Human beings have limitless desires, and they have made a
continuous effort to live a good life. But recently we have
gotten excited to make a life of material wealth: we have made a
lot of goods and consume them. As a result, we are facing new
problems now. The quality of our life is lowered by what we made
to realize a comfortable society. And this happens notably in an
urban city. What are the problems? Now I'll tell you some of the
factors by which the quality of our life is lowered in an urban
city.
I think the most serious problem in a city is crowding. There
are a great many people living in a city. When we go to school or
an office by the train or by bus in the morning, we have to ride
a commuter-packed conveyance. For example, it is said that the
Yamanote line conveys more than two times as many people as the
fixed number in the morning. We have to suffer pains only for
going to school or office every morning. Even if you go to office
by car, you cannot avoid the crowd. You will encounter a traffic
jam, and it will take you a long time to arrive at your company.
In addition, in holiday time when we go to an amusement park, we
also meet a crowd. Sometimes we have to wait for one or two hours
to ride one machine there. We often get tired during holiday time
because it is crowded. In a city area, wherever we go, we have to
push our way through the crowd.
The next serious problem is the lack of natural environment.
In almost all cities, roads are paved and many forests are cut
down and buildings are built at the spot. As a result of that, we
have only a small number of plants in a city, especially in a
street of office buildings. Plants are very important for us.
They clean the air which is polluted by the gas of a car, the
smoke from a chimney of a factory and our breath. And
psychologically, plants make us feel relaxed, easy and
comfortable, while concrete buildings make us only tired. Now we
can not see many plants and wild animals or insects in a city.
That is a very big problem.
Now we are destroying the natural world for our own profit.
But such an act also lowers the quality of our life. People in an
urban city want more nature. So we have to make more parks and
plant more trees or flowers in a street to enrich our mind. I
think the problem of litter is also serious. Now a city is like a
dumping ground. I often see the trash and garbage scattered by
crows in a street. That looks very dirty and smells bad. When we
see such things, we feel sad and tired. And also in a park, there
is a lot of litter. When I go to a park to rest and enjoy the
beauty of the nature, I find many empty cans and plastic bags
thrown away. A park with much litter does not make us relax. I
think many people lack the sense that we ourselves must clean the
city where we live. A beautiful city is not made by scavengers or
volunteers, but made by our daily behaviors. And we also have to
change the wrong thought that we can throw away whatever we don't
need. I think a beautiful city is not where buildings are
beautiful, new and modern, but where there is not litter thrown
away.
All of these things mentioned in this essay are the main
causes of the uncomfortable aspects of our city life. They are
made for man to live a comfortable life. In fact, the quality of
our life is lowered by what we produce to heighten the quality of
our life. How ironic! We must take these problems into
consideration when we try to make a comfortable life in an urban
city. And to make a really good environment for us to live, we
must change our attitude towards this problem. Until now we have
thrown away what we do not need, not thinking about the
influences on the environment. This is what we call a consumptive
life. We have to make a society where people make a lot of
economies as much as possible, where people take it for granted
that citizens themselves clean their city, and where there are
many parks, because we have to get a life of mental wealth,
too.
by Kentaro Kogi
