There is a hoary old joke about a farmer in a remote rural area leaning over the gate of one of his fields and being enthusiastically greeted by a suited city gent who has just emerged from a car with city registration plates. "My word", says the gent, "this is beautiful countryside with fresh clear air - so much better than the environment we have in the city". The farmer looks up and around and then back at the city gent. "I'm sure you're right", he says, "they should have built those cities out here in the country". It hardly needed last week's conference organised by the Irish Society of Toxicology on urban living and its risks to health to persuade most people that living in town is less healthy than living in the country. People have sensed it for years.
An increased density of population itself brings a greater risk to health in terms of the easier spread of infectious diseases, heavier burdens on sanitary and sewerage systems, increased demands on inadequate water supplies, more industrial and traffic accidents, swathes of inadequate and unhealthy housing in many instances and, of course, more pollutants in the atmosphere. It is stating the obvious to point out that cities automatically attract an increased population density - that is at least part of their purpose - and it has been amply demonstrated that even in the animal kingdom over-crowding has a baleful effect on health, both physical and mental.
But city living also has significant advantages which rural communities often envy. Services and facilities such as transportation and shopping, hospital and general health-care centres, are usually closer to the individual. Theatres, cinemas, art galleries, concert halls and sporting events will generally offer a greater choice of recreational opportunities to the urban than to the rural dweller. It is, to say the least, highly unlikely that the city will disappear from human civilisation in the foreseeable future.
By world-wide standards, or even just in comparison to its neighbouring island, Ireland has no very large cities: the entire population of the island would fit comfortably into any one of the 30 largest cities in the world and would scarcely be noticed in any of the top ten. But that is not to say that there are no urban problems here. Some of the health problems accruing to residents of Dublin (which is not among the world's biggest 100 cities) were enunciated at last week's conference. Cancer rates in Dublin, it was stated, are six percent higher than in the rest of Ireland. Deaths due to injuries and poisonings are 25 percent higher.
Steps can be taken to reduce, if not to eliminate, the excess of urban illness over rural. The long-promised Luas transport system should be more environmentally healthy than the diesel bus. The conference also heard that, in light of road traffic accidents and air pollution, urban planning should include a consideration of health policy. Industrial pollution may require more stringent controls too. There is at least need for a clearer analysis by the State of the relativity of risks and benefits of urban living. Building and expanding our cities in what was once predominantly a beautiful rural lansdcape has brought risks as well as benefits, and last week's conference was a useful reminder of that fact.