hip and stuff like that. So yeah big retirement community and then you have you know your sort of snowbird people that want to go down and golf in December and then of course you've got the border nearby so you have an influx of immigrants. So I mean Phoenix has been for the better part of a century one of the fastest growing cities in America. And it just isn't it's not set up to sustain that. And there's this other problem it seems to me that nobody's talking about is that it requires so much like a heat wave. I mean like let's talk about the electrical grid of Phoenix if the electrical grid of Phoenix goes off I mean you're gonna have old people dying right and left because without air conditioning it's 140 degrees in your house like Phoenix seems like it's very very precarious.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Phoenix Phoenix and and you can say this about a lot of a lot of cities sort of in that general area but Phoenix especially um is a city that was I mean and there there was a Phoenix that existed before um but it's a city that was really built on the back of a singular piece of technology which is the air conditioner. So Phoenix is actually like the Phoenix has risen from the Phoenix dad jump um but yeah I mean Phoenix as a whole you know it's it's a very interesting case study in in what happens when eventually there's not enough water because there are communities that are within sort of the metro region of Phoenix but are are unincorporated communities. And they've had to uh uh go through an ordeal of having their water literally shut off because there wasn't enough water to go around. And I think at at one point they had like a deal with Scottsdale or something which is a you know a minor city some sort of downside the metro area down there. And so what they ended up having to do is every week they would have sort of a truck of water come in and bring them water and fill up a big tank and that's what they would use for the week. Obviously that's not sustainable and that's probably one of the least efficient ways to move water but that's that's sort of the canary in the coal mine for Phoenix, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

But on a personal level also people who know what that's in store they can store water. They can at least make sure they have plenty of drinking water on hand but you can't do this with air conditioning. You can't do that this is this is the underrated one this is the one that could really bite them because I it seems like you've got a larger than normal sort of um aging population elderly population there maybe that's just my perception there's just so many retirement communities in that area sort of like Miami but like what do they do? I mean like I don't I don't know how they power their grid like you know is it powered by dams and water how how I mean where does their so I mean that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

I I don't have their their power sources off off hand but you know one of the things to to keep in mind um you know as we sort of venture into sort of the 21st century and sort of you know solar power is is becoming ever more present um you know there are a lot of people who increasingly rely on solar within Phoenix, right? You know, it's it's almost just enough to power your entire house by just throwing some solar panels on top of your your roof.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Even something like an air conditioning unit which sucks so much power.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

I mean I I know it works pretty easy on lights and 110 electricity but like it seems like a it'll depend on on how many but yeah absolutely there there are people who live in Arizona and they don't really pay a power bill um because their their solar out you know outweighs sort of what's what the uh what the overall draw is of the house. And you have things, you know, more efficient sort of cooling um systems such as you know uh what's it called heat pumps um that you know use a fraction of the energy of the traditional air conditioners and it sort of like becomes this you know system that's you know kind of power won out very bad, but they also have a lot of options in a way that you know you know I live again I live here in Portland just by the the directionality of where the sun's hitting and how how little sun we get because of cloud cover or sort of you know um through the long winter months, you know, solar isn't nearly as as efficient. It's still very efficient.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Don't get me wrong yeah I can't even I live in the woods in in in the Olympic mountains and so like I think I tried to get a couple of those those like lights to light your pathway. Like I don't even get enough and and they they draw like a volt but I can't even get enough sun for that thing to like light up for an hour. So uh so like when you have the population density like I I'm just I'm not to be I'm obsessed with air conditioning clearly right now but like I'm just thinking about like central Phoenix where you've got these giant office buildings you know 40 stories and every fucking square foot of that thing has to be air conditioned like in a high density I just it's sort of shocking how much power they must need on their grid and it's a city of several million people.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

I mean the the inefficiencies of well of of the let's just you know the the American sort of landform um you know the city planning that we we do the city you know how we built cities um we've not historically built our cities to uh to work with our environments in any any sort of meaningful capacity um you know we we put green lawns in in the middle of desert and we just you know water them and wheel them into existence we create these you know really large buildings um that you know would look you know the very same if it was in you know let's say you know uh Milwaukee, Wisconsin, right? Um they're not necessarily adapted maybe there's some minor ad adaptations, but they're not necessarily fully adapted to work with the sun in the same way, you know, the deserts of of Arizona. Um because throughout American history we've just been taught that we can just well we'll just throw as much you know manpower and money and you know bulldoze and you know over engineer our way through everything um and it'll be fine. We don't need to change or adapt how we actually live.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Well that's the capitalist MO, right? Quarterly quarterly we don't think beyond we don't think about the quarterly I mean that's been we've been the same way with our resource management, you know I mean for 80 years they just logged the Northwest without any without any thought of the consequences. Okay well I'm we'll get over my Phoenix obsession here. Just anything to talk shit about Phoenix but uh let's move across we're gonna go back to Italy. When the moon hits your I like a big pizza pie oly what's going on with Napoli Italy Napoli so I mean have you ever heard of a volcano called Mount Vesuvius?

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Oh yeah right I mentioned it earlier that's right that was Napoli sure okay well there we go remember what city was under Vesuvius so they really they've already had they are already a historical precedent but they're like ah exactly you could say the same thing about Mount Rainier although there hasn't been a settlement one of these days Mount Rainier's gonna blow it's the biggest volcano in the yeah in the Cascade range and uh but it just has not existed long enough for that to cycle back around whereas in uh Napoli they did what I wonder why they stayed well I mean the the reality is that um so I mean again like there's we have a very short you know as humans we have a very short uh uh uh memory and the the earth has a very long memory and so Mount Vesuvius blew you know back during the Roman Roman times and sort of wiped out that village almost instantly the or the town um and it sort of preserved a lot of things which is kind of cool to see uh but it also shows the impending danger of sort of what are the strategic advantages of Napoli like where it's set? Well you have to remember that Italy wasn't always Italy as a whole right uh Napoli was its own tiny kingdom right and so it was the city it's sort of built on this bay um and it was just the logical sort of land for whatever the the monarch of the time um was and sort of they established sort of where they were going to live and and Mount Vesuvius would erupt every now and then but it was wasn't always you know sort of blowing its lid like it did you know during the Roman times. And so it just kind of made for a natural area for trade with other uh uh kingdoms across medieval Europe, right? You know there was the Sardinians across the the sea, the French, other Italian uh kingdoms up and down. Rome was only a little bit far north. So um you know I think people like to think of Italy as like, oh well this has always been this one big country and you know therefore why would they put this mega city or this large city I should say you know in this volcanically active area. And it's like well no it was a much smaller kingdom and that made the most sense at the time. So the short answer is trade routes. Trade routes, yes. But what's interesting about Napoli, you know Mount Vesuvius is sort of the you know it's the historic precedent but it's actually not the the danger anymore. Napoli is built on on something called Campi Flegri um which is a very large volcanic caldera that sits underneath. It's not it's not a traditional volcano you know you have your volcanoes you spire um like we have rain Mount Rainier, Mount Hood where I'm where I'm at um these stratovolcanoes. This is a caldera which means it's it sort of just sits underneath um sort of the land. Maybe there's like it's like a large sort of indented bowl shape.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

So even the mountain itself is within a larger caldera so it's kind of like a like it's a super volcano. Like like like a Yellowstone.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Exactly yeah okay and the danger for Napoli is actually very real right now. So it's it's as of uh I think it was 2023 there's been some activity um and scientists are are coming out and saying no this is this this is likely to erupt um sometime in the near future um and there's homes built on top of where magma will be coming out um like it's it's a very real danger for Napoli um at least the the the sort of the northern part of the city where where which is primarily where where Campy Flegry is um is probably you know I mean all all of my cities are are dealing with with with their issues to some degree right now. Aside from maybe Tokyo which I know we're gonna talk about in a in a minute it's probably the the city that has the most impending doomsday scenario um because uh caldera is a very large volcano it's not gonna be massive eruption it's not like you know Mount St. Helens blowing its lid off um but what it will do is it'll it'll the the the crust will sort of break and split open and magma will start coming out of the streets um because that's how caldera is the thing though is that we can we can I it it seems like we can um measure the activity of a mountain with a little more accuracy than we can something like plate teutonics like earthquakes tend to surprise us more than eruptions right like we knew the Mount St.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Helens eruption was likely to happen and you know so they started to evacuate people like that whereas an earthquake still surprises us we can see like we can see stuff is on you know activity is on the rise but when you're talking about a city with 20 million people in it and then then you're dealing with the nightmare of like okay we need to evacuate something's impending and then then that that becomes its own sort of like chaotic disaster.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah I mean and there's a reason for that right we can you know if with with all of our measurements we can sort of start to see how magma is moving um we can start to see all the little tremors that pre you know precede a a volcanic eruption um and so it's like okay like we're starting to see these different things with all of our sensors like okay it's pretty clear that this mountain's gonna erupt at some point versus uh uh an earthquake which you know just sort of you know it's at some point the tectonic plates slip or they crunch um and that releases a a jolt of energy but that one yeah that one seems to surprise us a little more okay here's another one for you La Paz Bolivia La Paz Bolivia um a very cool city in South America I do encourage anybody uh who wants a place to go to in that continent um very fascinating geography it's sort of built into this canyon so one of the things to to know about La Paz is that it's built very high um in in the altitude um so it's like so sits somewhere on average elevation I think between 10 and 11, 12000 feet. And it sits right next to something called the Altiplano which is this really high plateau. And the Altiplano is very cold and has winds winds that whip through it. And so when the Spanish uh conquistadors were looking to establish sort of a new city um they needed something to facilitate the the the silver uh operations right there's a lot of silver being pulled out of the Andes um and so they established La Paz um but they didn't want it on the Altiplano very cold very windy very hard to get people to move and stay there um so what they did is they built it into this canyon sort of nearby sort of sort of dips down below this altiplano up here sort of dips down below and they sort of built it inside this canyon um and it's it's one of the in most interesting cases of urban planning because if you look at almost any other city in the world uh Seattle for example uh the wealthy elites of the city tend to live where they high up higher ground they want the views they want you know the exclusivity they want all this stuff um and it's the inverse for La Paz right all of the wealthy elite sort of live on the the bottom in the like sort of low areas and that's because La Paz has a very nasty uh issue with landslides. Um so they have all of this you know you know sort of built up into the canyon on these walls and they have all these pipes that go everywhere and water and they also get their own rain systems that come through but you wouldn't want to be on the bottom either. I mean like well kind of I mean landslides um because of all the infrastructure they they know fairly well that they'll they'll only slide for so long before they sort of catch themselves. And so you kind of do want to be on the bottom versus up here where your house is literally going to slide away. Heavy rain comes and all of a sudden now your house is sort of sliding down the mountain and like large parts of you know the city no longer exist. And of course you know they'll rebuild it and they they often do rebuild it. But the underlying issue is that you know as as the soil gets saturated, which it often does through man made pipes or through because there's like leaking and stuff, right? These are old pipes um or through just a heavy rain Um, you know, all of a sudden, whoosh. And all of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

You said wind can exacerbate that as well.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a fascinating case of of of of urban planning um and and how to not build uh into a canyon like that, um, or limit the growth um if you can. I mean there's there's always issues around limiting growth, but um yeah, it's it's just a fascinating case. I again I I would say, you know, if people want to visit, it's it's a spectacular city to behold.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yeah. And it's another example of how the uh you know the the wealthy and the elite are just a couple of steps in front of everybody else in terms of considering these things, like everybody else feels yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Right. I mean, almost any case, look at where the wealthy are, and you can be rest assured that geographically that's probably a pretty safe area within the confines of that area, of that city.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

So um now Mexico City seems to epitomize a convergence of potential problems. Uh break this down for me. They they they drained a lake, right? That's one issue with Mexico City. Lake de Coco.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Um Yeah, uh Mexico City, it's sort of my my ultimate chapter inside my book. Um, because it it does. It's it's take all the issues we've talked about, right? Uh no water, um uh uh volcanoes, volcanic. Um sinking, right? Um one we haven't even talked about yet, which is sort of the uh uh human-made atmospheric issues, smog, right? Right. Um all together, and Mexico City is dealing with all of them right now. Everything, it's like that movie, everything everywhere all at once, uh, but just in terms of geography, and that's what Mexico City is dealing with. It's a mega city, right? 20 plus million people living here. Um and they drained a lake, you know, hundreds of years ago. It's where the ancient Aztec uh empire capital was Tenochtitlán, their city.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Okay, so the city's built in the basin of the drained lake.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Yep. Sort of this, sort of this big basin, sort of like surrounded by mountains, including a couple volcanoes. Um and it, you know, there was this big lake, and Tenochtitlan was sort of built sort of in the middle of this lake, you know, sort of again, the moat idea. They sort of built that up because they were warring with a lot of other tribes at the time. And when the Spanish took it over, they were like, well, we'll keep this as our administrative center. It was the the heart of the Aztec Empire. They wanted it as the seat of their power to show everybody else that, you know, we're the new rulers of this land. Um, but they didn't work with the water like the the Aztecs did. They they decided to start draining it, right? Drain the water, um, build out, drain the more water, build out. And so what you end up having is building all of these, you know, houses and built like now skyscrapers and you know, ancient heavy cathedrals on land that was mushy, for lack of a better way. We like to think, you know, as we walk down, you you take a walk down your street, you like to think, you know, all of the land that you're walking down, this is hard, solid, nothing's, you know, this is all nothing's ever going to move here. Um and the reality is that all land has a a degree to which you know it can withstand sort of weight. At some point it'll start compacting, right? Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

And Seattle, of course, you know, we we regraded the whole Denny area. Like, I mean, so much of that the entire Seattle waterfront's built on man-made landforms.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Right. Yeah. You Seattle literally lifted itself up because of these problems, right? It had had its its sort of you know geographic reckoning very relatively early on in its existence and it's sort of lifted itself up. Um Mexico City didn't. They did the opposite. They sort of kept building on on sort of ancient lakel. And so like there's large parts of it that are sinking, right? So there are I I can't remember the exact figures, but there are areas that have sunk by feet at this point over the last you know few decades. Um and uh, you know, they they have you know a convergence of other issues, right? It's it's seismically active, um, right? So there's earthquakes, it's volcanically active. There's a couple of volcanoes nearby. Um and they are running, you know, they're having their own water issues. It's hard to get water up there um because it's so high in altitude, um, and it doesn't really have its own, it has its own water systems, but you know, again, you're trying to water 20 million people. Um, we use a lot of water, each individual of us. We we like to shower, we like to we need to drink water, we cook with water. Um, industries need water. Uh and then to compound it all, when you have sort of Mexico City, which sits in sort of this bowl surrounded by mountains, and you have all of these different industries and you know, heating systems, you know, and and vehicles that are all emitting emissions, uh, a lot of that smog ends up getting trapped. Uh and so it ends up being this sort of confluence of just terrible geographic decisions, um, which is why you'll consistently see a ranked that is having the worst geography in the world. Um, it's like one of those places where if there was a million people living in Mexico City, uh it wouldn't be that big of a deal. One, the lake would probably still exist uh, because a million people don't fit on that much land. Uh there wouldn't be as many smog issues. They still have their seismic issues, but it would be a lot more manageable. But it's simply the amount of people that we sort of cobble together, the amount of infrastructure that now has given it that sort of reputation. And you have crime and I mean I guess Mexico City is actually, I mean, obviously every megacity is gonna have its issues. Um Mexico City, you know, over the last you know 10, 20 years has has actually become quite a popular place to to visit and and go to and live in. It's a very modern um city. Again, it's one of those places where I'd be like, if you wanna go, go go see it. It's an amazing place to to go to. Um but you know, would I buy real estate there? Probably not. I mean, of course, like I say this, you know, a lot of people obviously would love to live in Mexico City, and and there's a reason why. And a lot of people would love to live in Tokyo and Jakarta as well. Um, but there are inherent geographic issues underlying each of these cities, and Mexico City is perhaps the worst one.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

So I I probably could have organized this a little more like region by region, or at least continent by continent, but that's not what I wanted to do. I really wanted to jump all over because I'm learning all kinds of stuff. Um, New Delhi.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Yeah, new New Delhi is an interesting, you know, case study. It so it's not a full chapter in my book, it's sort of you know what I would call an honorable mention um for for bad geography. And it's you know, one of the largest cities in India. And if you ever sort of follow air quality sort of around the world, sort of like what cities are ranked the worst.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

So this whole index you can sort of what Salt Lake City's up there. I know that.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Salt Lake City is consistently up there because they're built outside of Valley, but New Delhi has, I mean, very consistently some of the worst air in the entire world. I it's almost every single day. Um they happen to be built right up against sort of the foothills of the Himalayas, and sort of like this pressure system sort of, you know, pushes all the air towards them. And then of course they have a lot of industry and you know, air quality sort of you know, degrading factors, you know, vehicles. And so, you know, staying outside for more than you know, five minutes is is oftentimes not recommended, which is kind of insane to think about if you if you think about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:48

It's like well, we we have been thinking about it the last four or five summers here in the northwest, too, with all the wildfire, the smoke blowing from Russia and Canada and the you know, eastern Washington and stuff. We've been, you know, it looks like I'm not jogging today, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, because you're putting yourself in danger.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

So, and there's there's really you know, there's limits to technology. I mean, uh they're gonna have natural problems because they're of where they're set, they're gonna have inversions, but they're they can try to cap their emissions, but I don't know how I don't I don't I don't really I've never been to New Delhi. I have no I have no sense of the vibe of the city, whether it's a very modern city or if it's like you know, I mean it's a mix. I'm I'm just an ignorant Yankee. I mean, is there just is is it like not very modern city and just people walking down the streets with cows, or uh is it more of a modern city like Jakarta or like I mean it it's a mix, it's it's it's very modern in some ways.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

Um it also has a lot of heavy industry, right? Um, and so that ultimately those heavy industry plants, these things that are smelting steel, these things that are right, think about like what Pittsburgh used to be inside the the mid-1900s. Um, you know, as all these these steel smelting plants were just constantly belching out uh fumes. And like, you know, Pittsburgh was a very smoggy, very unhealthy uh city in terms of its air quality for such a long time. Uh that's kind of where it's like. Yeah. Yeah. So there there's no easy way out for New Delhi. I mean, eventually, you know, as technologies improve, the the hope is that there's just less emissions. Um, New Delhi isn't, you know, because of their location, that they're sort of trapping all those emissions in one place. But you know, if if we didn't have all those emissions in the first place, it would generally be fine. The air quality would never really get all that bad. Maybe there'd be a wildfire like like we have here in the Pacific Northwest, that would cause issues, but not certainly certainly not to the degree that it is today.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Okay, here we're jumping around again. Uh this is one I'm again, I I know so little about Manila, Philippines. Like, well, what is the what is the danger here? What was the where was the short-sightedness?

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah. I mean, Manila, uh so there in terms of like a country, the Philippines, um, I mean, you could easily make the argument that it is the worst country in terms of natural disasters that you could possibly uh imagine. Um so right, they again like you know, we go back to the almost like the basics, right? You know, you have your earthquakes, you have your volcanoes. It's an archipelago, right? All these things are you know crafted by tectonic activity. Uh but then you also throw into the mix that it's it sits right in the uh the alley for typhoons, which is you know, hurricanes, you know, sort of the the eastern Pacific. Um and so it regularly gets hammered by you know all of these different things while also dealing with earthquakes and seismic activity. And like, you know, it happens to be a mega city again, right? Like there's there's one trend here. It's like you can deal with these geographic issues to an extent. Um, right, you have 500,000 people sitting in one area. That that's a lot of people. Um, and uh an earthquake happens, that's a lot of people impacted. Um, but once you get five, 10, 15, 20 million people, you know, it's almost like each million, it's it's not a it's not a linear, you know, scale of damage. It's like an exponential scale. Um, and so putting this many people in where Manila is located, you know, with all the seismic activity, you know, or hurricane or sorry, a typhoon blows through, the scale of the damage is tenfold what it would be if the city was just simply a lot smaller. Um now, of course, I don't know where all those people go. Instead, and that's that's the hard part, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:54

You can't just like evacuating an architect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Right. You know, like especially in a place like the Philippines, you know, the Philippines is a smattering of islands. Where where you can go? You can go to another island. Um, it's not easy to just build another city that's sort of on a dis you know, much different island because you know, the infrastructure that's needed, bridges, highways, all this kind of stuff to connect everything is gets much harder when when everybody's on their own little, you know, disconnected piece of land. Um and so it's just like one of those issues of like, okay, it's not there's nothing inherently dangerous, you know, looming over over Manila right now. I mean, of course, an earthquake can always happen, but it's sort of that confluence, the confluence of people and geography that make it well a place with bad geography, bad lands.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Well, and speaking of confluences, it just seems like with the you know, where we are globally with the temperature changing, rising water, uh it seems like there's a confluence. I mean, seismically things seem to be heating up. Volcanically, it seems that we're just at a it seems like we're we're in a entering sort of a global timeline confluence of potential disasters. And I don't know how much of that is that we just consume so much media that is reminding of this stuff, or if we have so much scientific data that it points to us, or if this is just where we're at in the you know, Earth's lifespan or whatever. But am I wrong to think that it seems like I mean, clearly wildfires are on the rise, right? It just seems if you know, rising waters are on the rise. It seems like we are globally in a confluence where a lot of these things could start happening in a short period of time.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

And like, yeah, and and you know, I think there's there's two avenues to look at here, right? There's obviously the you know, human-caused, human-induced climate change. Um, of course, climate change on the earth has done nothing but climate change since it existed, right? It's always getting cooler or hotter. Um, but of course, there's the human element, in which case we've made it a lot hotter, a lot faster uh than it normally would. Um and so there's there's that aspect, and that's coming with a whole host of issues, right? The you know, the sea level rise, the wildfires, uh, the droughts, right? Uh, the mega drought that's currently you know impacting the the sort of southwestern and California part of the country. Um, even if we get a rainy year, there's still a mega drought, right? It's still overall drier. Um and then you have like the other, the other stuff which isn't human-induced. You know, like you point out, the earthquakes, the volcanic eruptions, right? We don't have any way of inducing or causing these things, these things to happen, but they do happen, right? And they happen with regularity, right? There's been four volcanoes, or sorry, not volcanoes, four earthquakes that hit um, you know, uh uh very large earthquakes that hit South America and Panama within the span of three and a half months, right? There were two that hit, you know, two 7.5s that hit Venezuela. Uh, there was a 7.5 that hit in Colombia, and there was uh now a 7.7 that hit Panama just a few days ago. Um, and that's all from the Caribbean plate, which means the Caribbean plate is doing something. What is it doing? I don't know. I'm not a I'm not necessarily a seismologist, but like that's a pattern, right? There's something happening in that region of the world that's causing an uh a quantity of large earthquakes.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Um and seismology again seems to be one of the harder It's hard. Hard to predict. Because, like, I mean, could it be that these maybe they, you know, they're letting off uh well, I'm I'm gonna be mixing metaphors, but veritable steam. Like some of the pressure from these plates might be being released because of these earthquakes, and that could lead to actually a little more stability for a couple hundred years or something. I I don't know. It it doesn't even seem like seismology as a science completely understands itself.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

I mean, I I think your your broad idea is correct, right? I mean, tectonic plates are constantly touching each other, but they're separate. And so, you know, obviously there's gonna be friction building up, and at some point, like that pressure builds and you know, something moves. And there's a lot of energy that happens, but that pressure then releases, and now all of a sudden there's a level of stability. You know, here in the Pacific Northwest, we're we're always talking about the Cascadia subduction zone, which will emit a very large earthquake whenever it does hit. Um, and that is because right now, before it hits, like at this moment, it's building up pressure. Now it could release in a hundred years, it could release in 200 years. Some scientists suggest that it could potentially hit within the next 50 years. I don't know. Um, that's that's the unfortunate reality of seismology. We don't, we don't fully know um when the tectonic plates are going to do what the tectonic plates do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

So um one one one locale, a lot of these cities didn't take me by, you know, Tokyo, for instance. Some of these cities I was aware of, some of these are complete revelations to me. Like I didn't, I didn't know what the what the conditions that were so perilous were. But one I was very surprised to see on here, uh, because I think of it as a stable region, is uh unlike say the western coast of the United States, which because we got the plate tectonics, the volcanic activity, water rising. I mean, a lot of the the very western coast of this is is 10,000-year-old land. I mean, so it's it's a land informing more. The east coast, I mean, that has the oldest mountain range, you know, the oldest mountains in the world run down the eastern, you know, between the eastern and mid-Atlantic and stuff like that. I was surprised to see the eastern seaboard of the United States among your problematic regions.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

It's interesting because this one is mostly born out of human, you know, induced climate change, right? We have we have sea level rise that is occurring. Uh, and the eastern seaboard, you know, where you know, you know, we see, let's say, think take uh the entire state of Delaware, for example, on the Del Marva Peninsula, um, sits at very low elevation, or Florida, right? It's all sits at very low elevation. Uh, there's this invisible line along the um sort of runs uh sort of along the in sort of on on land, uh, but sort of runs along the east coast of the United States, called a fall line. And it's this area where all of a sudden there's like a fall in the land, um, where sort of that higher plateau of that leads up to the Appalachian Mountains uh versus sort of that coastal area. And this entire region, uh, you know, depending on how much sea level rise there is, uh, will become underwater, right? It's it's just so low-lying. And so the water will just creep all the way up, almost all the way up to that fall line. Um, if, for example, all of the polar ice caps melt, you know, down in Antarctica and in the north. Um, those areas you can't build a wall big enough to protect the entire eastern seaboard. It will, you know, be underwater.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

So it's just we saw that with the hurricane in in Manhattan, like just the flooding. Yeah. Exactly. And when you think about, I think the highest point in the state of Florida is 500 feet. The highest point in this, the entire city of Miami is is 50 feet, I believe. I mean, that's that's a cell tower. Is the highest point in the whole. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

And so you you just kind of draw a line all the way up to um. I mean, yeah, New York City. Uh, and and you sort of have a similar elevation. I mean, it's not quite as pronounced as Florida. Florida is a is a little bit of a unique example, but it's still not very high up. Um, and I think Delaware, as this the state I used as an example before, has actually the lowest average elevation of any state in the country, even beating out Florida. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

I had no idea. That's interesting. Okay, so we're we're running low on time now, but I wanted to turn it around in this uh like so. I'm always thinking about um global warning uh warming. And I I I live in a region um that I feel like if the shit really hits the fan globally, uh, if a lot of these things converge, I live in a place where it there's gonna be a giant influx of ecological immigrants, or you know, I mean, like people are gonna let's talk about some some relatively safe cities. Yeah. The good old places uh not you know, not see now now, like even Seattle wouldn't be one of those because we have to consider too many strategic uh like military targets. I'm just trying to like where does the paranoid person that wants to be as safe as possible move in the world? Considering all that we've encompassed here in this podcast, like where where would you move, Jeff?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

Uh yeah, I can tell you exactly where I would move. I would move to Tasmania in Australia. This is a have you do you know of Tasmania?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

I do not. I know it's a big sort of arid region, right? Of Eastern Australia or Western Australia. Well, there you go. What do I know about Tasmania?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

But Tasmania sits um, it's sort of this very far southeastern. It's just it's its own island. If it's sits south of Melbourne, um, Australia, uh, but it's its own line island, it's its own state in Australia. Um it's very wet and green. Um they sit at latitudes where uh they get a lot of sort of moisture coming in. Um so it tends to be a you know very, very dissimilar to the rest of Australia. Um so it has it has fairly fair amount of water. It also sits at relatively high elevation. It's an island. Um and because of the the way Australia moved over millions of years, it sits sort of in the middle of tectonic plates, which means, and you can say this about Australia as a whole, uh there's not really any earthquakes or volcanoes that you have to worry about in in all of Australia, but but Tasmania as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Um continentally speaking, Australia's the continent to be.

unknown 1:05:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Absolutely. I mean they have they have their own issues, of course, right? You know, the Australian Outback can be very dry, but what did Australia not do? They didn't put a mega city in the Outback. Um, you know, they didn't put a they don't have their own Phoenix necessarily. Um so Australia as a whole is is is is a very you know geographically safe part of the world and Tasmania in particular with with their abundant water and sort of their sort of unique confluence events and the fact that it's tucked so far so far south and sort of out of the way makes for a very enticing geographic safe haven. So that's absolutely where I would go. I also love when I visited uh last year, I I loved it. I thought it was such a cool place.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

Well, uh how about domestically?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Yeah, domestically within the United States, uh, you know, the Pacific Northwest, certainly uh a great area for for water, less great for earthquakes, um, unfortunately. But uh I do think that Pacific Northwest is bound to get climate refugees. Um, absolutely. Uh but also the Great Lakes region, right? Um, if you're looking for a sort of a stable area where all you have to sort of deal with is, you know, maybe some blizzards, um, there's a lot of fresh water there. Well, fully 21% of the world's surface fresh water is within the Great Lakes. Um, so that's a massive resource if water scarcity is one of your big concerns. But overall, I think um, you know, one of the places I would just to get get away from it and still sort of be geographically relatively stable to a degree, um, you know, I would look into the Alaskan archipelago, sort of the, you know, Juneau, you know, um area, sort of just to be sort of away for it all, still have plenty of water. There's, you know, I don't know. There's just there's something um appealing about the geography up there that's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:47

I thought archipelagos can cause problems because of isolation.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

They can water levels and well, I mean, it depends on the archipelago, right? Um, these happen to not be um, you know, so low-lying, right? They have to be fairly mountainous. Um, there are volcanoes over there, um, but none of the big ones that you would be really super duper worried about. Uh it can be seismically active, but it's also, you know, if we're talking about just sort of being tucked away somewhere within the country, um, you know, as as well as having to deal with, you know, temperature extremes of you know places like or iridification like we like we see inside the the heartland of of America. Uh the Alaskan archipelago feels quite nice by comparison.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

Nice. You well, I hope you like rain because they get about 190 inches a year, I think. You do need to like the rain. This has been a lot of fun, and uh, I've learned a lot, and I'm sure our listeners have. And uh yeah, I love, I love, I love this. This is a lot of fun. He is Jeff Gibson, author of Badlands, the geography of cities that shouldn't exist and why they do. Uh, hey man, even even if it was a little frightening and depressing, I I I think it was uh actually uh revelatory. I learned a lot of a lot of things about a lot of places around the globe. So uh that is why you're our fresh face in hell this week. Jeff, thanks, man, for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to talk with you, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

A Fresh Face in Hell with Jonathan Evison is brought to you by Fresh Face Pods and produced by Jason Botkin and yours truly. Check us out on Instagram, YouTube, or at our website at Freshfacepods.tv. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for updates and special content. And if you love the podcast, by all means run out and buy all of Jonathan Evison's award winning novels wherever books are sold.