Sunday, November 20, 2011

Here is a view from The High Line:




And the end of it:




Urbanisation is good for the environment. If you like nature, keep away from it. In Africa it would allow for larger, more efficient farming to replace smallholders. People are increasingly choosing even difficult city life over rural life because it provides far greater opportunity. Some development workers find this difficult to accept, believing, I think, incorrectly, in some idealistic rural life. The fact is that we don't see the difficult part of rural life but we see very easily urban squalor. More efforts have to be made to make cities better places though. One's surroundings impact heavily on mental health, learning, behaviour, and more. Creating nice spaces in cities is important for mental health and therefore productivity. People need green spaces. Developing countries could probably not justify the resources used for The High Line but more effort to create green, clean spaces in urban Africa and elsewhere could prove beneficial for development and health. An article today reports that poor sanitation has negative effects on economic growth.



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