A Tale of Three Cities

Below is my comment on the article of “A Tale of Three Cities”，TIME dated on January 28, 2008.

As your article pointed out clearly, the lifespan of cities and towns seems to vary with a certain degree of cycles as that of human beings does. New York, London and Hong Kong came back to life as a unique combined city of Nylongkong after the long debacles of social disorder, bubble burst or bankrupts. The resurgence of those three cities symbolizes the recent tidal wave of globalization in every corner of the earth and the power of greed by the people living and working there to mobilize the big money.

Where money speaks, people gather and prosper with greed. However, no one knows if we are in the right direction. I do hope they may not lose morale when money goes out and global warming comes close.

Good Urban Greenery Example at Fukuoka City!!

Below is my comment on the article of “Need to Weed Your Roof?”，TIME
dated on Jan. 14, 2008.

How encouraging to see the green covered urban roofs of the four
photographs in your article! Especially when I found out that one of
them was the famous green stepped office building completed in 1995 in
the center of our home town Fukuoka, I almost jumped for joy.

It now seems that the tidal wave of global warming almost swallowed the
urban-heat-island effect caused by the increasing number of
heat-absorbing asphalts and buildings in such big cities as Chicago, New
York City and Tokyo. The efforts to change the concrete jungle into the
urban greenery from every roof of the buildings seem to be a small step
only to reduce the urban-heat-island effect. However, with the increase
of green roofs here and there, I am sure that it will lead to change our
uneasy minds positively into the courage to overcome global warming.