Down With The Cities | Page 5

that urbanization must be aggressively promoted not only quantitatively (in terms of the city's boundless expansion), but also qualitatively (in the quest of ever greater modernization and technological advances).
But sorry to say, such is just not the case. The city is, in actuality, the very root of the evils that threaten the future of humanity and the Earth.
Though to the denizens of the city it is a good, since it allows them to pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease (that is, prosperity), that "good" is, minute by minute, turning into a future -- yea, a present -- evil, and we (the city dwellers first) will in time be exterminated by the city's poisons. So that the city can pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease, we must be visited by the accumulation of waste, destruction, and contamination, which will, needless to say, end in a dreadful catastrophe.
The City's Endless Plunder
The city itself is unproductive, and cannot supply its own needs. No matter how many trinkets and gimcracks the manufacturing and processing industries make, this cannot be called production; we must in fact regard this as the consumption of resources and energy. Since the city is therefore nonproductive and non-self sufficient it must either rob all needed supplies from some other place or lose the ability to keep itself alive and functioning. Urban residents will not be able to pursue extravagance and ease, let alone continue living.
Because it robs everything from another place the city causes trouble for others, and trashes the Earth is the process. Let us now try listing the various evils inherent in the city's plundering ways.
Evil One
The first evil is deforestation.
Cities were first built by chopping down the forests. No matter what city, unless it floats in the air or on the water, the place it occupies was most likely originally forest. Thus the city, in order to establish itself, cut the trees. And though it is the destroyer of trees, the city at the same time requires the oxygen produced by trees (for its overflowing people, its legions of automobiles, and its multitudes of factories). Counting on the oxygen from the trees of other areas, the city is barely able to maintain its life and functions.
If that were all, we might be able to put up with it, but the high-handed, arrogant city, in order to increase its benefits and extravagance, continually plunders and destroys the forests in these other areas as well. If one goes to the port at Shimizu, one can see the shiploads of lumber and pulp robbed from the forests of developing nations. The countries thus plundered are now watching their clearcuts turn into wasteland and desert.
Thus, by means of producing vast quantities of throwaway wrapping paper and packing boxes, and its idiotic newspapers, magazines, and leaflets, by becoming drunk on its own extravagance and convenience, the city is cutting its own throat; it is carrying on activities that contribute to the reduction of its all-important oxygen. What is more, after consuming these vast quantities of paper, the city disposes of them by burning, consuming yet more oxygen.
The city should take a good look at what is happening. By plundering the forests of the southern hemisphere it is not only bringing about a crisis there. It is using up its own supply of trees as well -- the trees without which it cannot survive.
Evil Two
The second evil is the plunder of farmland.
In the previous section I wrote that the city was built by destroying the forests, but land which was formerly forested is first and foremost that which can and should be used for farming. The cities are built almost solely on the level, most fertile land. And other urbanized areas, such as those along rail lines and roads, or the centers of villages -- though there are a few places which have been made by cutting into the mountains -- have been built on plundered farmland. The urbanization of farmland is accomplished by such high-handed legal stratagems as taxing the land as if it were residential property, or employing urban planning laws.
The residents of the cities had best not forget that the very farmland they continue to urbanize is the source of their food.
Evil Three
The third evil is, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, the covering of the earth with concrete.
In order to profit from plundered farmland, the city usually covers it with concrete, thereby making the land forever useless.
All living things are borne and nourished by the Land. Rain is absorbed by the Land, becoming the source of well water and stream water, water that is released gradually in dry times by means of the Land's regulatory and retaining capabilities. The Land also purifies all contaminants (except for things like heavy metals and chemicals). The Land has, for millions of years, continued