Posted on 03/20/2020 10:23:17 AM PDT by george76
The relentless march of urbanization, in the United States and around the world, has been coming for a long time. ..
America went from 8.8 percent urban in 1830 to 25.7 percent in 1870, then to a majority in 1920, and up to about two-thirds by the mid-1950s. We were 80 percent urban by 2010. North America has the most urban population in the world. But it is not alone in seeing an accelerating trend. The U.N. estimated that, in 2009, half the world’s population lived in urban areas for the first time in human history. Over 4 billion people live in cities today, six times as many as did in 1950. In 2000, there were 371 cities of a million or more people in the world; by 2018, that number was 548.
...
the dark side of urbanization has always included infectious disease. Humans did not evolve to live in such close proximity. Close physical contact spreads germs, which is why medieval and early-modern cities were so pestilential. London became the first city to break two million people in the early 1800s, and it suffered terrible outbreaks of cholera (then a brand-new disease) in the following decades. While sanitation has solved many of the old problems of disease, apartment buildings and mass transit still force people together in much closer quarters than houses and cars. And today, the most densely packed Western cities face the greatest risk, with Paris and San Francisco taking the extreme step of “shelter-in-place” orders, and New York’s mayor openly pondering the same thing.
Disease is far from the only risk of concentrating people and critical institutions in crowded spaces. Terrorist attacks are disproportionately aimed at cities, where easy targets range from landmark buildings (the World Trade Center) to packed trains (Madrid).
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Fortunately for me the closest town to me is Hayfork, about 12 miles down the mountain from where I am.
Hayfork——Population 1,200, no stop lights, no stop signs, except on residential side streets.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.