News earlier this week that a subterranean park is to be built in New York in the city’s old trolley tunnels created quite a buzz, but there seemed to be very little surprise that it has actually been conceptualised and is going to come to fruition. It is, to many minds, the only answer to the crowded city’s need for green spaces as skyscrapers continue to be built to feed the need of millions for whom New York is the only place to live. But is it?
To be sure, New York is far from being the only city in the world that has become cramped and has lost green spaces to housing. The problem exists in nearly every metropolis and various means of coping are constantly being explored. In London, for example, a World War II air-raid shelter 100 feet underground has been transformed into a farm. The owners, Steven Dring and Richard Ballard use hydroponics to grow crops as well as other technology to regulate temperature, provide light and keep the farm pest free. In Stockholm, a similar farm is being established in an old newspaper archive underneath an office building. And in more than one city in Wales, the feasibility of using abandoned coal mines for underground study is currently being seriously addressed.
The global urban population is booming and is showing no sign of plateauing anytime soon. Rural populations are dwindling. Up to last year, data by Statista indicated that 55% of the world’s total population lived in cities, a far cry from 1950 when the global rural population was nearly twice that of urban residents.
Among other things, urbanisation has contributed to a decline in family-owned homesteads, the rise of megafarms where genetically modified crops are grown and by extension a reduction in the production of wholesome food. It has also given rise to urban slums and homelessness, as many rural dwellers who move to where the bright lights and presumably the jobs are, find themselves unable to meet the cost of housing, much less the other associated expenses of city life. As a result, pollution of all forms has more than trebled. Too many people living in squalor, often wrought by unscrupulous landlords, also leads to pest infestations, many big cities are plagued with this. This is by no means an exhaustive list, the full impact of urbanisation, scientists agree, remains misunderstood and underestimated.
It would appear that US President Donald Trump, whose latest faux pas in a tremendously long list last week, was to declare during a trip to the US/Mexico border that America “is full” might have been looking at its cities. In fact, economists say, the opposite is true as many small towns and communities in rural America have contracted owing to urban migration and could actually boom again if there was controlled immigration. This would be similar to what obtains in neighbouring Canada, where there are tiers of immigrants some of whom are mandated to reside in underpopulated provinces.
Another way to help level what are clearly off-kilter cities, would be to find a way to attract people to stay in and/or return to villages. This is already being done successfully to some extent in several places including India, Portugal, Germany, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and Peru. Called ecovillages, some of these places appear to be sanctuary-like and somewhat exclusive. But not every country has to go the same route.
There are places, in Guyana for example, where incentives could be offered that would allow those currently considering urban migration to think again. It would be necessary to provide proper infrastructure befitting the concept. Lest we forget, eco means natural, not primitive.
There is a propensity, however, among modern generations to attempt to reinvent the wheel, which as is well known is an impossibility. While subterranean farms may seem to be futuristic, so much so that tickets can be purchased for tours, let us not forget that way back some of our ancestors lived in caves, were organic in everything they planted, ate and wore and might have been the ones to invent the wheel. Some so-called contemporary inventions, therefore, are a way of us stepping back in order to go forward; modernisation in reverse.
