Modification / conversation:
assume a fair percentage of yards and parks are convertible to gardens or hand cultivated small farms and adjust estimates accordingly
Alright, let’s adjust the carrying capacity estimate for Dallas, Texas, by assuming a fair percentage of yards and parks can be converted into gardens or small hand-cultivated farms. This change significantly boosts local food production, so I’ll rework the numbers while keeping the other constraints—no electricity beyond small portable generators, no refined petroleum products, and no trade with outside parties—in place.
Revised Assumptions
Dallas has an area of about
340 square miles (city proper). Much of this is urban—residential, commercial, and industrial—but yards, lawns, and parks offer untapped potential. Let’s estimate how much land could be converted:
- Residential Yards: Roughly 40-50% of Dallas’s land is residential. Assuming an average lot size of 0.2 acres (typical for urban/suburban homes) and half of each lot (0.1 acres) being convertible (front/back yards minus structures), with 150,000-200,000 households, that’s 15,000-20,000 acres potentially farmable.
- Parks and Green Spaces: Dallas has over 400 parks covering about 20,000 acres total (e.g., White Rock Lake Park, Kiest Park). If 50-75% of this—say, 10,000-15,000 acres—can be turned into cultivated land (excluding dense forest or steep terrain), that adds significantly.
- Vacant Lots and Medians: Urban vacant land and roadside strips might contribute another 5,000 acres if aggressively repurposed.
Summing this up, a "fair percentage" could mean
30,000-40,000 acres of Dallas’s 217,600 total acres (340 square miles) become gardens or small farms—about 14-18% of the city’s area. This is optimistic but plausible with widespread effort.
Food Production
Using pre-industrial farming methods:
- Yield: Hand cultivation might produce 50-100 bushels of corn per acre (1,500-3,000 lbs), or 1-2 million calories per acre annually, depending on soil, water, and skill. Let’s average at 1.5 million calories/acre.
- Total Calories: For 30,000 acres, that’s 45 billion calories/year; for 40,000 acres, 60 billion calories/year.
- Population Supported: At 2,000 calories/day per person (730,000 calories/year), 45 billion calories supports ~61,600 people, and 60 billion supports ~82,200 people.
This assumes all land is used efficiently, with crops like corn, beans, and squash (calorie-dense and viable in Texas). Gardens could also grow vegetables and fruits, adding nutrition but less caloric density. Chickens or rabbits raised in yards might supplement protein, though feed would limit scaling.
Water, Sanitation, and Other Limits- Water: The Trinity River and reservoirs remain accessible by hand, and rainwater harvesting from rooftops could support more people with garden-scale irrigation. Still, purification stays a bottleneck without power.
- Sanitation: More people mean more waste. With 60,000-80,000 spread across the city, composting toilets and manual waste management could work if organized, but disease risk grows.
- Energy: Small generators might power tools or pumps for a few, but most labor is manual. Wood from parks and yards fuels cooking until depleted.
Adjusted Carrying Capacity
With 30,000-40,000 acres of gardens and farms, Dallas could sustain
60,000-80,000 people long-term, assuming survivors adapt to hand cultivation, preserve seeds, and manage water and waste. This is a huge leap from the 5,000-15,000 in the prior estimate, reflecting how urban land conversion mitigates food scarcity. However:
- Transition Chaos: The initial 1.3 million would still face a brutal die-off before stabilizing at this level, as converting land and growing food takes time (6-12 months for a first harvest).
- Density: At 60,000-80,000, population density drops to 175-235 people/square mile, low enough to avoid immediate resource wars but high enough to strain sanitation and wild game.
So, with yards and parks turned into small farms, Dallas’s carrying capacity rises to
60,000-80,000 people. This assumes a best-case scenario of cooperation, skill-sharing, and no major climate disruptions. Does this align with what you had in mind, or want to explore further adjustments?