479
But even in the wealthiest (large) nation in the world, the United States, beyond
air pollution is the issue of sewage. Some “80 per cent of Americans” are on municipal sewage systems, the rest on home septic. City water-treatment plants are old,
decaying, and the entire infrastructure in severe need of updating, with “23,000 to
75,000 sanitary-sewer overflows” each year.
10
All of the anthropogenic abuses, whether in aggregated, core based statistical
areas (CBSAs)—urban clusters “of at least 10,000 in population”,
11
of which there
were 955 in the United States as of February 2013—or rural stretches of continuous
habitation, or countryside properties too big to farm, too small to ranch, have conditioned our post-industrialist senses. There are at least 388 urban areas of over
50,000 people in the United States; 192 countries, each with between 300 and 400
cities, or at least 50,000 cities on earth. We instantly accept or reject the large definitions of ourselves and our privacy issues as bifurcated between affiliations, associations with other humans, expectations of various rights and systems, promise of
social contract privileges and value, and sensory thresholds that turn medical upon
closer scrutiny.
12
All such values, held to one’s chest—ultimately, we cling throughout life to our privacy—invite more than a mere morbid incredulity, when juxtaposed with such huge aggregates of people on top of one another throughout those
global clusters (Fig. 51.1).
51.2 Lost Upon an Urban Surrealism
The net effect of this divining rod of what it means to inhabit a place (unless our
species were somehow thought of as strictly eusocial) has been lost on the urban
surrealism that attends human congeries; densities of population defying expectations of certain degrees of tolerance and intolerance; or making more clear the
fundamental need of even the odd tree here and there, or a potted plant. A Central
Park underscores the miracle that “nature” performs for those who cannot help
but succumb to urban fatigue and ecological deprivation.
13
This need mirrors
24/7 WallSt, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/12/02/the-30-most-polluted-places-onearth/. Accessed May 11, 2020. See https://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the10-biggest-copper-mines-in-the-world/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
10 See, “Flushing the Toilet Has Never Been Riskier,” by Mary Anna Evans, The Atlantic, September
17, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/americas-sewage-crisis-public-health/405541/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
11 See U. S. Census, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/metro-micro.html.
12 See “Construction of an adaptable European transnational ecological deprivation index: the
French Version,” by Carole Pornet, et.al., BMJ, Epidemiology and Community Health, Volume 66,
Issue 11, https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2011-200311, Accessed May 11, 2020.
13 See “Environmental Deprivation,” CRESH, Centre for research on environment, society and
health, https://cresh.org.uk/cresh-themes/environmental-deprivation/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
51.2 Lost Upon an Urban Surrealism
But even in the wealthiest (large) nation in the world, the United States, beyond
air pollution is the issue of sewage. Some “80 per cent of Americans” are on municipal sewage systems, the rest on home septic. City water-treatment plants are old,
decaying, and the entire infrastructure in severe need of updating, with “23,000 to
75,000 sanitary-sewer overflows” each year.
10
All of the anthropogenic abuses, whether in aggregated, core based statistical
areas (CBSAs)—urban clusters “of at least 10,000 in population”,
11
of which there
were 955 in the United States as of February 2013—or rural stretches of continuous
habitation, or countryside properties too big to farm, too small to ranch, have conditioned our post-industrialist senses. There are at least 388 urban areas of over
50,000 people in the United States; 192 countries, each with between 300 and 400
cities, or at least 50,000 cities on earth. We instantly accept or reject the large definitions of ourselves and our privacy issues as bifurcated between affiliations, associations with other humans, expectations of various rights and systems, promise of
social contract privileges and value, and sensory thresholds that turn medical upon
closer scrutiny.
12
All such values, held to one’s chest—ultimately, we cling throughout life to our privacy—invite more than a mere morbid incredulity, when juxtaposed with such huge aggregates of people on top of one another throughout those
global clusters (Fig. 51.1).
51.2 Lost Upon an Urban Surrealism
The net effect of this divining rod of what it means to inhabit a place (unless our
species were somehow thought of as strictly eusocial) has been lost on the urban
surrealism that attends human congeries; densities of population defying expectations of certain degrees of tolerance and intolerance; or making more clear the
fundamental need of even the odd tree here and there, or a potted plant. A Central
Park underscores the miracle that “nature” performs for those who cannot help
but succumb to urban fatigue and ecological deprivation.
13
This need mirrors
24/7 WallSt, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/12/02/the-30-most-polluted-places-onearth/. Accessed May 11, 2020. See https://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the10-biggest-copper-mines-in-the-world/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
10 See, “Flushing the Toilet Has Never Been Riskier,” by Mary Anna Evans, The Atlantic, September
17, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/americas-sewage-crisis-public-health/405541/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
11 See U. S. Census, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/metro-micro.html.
12 See “Construction of an adaptable European transnational ecological deprivation index: the
French Version,” by Carole Pornet, et.al., BMJ, Epidemiology and Community Health, Volume 66,
Issue 11, https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2011-200311, Accessed May 11, 2020.
13 See “Environmental Deprivation,” CRESH, Centre for research on environment, society and
health, https://cresh.org.uk/cresh-themes/environmental-deprivation/. Accessed May 11, 2020.
51.2 Lost Upon an Urban Surrealism