In my January 15th blog entry, I mentioned Johann Hari's Slate.com review of American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. I have not yet read the book, but Hari's reference to sociologist Jane Jacobs' contribution caught my eye:

Human beings are part of nature, not some alien species - so "the cities of human beings are as natural ... as are the colonies of prairie dogs or the beds of oysters." Far from being free and somehow mystically complete, "in real life, peasants are the least free of men - bound by tradition, ridden by caste, fettered by superstitions, riddled by suspicion and foreboding of whatever is strange."

So for Jacobs, cities are ineradicable and set you free - and, crucially, they are the greenest way to live. The area with the lowest carbon emissions per person in the United States is not rural Alabama or icy Alaska. It is New York City, with its mass transit system and easy walking. If we are to deal with global warming, there need to be more densely populated cities and far fewer tree-lined suburbs.

That's right; cities are a greener, more sustainable habitat for humans. We romanticize rural living through our suburban country estate fantasies, but in most of the world, people flee from living off the land as soon as they can get to the city, because believe it or not, urban poverty is far superior to rural poverty.  Scratching the dirt with a stick may be a very common livelihood, but it is barely sustaining and never reliable.

Now is a good time for dreaming big and dreaming different. Suburbia has been called the greatest misuse of resources in human history, and while we cannot undo what has been done, we can redirect our future efforts toward more effective cities.