May 2023. Britain's Labour Party announce that, if elected, they will allow home-building on Green Belt land, part of a campaign to construct hundreds of thousands of new houses. Political parties in Britain keep saying we must build more houses. The figures are terrifying. No one dare say ‘build tower blocks’, because we tried that in the 1960s and the results were not good. Keep this rate of construction up and the logical conclusion is that the entire country will be one gigantic urban sprawl. At least in the post-war period planners built new towns, with facilities like schools, shops and pubs. Now they build housing estates that land just under the legal limit for those added extras.
This story is rather depressing as it hits close to home. Your tale of the polluted Ganges a while back tugged at the same chords.
Urban sprawl. Overpopulation. Destruction of nature. Pollution. Even an ocean away, it seems it’s the same effect the world over.