I was just reading the article about cites in the latest National Geographic. The premise is that a city is greener than a suburb or the country because services aren’t as spread out. I hate reading things like this. I really love the city and I really love the country. I could be just as “at home” in a crap shack (as currently), as in a downtown concrete highrise.
My issue is that high concentrations of anything on planet Earth are not only a bad idea, they are, to be blunt, foredoomed. I’ll grant that things like anthills and mycelium structures can get pretty big without falling apart, but I’ll counter that with saying if you get as big as a pre-European mycelium structure in North America (which extended nearly from coast to coast), you better have a symbiotic relationship with damn near everything around you, which humans don’t.
Sorry, NatGeo, I really can’t jump on board your float in the “rah-rah cities” parade. The big issue we should be discussing has nothing to do with whether McMansions are less green than highrise apartments, or that it takes more power cable to light up farms than a city street. No, the big issue is that there are too many people on the planet. Too many people in suburbs, too many people in cities and simply too much asked of the planet to keep us all in fish cakes, Cocoa Puffs, and Nikes. It would be bad enough just having 7 billion mouths to feed. But far from having a symbiotic relationship with our environment, we have NO relationship with our environment. It’s all one way, feeding this black hole that is humanity.
But hey, don’t let that ruin your weekend. Suck down a cold one for me, will ya? And cheers to the superbug or the mega-meteor that’ll settle the urban versus rural debate once and for all.
