Cities and sustainability

Cities are moving towards increasing populations and development of infrastructures.

Intellectuals are talking about better ways of making cities sustainable by mass transport systems to stop cars, by disincentivising cars, by making water recycling and harvesting mandatory. Institutions boast of their liquid and solid waste methodologies.

But no matter what is said and done- the crux is that one can never make a city completely or even distinctively clean, non-polluting- sustainability is out of question.

How can so much generation of sewage be sustainable? How can there be any technology which can convert so much of sewage into something usable? Can you think of any technology which can ‘eat up’ all the waste that we generate- so many plastic bottles and what not?

So, many people huddled together can never be sustainable and neither can be an urban sprawl. Cities are and would remain un sustainable. With increasing trends in urbanization and as the recent UN report puts that the urban population of the world set to increase – isn’t it a time that UN starts working against urbanization.

Everybody is missing the point and even the best of environmentalists or social thinkers cannot think of leaving the city. They are trying to find solutions in the city. And the answer is that the city needs to cease to exist.

It high time we understand that cities are against nature and will always be. Nature never wanted so many people to live together.

I am seriously thinking of shifting to a village and thinking of starting a campaign – chalo gaon ki ore