A l'epíleg de The Ghost Map l'autor afirma:
"Modern urbanization has thus far offered up more solutions than problems. Dities continue to be tremendous engines of wealth, innovation , and creativity, but in the 150 years that have passed since Snow and Whitehead watched the death carts make their rounds through Soho, they have become something else as well: engines of health. Two-thirds of women living in rural areas receive some kind of prenatal care, but in cities, the number is more than ninety percent. Nearly eighty percent of births in cities take place in hospital or other medical institutions, as opposed to thirty-five percent in the countryside. For those reasons, as you move from rural areas to urban ones, infant mortality rates tend to drop. The vast majority of the world's most advanced hospitals reside in metropolitan centers. According to the United Nations Global Report on Human Settlements, "Urban areas offer a higher life expectancy and lower absolute poverty and can provide essential services more cheaply and on a large scale than rural areas". For most of the world's nations, living in a city now extends your life expectancy instead of shortening it."
"Cities are a force for environmental health as well. This may be the most surprising new credo of green politics, which has in the past largely associated itself with a back-to-nature ethos that was explicitly antiurban in its values. Dense urban environments may do away with nature altogether - there are many vibrantly healthy neighbourhoods in Paris or Manhattan that lack even a single tree - but they also perform the crucial service of reducing mankind's environmental footprint."
Alguna opinió al respecte dels ambientòlegs/ambientòlegues a la sala?
A mi em criden l'atenció dos coses:
- Una reducció de la pobresa absoluta pot no ser tan important com una reducció de la pobresa relativa. Pel que se d'epidemiologia, en termes d'impacte sobre la salut i la qualitat de vida tenen més impacte les desigualtats que els seus valors absoluts.
- Pot ser que es redueixi la petjada ambiental, no ho se (tampoc se si és la traducció correcta del terme), però això no treu que hi hagi un excés de població al planeta. És a dir, aquesta reducció de l'impacte sobre el medi ambient que proporcionen les ciutats sembla més un pegat que altra cosa, no?
A veure si algú m'aclareix les idees, que estic fora del meu terreny!
