Dear Al – the real “Inconvenient Truth” is that most of our environmental, health, social, economic, and even political problems, can be attributed to something you never once mentioned in your documentaries – SPRAWL…!

The REAL Inconvenient Truth

In “An Inconvenient Truth” (2007) about the only mention Al Gore made of CARS was to say we should “try to use them less often”.   The average car is only used for less than an hour each day, but we should use them LESS OFTEN..???  SPRAWL was not mentioned at all.  Not even once..!   And, in “An Inconvenient Sequel” (2017) – unless I missed it – he made no mention of either CARS or SPRAWL..!    

It should be blindingly obvious that the goal of significantly reducing our ecological footprint CANNOT be achieved until the CARS which feed S-P-R-A-W-L are made redundant.  By banishing city sprawl we could solve ALL our e/v problems and many societal problems too..! 

It really is as simple as that..! 

SPRAWL – that land-chomping, wildlife-slaughtering, resource-draining, traffic-gridlocked, noisy, time-wasting, and spirit-sapping expanse of dreary box-like buildings and concrete car conduits

We have all heard about the horrific ugliness and vastness of Los Angeles’ sprawl but the US is a huge country which can “afford” such an inefficient use of land.   Although London’s sprawl is a more benign example of City Cancer, its impact on the country as a whole is far greater because (if we include its dormitory towns) Greater London covers about 2,500 sq miles – 5% of England’s total land area.   The alluvial soil of the Thames valley, and particularly the London basin, is just about the most fertile land in the country. The building-over of this land is a crime not just against nature, but against common sense when London’s land could feed the entire country.    

Look at the map of any major city and compare it with a pre-railway era map of the same city.  What strikes one immediately is the vast increase in the built-up area.  Some of this is due to population growth, but not all.

In the last 200 years, cities that were once compact and walkable cities have been transformed into a cancerous and corpulent sprawl that, in human terms, would be described as ugly and obese.

From the maps above you can see that London’s “footprint” is now at least 50x larger than it was 200 years ago when it became the world’s first million city.   So has London’s population also grown 50x..?   Does it now contain 50 million people?    No, it is more like 8 million – although conurbation populations are arguable since their boundaries are indefinite.   What has happened is that, facilitated first by trains, then by motorised public transport (buses), and finally by private transport (cars), cities have sprawled and, the greater the sprawl, the lower the average population density becomes.

Sprawling cities are Obese Cities – OBeCities – a word you heard here for the first time, and which deserves to become popularised