"[Not Responding]" writes:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 14:35:03 GMT, Simon Brooke
wrote:
If you don't like it in London, don't whinge, leave.
Wrong answer.
There is no reason why "our cities [should be] hoplessly overcrouded,
miserable, stressful places where no-one in their right minds would
live and work" or where you "commute through the filthy overcrowded
tubes or the filthy gridlocked roads or the filthy overcrowded
unreliable railways".
You'll agree that they are. And, speaking as one who has visited
cities on every continent except Africa, I think it's pretty much in
the nature of cities so to be, although I'll agree that London is
worse than some.
The fact that they are is a result of mis-management and a culture of
earning enough to get out. If our cities and urban centres are to
become the centres of cultural, environmental, educational and
commercial excellence that they should be then we need the brightest
and best to stay, not leave.
Re-invigorated city and urban life is the key to a sustainable future.
People have to want to live there rather than choose lengthy commutes
from the suburbs or the country.
Packing people together is not an end in itself. Just because our
Victorian ancestors who lacked modern telecommunications technologies
needed cities in order to be able to condict business efficiently doesn't
mean we do. If you overcrowd people, you have great difficulty dealing
with the filth they generate, and you have great difficulty in
providing free-flowing thoroughfares for them to use. And one way of
reducing the crowding, the dirt, and the stress of cities is for those
who don't need to be there to leave them.
However, if you like living in cities, your choice: just don't whinge
about it.
--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Das Internet is nicht fuer gefingerclicken und giffengrabben... Ist
nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das mausklicken sichtseeren
keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und
watchen das cursorblinken. -- quoted from the jargon file