People, Cities, and the Environment

Basically, cities are people; not people in a statistical sense, but in a living sense. Everything in a city, for better or for worse, is a creation of human intellect. People have taken a spot of earth, bulldozed and built, brought in and taken out, planted and killed, created and destroyed, and fashioned a city. The end product of our efforts constitutes our environment.

Environment is everything around us:

• that which nature has provided - air, water, climate, forests, mountains, minerals, plants, and animals
• that which humans have added (or taken away) with their intelligence, ingenuity, greed, and carelessness

Environment is everybody around us:

• the people we work with, and how we do our jobs together
• our families, the people we pass during the day, and the expressions on their faces
• the number of us who are forced to try to occupy the same space at the same time
• the litterbugs among us, and the community's commitment to keep our streets and parks clean
• the way we like to spend our free time, and the values the community places on recreation
• the feeling we have when we get up and face a new morning, and the degree of satisfaction we feel when we go to bed at the end of the day
• the extent to which we Albuquerqueans enjoy living in our city, and our concern for its future well-being.

People, like all other animals, have needs which must be supplied by the environment: air; water; energy to sustain, move, and warm their bodies; shelter; and room, or space. People unlike other animals, do not derive enough energy from their food to meet all their needs, and wants.

With little regard for the impact on the environment, humans use their distinctive adaptation - a brain which enables them to reason and think creatively - to use any mode of travel they want, and to select any part of the world as their home. They draw upon and deplete the natural resources around them for the energy to make their life-styles desirable. If parts of people's surroundings are not to their liking, they modify the environment rather than fleeing, adapting, or dying - as other animals must do.

People's confrontation with their environment is further complicated by social, economic, and emotional forces in human society. A growing community can befoul its air, and put its residents in competition for water and space, while simultaneously achieving a much-needed healthy economy. Each area has its maximum growth level before destructive urban decay patterns begin. Who decides which way to go?