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smell of decaying food and trash
turns one's stomach?
In today's typical big city, neigh–
borhoods are usually unsafe at night
- and many even during the day.
You can't forget to lock your house
or car. You've got to be suspicious.
Who knows, someone may attempt
to rob, rape, or kill you.
Housing is dilapidated. Slums,
barrios, and ghettos are everywhere.
Poverty is growing. Welfare rolls are
swelling. Taxes are high and climb–
ing higher. The water is polluted.
Smog fills the air. Streets and high-
LONGFELLOW,
one of Columbia's
residential neighborhoods. Notice the
respect for nature - a parklike atmo–
sphere and o conspicuous lock of TV
aerials and telephone lines.
Rouse
Compony
ways are choking with increasing
numbers of cars, trucks, and buses.
Billboards, neon signs, cables, wires,
and smokestacks abound.
Where is all of this leading?
Dire Warnings
According to world renowned
Greek city-planner Constandinos
Doxiadis, the current urban crisis
"can only get worse and worse as
time goes on."
British Professor Misha Black -
architect, designer, and consultant
to five governments - goes so far as
to warn that "practically every
densely populated city on earth is
headed for destruction."
Adding greatly to the problems of
the cities is the huge population
"implosion." Increasing numbers of
people are moving into urban areas,
thus making the cities more con–
gested and cluttered. Ten years ago,
only 29 of the world's cities con–
tained a million or more inhabi–
tants. Today, there are 133 such
cities. In fact, a full third of the
world's people now Live in urban
areas.
"The urban areas of Canada are
growing so fast," reports the
To–
ronto Star
(January 12, 1972), "that
life in cities will become intolerable
for many people by the end of the
century...."
Tokyo, one of the most populous
ci.ties on earth, faces increasing dan–
ger from mounting auto and indus–
trial pollution. Latin America's
largest city, Sao Paulo, Brazil, is pre–
dicted to become the largest city on