Down With The Cities | Page 6

its work of reducing waste products, dead plants, and fallen leaves by means of bacterial action, and returning them to the soil.
But by covering the Land with concrete we paralyze this function, and it dies. Dead land (concrete) will not grow plants or absorb water, or give it forth in dry times. And contaminants on concrete just stink without being purified; if we don't clean up the mess we cannot even live there.
The functions of the earth -- giving life to the plants and animals, regulating the rainwater, purifying waste and returning it to the soil -- may be said to form the main artery of Nature's cyclical function. If the earth is blocked off, the flow of blood will halt, and the Earth will turn into a dead planet. And it is none other than concrete that is responsible for cutting off the flow of blood.
The big city is a great mass of concrete, and it is here that the rape of the Land attains its highest perfection. Should the multitudes of buildings collapse, how would they dispose of the mountains of rubble? No matter where they put the rubble, it will cover the earth, and the bottom of the ocean should also be considered earth. Whether a factory, an office building, or a paved road, once it is built we have condemned some part of the Land to be covered with it. The more you block off the Land, the more the functions of nature are necessarily impaired, and we will pay for this sooner or later. The net of Heaven is coarse, but allows nothing to escape [4] -- is it possible that Nature will miss this or generously overlook it?
Evil Four
The fourth evil is the theft of the farm population.
The cities have burgeoned by stealing the farm population. The expansion of the cities is in other words the growth of those employed by the secondary and tertiary industries, and the growth of the secondary and tertiary population represents the decline of the farming population.
In order to feed a large non-tilling population with a small farming population, labor-saving, high-yield agriculture is an absolute necessity, and this leads to plundering, contaminating agriculture using machines that run on petroleum. As long as the increased secondary and tertiary population tries to enjoy a modern lifestyle (convenience, extravagance, and ease), it only stands to reason that the consumers (the non-tilling population) will have to put up with, and pay the price of, contaminated agricultural produce.
Evil Five
The fifth evil is squeezing food out of the farmers. Since the concrete cities are incapable of supplying themselves with food, the inhabitants must, in order to survive, squeeze everything they eat -- be it an apple, a tomato, or a grain of rice -- out of the farming villages. Long ago the cities expropriated agricultural produce through the feudal lords and landlords, and in more recent times they forced the farmers to give it up by means of the Food Control Act. Now, however, they take mountains of food by means of money. These are necessary, desperate measures taken to keep the cities alive. No matter what means they employ, the cities must forever (until they collapse into rubble) continue to extort food from the farmers. They can do nothing else, even if they have to send in the military and seize food from the farmers at gunpoint.
What is more, as long as one has to rip it off, why not grab the best (even dogs and cats take the best first)? That is why the feudal lords and landlords issued orders for rice to be sent to them. "Millet will not do. Such is for farmers to eat." Thus they ruled. And now the city dwellers say, "Let us pay a lot of money for sasanishiki and koshihikari." [5] How is this different from the arrogance of the feudal lords and landlords?
In this way the best of the agricultural produce continues to flow into the cities, while in the country we continue to satisfy ourselves with the leftovers. It ought to be the other way around.
Evil Six
The sixth evil is the destruction of the seashore and the prodigal consumption of marine products.
Once upon a time Tokyo Bay was a famous fishing ground for shorefish, but now the shore of the bay is concrete and great quantities of sewage pour into the water, destroying the fishing. In order to make things better for themselves, the cities have destroyed the natural seashores (it is not just Tokyo Bay -- the better half of Japan's seashores are concrete) and sacrificed the lives of the fishermen living there.
The shore has always been the greatest mechanism for the sea's ability to purify itself. [6] Great numbers of marine organisms live near the shores, so that as long as we