Sustainable cities: the future of the human habitat

The environmental tradition has historically been about embracing and preserving the wild places, and environmentalists have often viewed cities as dirty, polluting, unfortunate habitats that pose a great threat to nature.

This tendency to position nature and humanity in opposition derives from both the popular rejection of the Victorian city, its polluting factories and foul sewers, and from the roots of environmentalism in saving threatened species and preserving habitat and scenic beauty.

Environmentalists responded by regulating industrial and urban discharge into water and air, through planning laws to preserve countryside and reclaim industrial land, and through preserving and conserving farmland and wild places as green lungs for the planet.

The result has been, at least in the global north, cleaner water, purer air and dedicated parks and nature reserves. At the same time, however, huge global population growth, and the move from subsistence and market farming to industrial agriculture have together brought about an urban explosion, and cities have become a dominant feature in both the human and natural environment.

A few facts will help to make the needed connections. In 2007, the Earth...

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