With overcrowding among steel and cement canyons our cities are barely livable. The air is polluted, the streets dirty, the people out of touch with nature. There are too few parks where people can go and relax in a natural environment away from the pressure of daily life. The tension of city life can breed stress and crime. Are there ways we can allieviate these problems? Perhaps reducing the population density by bringing some of the natural into the design of cities might provide an answer. Not only should there be more parks, but buildings should be spaced further apart, allowing space to recreate the natural environment. For example, the height of skyscrapers might dictate how they should be spaced - the higher the farther apart they should be built.

First, cities should promote preserving and planting trees, providing greenbelts along streets and between buildings. Trees clean the air, produce oxygen, take up carbon dioxide, provide shade and cooling in summer, are barriers against wind, may produce beautiful flowers and just make people feel good to be around them. In short, trees are necessary for our survival. And we must not forget the herbaceous plants and shubery of the forest understory that create biodiversity and stability. Taking this idea further, by law, trees, shrubs and wildflowers should be planted alongside and in the medians of the interstate highway system and other major roadways.

Cities should promote campaigns to encourage planting trees, educating the populace to the benefits. Fines should be instituted for cutting trees. Perhaps tax breaks could be provided for homeowners who plant trees or the cities could provide trees at reduced cost for residents to plant. Homes in residential areas or suburbs should be shaded by deciduous trees in summer, proving cooling shade and reducing air conditioning costs. In winter, the sun could filter through the leafless branches, providing some heat and dispelling the winter gloom. However, in desert areas this may not be feasible. Evergreens, such as pines should be planted away from houses, perhaps as windbreaks. In parking lots, trees should be planted in islands against which cars could park and be shaded in summer. The space required should be minimal.

Residential properties with trees demand a premium, so why do developers too often cut trees? Simply, it costs them less to cut trees rather than work around them when building houses. Then should we pass laws forcing developers to preserve trees? If it is for human survival and the betterment of the environment this would be a good law. But the real estate market could be encouraged to value trees and perhaps the natural landscape, thus creating a positive market pressure for their preservation.

Why do humans wish to cut trees and remake nature into a refined environment by creating open spaces and planting grass? Perhaps this urge tells us something of our origins when we came out of the forest into the savannahs. Are we creatures of open spaces? But then if we are, why do we wish to live in cities in small apartments away from the open landscape? Or is this overuse and abuse of the natural world a product of our culture that has promoted our dominion over nature rather than stewardship and living within and with nature? Nature is the root of our beings, the foundation of all life, including humans. We neither escape it and nor live without it. We imperil our lives if we ignore it.

The problem of the destruction of the environment and excluding the natural world from our lives is because we are ignorant of it and do not value it. We need a revaluing of the natural world in monetary terms that make sense and would return a balance between the manmade and the natural. As the enviroment becomes more threatened and many species of plants and animals become scarce or extinct we could hope that market forces would increase their value, but this has not happened, at least as quickly as we need. If natural land had a higher value we would not be so eager to develop it for human use, but leave it untouched as a common resource. Its scientific value is incalculable. It should also be a reminder of our origins.

Mother Earth will survive even if we self-destruct along with the environment which supports our lives. Without us, life in some form would survive and perhaps prosper. It is not she we need worry about, but ourselves. It is our personal environment, our living spaces we are polluting, as if defecating on the floors of our homes. It is our survival we are threatening when we ignore the natural world.