The paradox of urban ecology

A posting by Dr. Menlo in American Samizdat links to this article by David Owen, reprinted from the New Yorker magazine, called Green Manhattan. The article points up the paradox that the most environmentally-responsible living takes place in the very environments that are considered ecologically catastrophic - densely populated cities like New York. Where over 80% of workers commute either by public transit, on foot or by bicycle, a rate that is 10 times the US national average. Where those great destroyers of the environment, the lawn, the highway and the second car, are virtually non-existent. And where energy usage per household is a fraction of that in the suburbs and the idyllic countryside.