So what is actually wrong with cities then?

[Martin Porter]

Okay, I've a few issues with the way DM has been presented to date, so I'm going to get them off my chest before I bump into any of you in flesh again.

First up, what's it with the city/countryside thing anyway? Yep, I like hills and moors which is why I live as close to them as I can, but I'm under no illusion that the folks out here in the sticks are any more eco-friendly than those in cities.

Are you under the mistaken assumption that cities are the product of Industrial Capitalism, or is it something else?

England was ruled by the countryside from the Restoration until the early twentieth century, and this wasn't exactly the most liberal part of our history. The countryside traditionally is where fox hunting aristocrats rule over obediant serfs. Anyone with any brains, ambition or even vaguely liberal instincts moved  to the city, the melting pot of ideas and the source of the 'mob' that autocratic rulers hated and feared. From the rebellious city of London corrupting the army that James II sent to intimidate it to the Peterloo Massacre, it is the cities that the elite feared, not the subservient countryside.

Looking even further back in time the move from rural tribal groups to the first cities was when allegiances shifted from blood ties to georgarphical allegiances. Maybe not the greatest leap forward humanity has ever taken, but hardly a step back either.

I would struggle to come up with a physical divide that can be linked to an ideological one, but if I had to I would go for the division between cultivated and uncultivated land. This is the line that marked the limit of the Roman Empire, and it is the plough that separates the egalitarian crofter of the Highlands from the oppressed English serf.

Alternatively you could blame the suburbs for our problems and contrast the neatly mown lawns and insular lives of the urban fringe with the edgy communal life of a thriving city centre.

I'm sure the Countryside Alliance would disagree with me, but I would be a little worried if they didn't.

[Martin Porter]

I suspect you're approaching this from a Primitivist angle, which is fine, but I'd really like to leave that to another thread. Obviously Primitivists don't want cities, but as they also reject pretty much everything else about modern society it's a bit odd to limit the debate to just cities. Dentistry would be rather more of a debating point on that one!

The move fom blood ties to geographic ones goes right back to when the first tribal bands formed the first "cities" (barely villages by modern standards, but they were the start). Up until then the tribe was ruled by a hereditary ruler, his family and "companions" (usually warriors). Allegiance was personal, through blood relations or vow.

Once you got cities, you were on the the road towards nation states, via city states, feudal states, and so on. You stopped murdering people because they weren't related to you and started murdering them because they had a different post code. If you like it was a move from honour killings to football hooliganism, but it was also a step towards civil society and human rights.

As I said, if you believe the best solution is for human beings to effectively disapear from the fossil record then you're not going to like cities, but looking back at 6000 years of human history, the cities were where people made things happen and the countryside was where things happened to people.

And this is from someone who hates cities too and would never live in one.

wolfbird said:

Hello Martin,

Are you limiting your question to UK ? Shouldn't 'the city' be considered for what it is, as a global phenomenon ?

If you define nature as the condition of fauna, flora, and geology in the absence of human interference, then cities are not natural, they are the antithesis of nature, the epitome of human interference. They cannot be made ecologically sustainable. They rely for their existence, upon the extraction of resources from surrounding (and more distant) areas, which they destroy, and use those surrounding areas to dump their waste products.

If you could make a time-lapse bird's eye animation of the growth of city, it'd resemble the growth of a malignant cancer, a spore, which spreads and consumes and poisons it's substrate.

I can't speak for your area of 'the sticks' ( why the derogatory term ? ) but my area of the 'not-city' is indeed inhabited by folks who are vastly more eco-friendly than urban folks, mostly because of the low population density, but also because many deliberately cultivate low impact eco-friendly life styles. Even the farmers try to follow 'good practice' as they call it.

Anyone who assumes that cities are a product of industrial capitalism hasn't studied the history.

Your potted description of English history seems too parochial to be pertinent. Just because "rule by the countryside" was crap, doesn't mean that "rule by the city" is great, or the only alternative option. But that seems a total diversion from any discussion of 'the city' as such.

Shift from "blood ties to georgarphical allegiances", erm, I don't know what you're talking about, do you ?

You seem to be setting up your own personal pro-city ideology, in contrast to what ?

Sure, cities give people a wealth of concentrated cultural and other resources, along with the freedom that anonymity gives. Sex and drugs and rock and roll. Bread and circuses. Many people like them and are drawn to city life, many people know nothing other than city life. If your anthropocentric value system places human satisfaction above all else, then the intensity of cultural stimuli that cities offer must be attractive. Personally, I loathe cities, and would be very happy if they all vanished. I suspect that we are all upon the same trajectory as Easter Island and the Maya, so I expect my wish will be granted.

[Martin Porter]

The questions about the carrying capacity of the earth and the cultural effect of cities are not really the same. We could probably live in cities like battery hens with a pristine wilderness outside and keep within ecological limits, but it wouldn't be much fun. say that the state

The future will homefully be rural, because that's what I want, but that doesn't mean that we will find the solutions in the countryside of today. More likely we will find the solutions in the likes of the Paris Commune, or the Sans Cullotts of the French Revolution or in the Athenian Polis - for all the faults of those societies.

My attitude to cities is probably best summed up by Bakunin on the similar issue of the State "I do not hesitate to say that the state is an evil but it is a historically necesary evil, as necesary in the past as its complete extinction will be necesary sooner or later".

As for how primitive societies develope into civil ones, I'm not n anthropologist, and you're right that there is no one model for a primitive society. But is one path in which egalitarian hunter gatherers develope into heriarchical farmers and city dwellers. It's not inevitable that this will happen, but if it does then it pretty much seems to happen one way.

wolfbird said:

Look what happened to the Reindeer on St. Matthew's Island. This is what would have happened to the human species, were it not for one thing. We found coal and oil. It would be as if someone brought a shipload of hay to the reindeer, so that their numbers increased even more, by artificially enlarging the carrying capacity. Physics, biology and ecology trump everything else. Civil soceity, human culture, the arts, human rights, kindness and compassion, anything else that we might consider virtuous and worthwhile, it all vanishes, because we are biological creatures which require clean water, clean air, food, shelter, merely to exist. Those things come from the environment, nowhere else. We're trashing the whole planet. That's not something we can reverse or fix.

http://dieoff.org/page80.htm

[Martin Porter]

wolfbird

I'm not really disagreeing with anything in that post.

What I am saying though is that when we plan the sort of future you outline, we are taking values from both simple rural communities and the big city, and probably more the latter than the former.

I'm not advocating cities as paradise, and I'm certianly not proposing a future where we all live in them. But what I am questioning is DMs rejection of the city as the source of ideas for the future.

It's true in a city you can feel as far away from nature as it is possible to be, and I can sympathise with the young W B Yeats, living in London and writing The Lake Isle of Inisfree after a water fountian on Baker Street made him homesick for the Emerald Isle.

However just as a drowning man can imagine a waterless desert is paradise, it's possible to go too far with our rejection of our current urban nightmare and forget the major, major contributions of the city to the sort of radical politics we are all influenced by.


wolfbird said:

Thanks for the reply, Martin. I don't agree, because the 2 questions are bound together. As I understand it, Hong Kong is the most densely populated urban centre, so think of that as the battery hens. Now, to provide the food and energy and all the other requirements of that intensive unit requires the hinterland for many hundreds of miles in every direction to be dedicated to provisioning that unit. Which means displacing whatever would otherwise exist on that hinterland.
I don't have the numbers at my finger tips, but how many overseas acres are being used to support each resident of London ? That's what I mean about cities being unsustainable. They cannot be made eco-friendly, they depend upon a footprint vastly greater than the area they actually occupy.
If you're thinking of some form of revolution, like the Paris Commune, well, that is indeed a different question. I agree, the way that both cities and countryside is, as of today, is hopeless. To force change would, or will, require some extreme social upheaval. The British ruling elite are resilient, they've survived many ups and downs over the centuries. They're not going to relinquish control just because it can be argued rationally that they should. For example, life is very cosy if you are a large landowner getting agricultural subsidies, or a revenue flow from the City of London. The last thing those guys want is any change. Similar entrenched interests in most countries.

I think that the only way forward is just to ignore State, Government, any sort of authority for that matter, and take responsibility for saving ourselves by building a viable alternative. It's quite possible for a low density rural area to be almost entirely self-sufficient and eco-friendly, forest gardens, cob houses, sustainable woodlands, etc. That'd work if people were modest in their demands and willing to do plenty of hard physical work. It's all been proved to work in the past. Trouble is, what happens when the folks who don't approve try to prevent it ? What happens to the people in the cities ? As I'm sure you'll know, it's been tried before and blocked by violence...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers

Just read this, which has a comment 'decentralisation and sustainability', sums up the idea quite well really..

http://attempter.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/small-farms-beyond-thunde...



Martin Porter said:

The questions about the carrying capacity of the earth and the cultural effect of cities are not really the same. We could probably live in cities like battery hens with a pristine wilderness outside and keep within ecological limits, but it wouldn't be much fun. say that the state

The future will homefully be rural, because that's what I want, but that doesn't mean that we will find the solutions in the countryside of today. More likely we will find the solutions in the likes of the Paris Commune, or the Sans Cullotts of the French Revolution or in the Athenian Polis - for all the faults of those societies. My attitude to cities is probably best summed up by Bakunin on the similar issue of the State "I do not hesitate to say that the state is an evil but it is a historically necesary evil, as necesary in the past as its complete extinction will be necesary sooner or later".

As for how primitive societies develope into civil ones, I'm not n anthropologist, and you're right that there is no one model for a primitive society. But is one path in which egalitarian hunter gatherers develope into heriarchical farmers and city dwellers. It's not inevitable that this will happen, but if it does then it pretty much seems to happen one way.

wolfbird said:

Look what happened to the Reindeer on St. Matthew's Island. This is what would have happened to the human species, were it not for one thing. We found coal and oil. It would be as if someone brought a shipload of hay to the reindeer, so that their numbers increased even more, by artificially enlarging the carrying capacity. Physics, biology and ecology trump everything else. Civil soceity, human culture, the arts, human rights, kindness and compassion, anything else that we might consider virtuous and worthwhile, it all vanishes, because we are biological creatures which require clean water, clean air, food, shelter, merely to exist. Those things come from the environment, nowhere else. We're trashing the whole planet. That's not something we can reverse or fix.

http://dieoff.org/page80.htm

[Martin Porter]

Thanks, I think we have come to some sort of agreement.

The difficulty of planning the future is that we dn't know if we're talking about stopping the runaway train at the last moment or of trying to reconstruct something new out of the wreckage afterwards......

[Daniel Ross]

Cities have higher rates of mental illness than the country I think- I'm 99% sure but don't ask me to back it up. I've read that in a number of places; if not higher rates of depression, then higher rates of schizophrenia and psychosis- at least diagnosed. So maybe if one area is presenting higher proportions of people who are diagnosed mentally ill, then it is likely that that area will have more problems disappearing beneath the clinical radar as well. I personally think people who live outside cities are healthier generally than city people.

Also if your looking for social change, you might look in the cities; but if you are looking for social change which is more in touch with the non-human world; which rejects or questions progress and civilization; well...

[Martin Porter]

Before we get into a full blown townies v green wellies argument I thinkwe need to remember what huge social change has appened in our countryside over the lastv 150 years.

The 1945 Labour government was probably the greenest we've ever had, not least because most of the cabinet were rambers in their spare time. This wasn't 'cos they were from the bored Middle Classes, quite the opposite, they were Working Class folk whose parents, or at least their grandparent, had grown up in the country and knew what they were missing. They were the people who took part in the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass and similar movements in the 1930s.

Meanwhile today the Middle Class like to steal Working Class pleasures and make them crap: e.g. football, terraced houses, beer and now the countryside.

To sum up, I have a lot more faith in a born and bred townie who has moved to the countryside to grow organic veg, or an anarchistic city dweller, than a country person who commutes by BMW to the City in the week and rides with the local hunt at weekend.



wolfbird said:

Hi Daniel,
Are you suggesting that country folk are more in touch with the non-human world than urban dwellers ? Wish it was so. I have neighbours who are farmers, lived here all of their lives. There's maybe 55+ bird species sharing this area. If you asked either of them to name a few, they could maybe manage 6 or so. Same goes for trees and plants. They're blind to their surroundings except for stuff with a financial dimension that directly effects them. But they know all the makes and models of motor cars... Of course, if you asked ME to name fifty contemporary celebrities, I don't think I can name one :-)

Oliver James is usually quite good on mental health and soceity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jan/27/booksonhealth.society

Daniel Ross said:

Cities have higher rates of mental illness than the country I think- I'm 99% sure but don't ask me to back it up. I've read that in a number of places; if not higher rates of depression, then higher rates of schizophrenia and psychosis- at least diagnosed. So maybe if one area is presenting higher proportions of people who are diagnosed mentally ill, then it is likely that that area will have more problems disappearing beneath the clinical radar as well. I personally think people who live outside cities are healthier generally than city people.

Also if your looking for social change, you might look in the cities; but if you are looking for social change which is more in touch with the non-human world; which rejects or questions progress and civilization; well...

[Martin Porter]

Inclosure Acts 1750 to 1860. Hmm, only just scrapes in as "last 150 years", you're right. However the changes since WWII with the loss of farming jobs and the rise of the commuter village are probably just as great.



wolfbird said:

Last 150 years ? Well, if you want to talk about countryside and towns/cities, and social classes, Martin, I think you need to begin a bit further back than 150 years. How about the Enclosures ?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/janusg/landls.htm

You're throwing around stereotypes, Martin, re green wellies and working class pleasures and BMW owners, etc... it's the way that the public discourse is conducted in the newspapers isn't it ? Let's make a simple division, between people whose lifestyles harm the biosphere, and people whose lifestyles do not.

I don't know if the middle class stole the working classes pleasures, or whether the working class mutated into being middle class, aspiring towards higher status. I don't really care. As I think I mentioned in the comments on Paul's blog, I don't think we have ANY exemplary green role models in British history to turn to. Not even in European history. Can't think of any. Perhaps someone can suggest some. The Americans have figures like Thoreau and Muir and Leopold, but they are relatively recent. I don't think that the British, whether working, middle, or upper class have got anywhere close to the sort of attitude towards nature that we now need to have, if we want to survive.

Probably, the British mainstream, whether city or country dwellers, see the likes of Tony Benn and George Monbiot and Jonathan Porritt as rather extreme, possibly slightly dangerous, lefties. From my position, I see them as, at best, as being in the centre. Which means that the radical left, in my personal image of the historical political spectrum, is totally empty. Nobody there.

The fundamental problem is this : How do we establish a culture which aligns with the ecological realities ?

It would be nice to have all the trimmings which people have struggled for, like social justice, human rights, equal opportunities, a prosperous economy, bla, bla, bla... but it may be that those things will not be possible. Ecology trumps everything else.

We've failed to get any effective international action re CO2 levels, so we can expect more warming and extreme weather events, more new diseases and pressure from refugees, more expensive energy because of Peak Oil, etc, etc.

We can expect 5 years of austerities from the Conservatives which will mean tremendous dissatisfaction, anger and social distress as services are reduced... the mad ones still insist that the only solution is ever more and faster economic growth, which will exacerbate all the ecological problems, to keep the international bankers and financial markets satisfied...



Martin Porter said:

Before we get into a full blown townies v green wellies argument I thinkwe need to remember what huge social change has appened in our countryside over the lastv 150 years.
The 1945 Labour government was probably the greenest we've ever had, not least because most of the cabinet were rambers in their spare time. This wasn't 'cos they were from the bored Middle Classes, quite the opposite, they were Working Class folk whose parents, or at least their grandparent, had grown up in the country and knew what they were missing. They were the people who took part in the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass and similar movements in the 1930s.
Meanwhile today the Middle Class like to steal Working Class pleasures and make them crap: e.g. football, terraced houses, beer and now the countryside.

To sum up, I have a lot more faith in a born and bred townie who has moved to the countryside to grow organic veg, or an anarchistic city dweller, than a country person who commutes by BMW to the City in the week and rides with the local hunt at weekend.



wolfbird said:

Hi Daniel,
Are you suggesting that country folk are more in touch with the non-human world than urban dwellers ? Wish it was so. I have neighbours who are farmers, lived here all of their lives. There's maybe 55+ bird species sharing this area. If you asked either of them to name a few, they could maybe manage 6 or so. Same goes for trees and plants. They're blind to their surroundings except for stuff with a financial dimension that directly effects them. But they know all the makes and models of motor cars... Of course, if you asked ME to name fifty contemporary celebrities, I don't think I can name one :-) Oliver James is usually quite good on mental health and soceity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jan/27/booksonhealth.society

Daniel Ross said:

Cities have higher rates of mental illness than the country I think- I'm 99% sure but don't ask me to back it up. I've read that in a number of places; if not higher rates of depression, then higher rates of schizophrenia and psychosis- at least diagnosed. So maybe if one area is presenting higher proportions of people who are diagnosed mentally ill, then it is likely that that area will have more problems disappearing beneath the clinical radar as well. I personally think people who live outside cities are healthier generally than city people.

Also if your looking for social change, you might look in the cities; but if you are looking for social change which is more in touch with the non-human world; which rejects or questions progress and civilization; well...

[Ty]

If our species maintains its current population, it's unrealistic to expect people to be able to abandon cities and move into the countryside. It's possible that alone could cause unforseen ecological harm. Density is what cities have going for them. However, they are unsustainable as they exist right now. We would have to hyperlocalize all production and resources. Energy and food would all have to be provided in-city.

If we were to see a drastic decline in human population, then it would be possible for us all to move out into the mountains.

I've been noticing an increased interest and awareness in urban farming, which I think may be the saving grace for a lot of families, particularly in a collapse situation. That's not to say the cities would remain safe after any sort of catastrophe, thus making the country a better choice again. It's impossible to forecast. We'll have to play it by ear, I suspect.

[Ty]

The United States' agricultural industry is set up in a very similar way. I think I ran into a cultural boundary or something here because I have no idea what's going on in the UK.

Most food production in Havana is done in city, and a big portion of Hong Kong's (I think it's Hong Kong) food is grown in city too. It was done in Paris around the turn of the century due to a massive food crisis. The point is that food production can be achieved entirely in city. There is enough extra space in unused lots, along the sides of roads and on the tops of buildings to make it happen.

I don't want to have to live in the city, it sucks. I wish we all could head out into the woods.

The only thing I was trying to get across is that there is not enough room in the countryside for everyone to leave the cities unless there was a catastrophe that made a significant dent in the world's population.

But I don't know anything. So nobody should listen to me anyway.

wolfbird said:

Hi Ty,

Your generalisation may be correct for the Earth as a whole, but I'm talking about U.K.

I'm not suggesting *everyone* abandon the cities, most won't want to, only those who are interested. Can't be sure what percentage that might be.

It will not cause unforeseen ecological damage. Unlike N. America, there is no virgin, undamaged countryside in U.K. Every square inch had been altered by human activity. The ecological damage has already been done, and continues at this moment.

Obviously, some sensitive areas should be protected, and the New Crofters in my proposal, would be required to behave responsibly. But it would be difficult for them to behave much more irresponsibly than the present day land owners.

I don't believe your 'hyper-localize, all food and energy' is practical or possible. Is there any example of any city anywhere that has achieved that ? or anywhere near ? I'm not saying that to aim in that direction isn't a worthy objective, but I don't, myself, think cities can be made sustainable. We're not thinking of the Detroit model, in the UK. Urban farming seems a contradiction in terms.

The thing is, UK agriculture is the most highly regulated and controlled industry in the world. It's been that way since WW2. Farmers have had to do what the government/politicians instructed them to do, which has been an ecological disaster. They keep the animals and grow the crops which get subsidies. Some farmers have become extremely rich, some have been ruined. It's a hypothetical question as to what would have happened if they'd been free to do as they pleased.

The marginal land, i.e. in between the most fertile and the higher mountains, hasn't been a viable profitable business proposition for a long time. The farmers only continued because they were paid subsidies to stay there. The average age of those farmers is close to 65. Their children mostly don't want to follow such a hard life with low income. So what is to happen to that land ? The villages are dying, the schools and post offices close, city people buy the cottages as second homes for holidays, empty most of the year.

What will happen is that many farms will be merged into much larger holdings and will be ranched. That is, the hedges and buildings will be left to decay. That will be eco-friendly for some species.

150 years ago, the population in these areas was 3 times what it is now. Partly because there were many small holdings and a lot more manual labour was needed. That was actually much more eco-friendly than anything since, because of the variety of habitats and biodiversity.

Ty said:

If our species maintains its current population, it's unrealistic to expect people to be able to abandon cities and move into the countryside. It's possible that alone could cause unforseen ecological harm. Density is what cities have going for them. However, they are unsustainable as they exist right now. We would have to hyperlocalize all production and resources. Energy and food would all have to be provided in-city.

If we were to see a drastic decline in human population, then it would be possible for us all to move out into the mountains.

I've been noticing an increased interest and awareness in urban farming, which I think may be the saving grace for a lot of families, particularly in a collapse situation. That's not to say the cities would remain safe after any sort of catastrophe, thus making the country a better choice again. It's impossible to forecast. We'll have to play it by ear, I suspect.

[Paul Kingsnorth]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that DM is 'against cities,' Martin. Could you explain?

From an ecological point of a view, a city is a parasite on surrounding land. From a cultural point of view, of course cities colonise and radically change rural areas. I have seen this in my lifetime, and written about it widely. There is obviously a cultural gap between genuine rural people - as opposed to urban incomers - and city folk. That's simply stating the obvious. Spend much time in the countryside and this makes itself felt.

I have spent much of my life in cities, and am a child of suburbs. I now live in the country. I can see all sides of this. In any case, cities are not going anywhere fast so it's not as if being 'against' them is terribly useful. But what we talk about in the manifesto is the urban - specifically metropolitan attitude - and how its cultural dominance is damaging. Personally I think it is hugely damaging. We can talk further about why and how if you like.

[Paul Kingsnorth]

Oh, and on the old chestnut of the city being radical an the country being subservient: well, that's the old Marxist schtick, which itself stems from nineteenth cnetury industrialism. It doesn't wash. There were plenty of obedient mill workers and factory drones being lorded over by capitalists, and still are. Meanwhile, the history of rural rebellions, from 1066 onwards, in England alone is legion. Ketts rebellion, anyone? Jack Cade? Watt Tyler? Captain Swing? Robin Hood? It's a very, very long list.

My main objection to the modern city is twofold: firstly, it drains rural and wild areas of life in order that it may live: everything from dammed rivers to fields of intensely farmed wheat. Secondly, big cities are almost entirely artificial environments: you can spend a whole day in London and barely see a tree. The impact of this on our mental and spiritual health is serious. I think it could be argued it is at the root of our environmental crisis.

Today there is very little left in the UK of non-urban ways of life - you're right that the countryside is not in many ways more low impact than the city, but this is because the countryside is full of city people with city lifestyles. Things are not the same in Poland or Greece. There are whole ways of seeing and being that are dying out.

Having said all this, it is also obviously the case that the modern city is, on an individual level, hugely creative and liberatory for many people. So here's the hard question: what if the price of this individual freedom is the destruction of non-urban landscapes and the ways of life that go with them? That seems to me to be the whole liberal modern dilemma in a nutshell.

[Martin Porter]

There's a difference between radicalism and rebellion paul.

The countryside has always been rebellious, indeed the whole pre-Industrial set up is basically the landlord ruling with an iron fist, and if the grasp weakens by just a tad you've got a peasants revolt. I'm reading an interesting book on just this at the moment: bandits by E J Hobsbawn. However he's an old Marxist, so you wouldn't be interested....

However you have set up an interesting dialectic there in the last paragraph - the City is liberating but ecologically unsustainable. That's certainly a challenging one. I think we all accept that in future we'll have to give up our cars, foreign holidays and patio heaters. But our liberty as well? I can see that going down a storm, especially with Earth First!

Thanks for answering my main point though, but what about my suggestion that your geographical divide is really just in the wrong place and that it is the plough, not the city, that marks the edge of civilisation?



Paul Kingsnorth said:

Oh, and on the old chestnut of the city being radical an the country being subservient: well, that's the old Marxist schtick, which itself stems from nineteenth cnetury industrialism. It doesn't wash. There were plenty of obedient mill workers and factory drones being lorded over by capitalists, and still are. Meanwhile, the history of rural rebellions, from 1066 onwards, in England alone is legion. Ketts rebellion, anyone? Jack Cade? Watt Tyler? Captain Swing? Robin Hood? It's a very, very long list.
My main objection to the modern city is twofold: firstly, it drains rural and wild areas of life in order that it may live: everything from dammed rivers to fields of intensely farmed wheat. Secondly, big cities are almost entirely artificial environments: you can spend a whole day in London and barely see a tree. The impact of this on our mental and spiritual health is serious. I think it could be argued it is at the root of our environmental crisis.
Today there is very little left in the UK of non-urban ways of life - you're right that the countryside is not in many ways more low impact than the city, but this is because the countryside is full of city people with city lifestyles. Things are not the same in Poland or Greece. There are whole ways of seeing and being that are dying out.

Having said all this, it is also obviously the case that the modern city is, on an individual level, hugely creative and liberatory for many people. So here's the hard question: what if the price of this individual freedom is the destruction of non-urban landscapes and the ways of life that go with them? That seems to me to be the whole liberal modern dilemma in a nutshell.