The recent first International Eco-Cities Conference, sponsored by Urban Ecology, brought activists and designers from many parts of the world together in Berkeley, California. For information on Register's book, or the proceedings of the recent conference, write Urban Ecology at PO Box 10144, Berkeley, CA 94709.
Cities are in the nature of people.
We like being close together, and there are certain economies of scale involved. But the impacts of cities now are very big and extremely negative. That's not too surprising, since so many people live in them and they are the focal point of enormous energy use and pollution production. There's growing interest and excitement around it, but it's still a subject that frightens a lot of people, because it implies a major change in the way people build and the way they live. But people are beginning to look at the possibility.