ABSTRACT
Cities are success stories. That’s why they grow so fast. But success stories aren’t problem-free. Of all living species, bacteria are the most successful – but, although indispensable for life, we only notice harmful ones. Of all higher life, humans are the most successful: we just don’t notice the ecological damage we do. Cities reflect this. They incubate cultural development and economic growth – but cause enough CO2 to threaten all life: we just don’t notice it. Cities maximize benefits, especially cultural – but also problems. Wealth contrasts with poverty, overwork with unemployment, luxury with homelessness. 1 Problems increase with size: particularly noticeable whenever a bridge joins two riverbank towns into one city. It is in the poorer parts of cities that ‘weed' trees grow up on abandoned land, yet it is they that make the surroundings, however dull or lifeless, bearable. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315662138/7fa886fd-c470-4fba-81d6-2549dd2b2df0/content/fig240_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
