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The
PLAIN TRUTH
time a strong increase m subur–
banization.
"Artificial Civilization"
This enormous "implosion" into
cities and their sprawling unplanned
suburbs has created, as Prince Albert
called it, a "completely artificial civ–
ilization" for most Europeans.
People's horizons have become
extremely limited as they are further
removed from natural surroundings.
In a Council of Europe publication,
parts of European suburbia were
described as "individual houses, small,
mediocre and monotonous, surrounded
by tiny garden plots which are the only
outlet for the personal taste of each
Dead sea birds, above left,
washed ashore on North Wales
coast. left, ulcer-ridden seal
which swam onto Cornwall shore.
Both incidents occurred in Novem–
ber 1969. Apparent cause was
unidentified industrial pollutant
which was released into waters
all along western British coast.
Below, sewage is treated with
oxygen befare being released
into the Wupper, West Germany's
most polluted river. River drains
heavily industrialized Wuppertal
region.
April-May, 1970
owner, expressed in the idiosyncratic
arrangement of his scrap of kitchen gar–
den, his patch of lawn, his few yards of
fence, with the result that these dreary
plots combine the worst features of uni–
formity and diversity alike."
This perceptive report added:
"The .final decline of the area result–
ing from this nondescript concentration
of separate houses is difficult to prevent,
precisely because this type of housing
fulfiUs the deepest dreams of the great
majority of the population in certain
countries. In France, for instance, an
enquiry elicited that 82 percent of the
French prefer small houses to flats, and
the devotion to a small garden may well
be attributed to the resurgence of a peas–
ant past which, in a population only
recently urbanized, is never far distant."
Such type housing, unfortunately, is
also the dream of most Britons as well.
Over 40% of the population in the
United Kingdom is jammed into six
giant coourbations.
This, realize sociologists, is simply no
way to live.
Chaos in the Countryside
Concurrent with the msh to the cities
has been a phenomenal rush out of the
cities into the countryside for holidays
and recreational activities. A!fluence, too,
fuels the rapid growth in leisure.
An entire session at the Strasbourg
conference was devoted to the detrimen–
tal impact of leisure activities upon
Europe's ecology.
New roads and airports rip up thou–
sands of acres of greenery every year,
much of it to fill the tourist and recre–
ational requirements of affiuent, highly
mobile, urban escape-seekers.
The total number of automobiles m
the
l
7 Council of Europe nations has
increased from 21 million to nearly 50
million in only seven years!
Increasing numbers of human feet,
sometimes even motorcycles, trample the
fragile ecology of coastal sand dune
areas of England and Denmark. Pads
of the Mediterranean coast are becoming
overdeveloped tragedies.
Haphazard construction of both sum–
mer and winter homes worries officials of
Europe's most scenic lands. lo Nor–
way and Sweden, increasing second
home development in mountain areas