Harvard’s Ed Glaeser kicks two Massachusetts icons today in the New York Times. First he says that Springfield native Dr. Seuss had things completely backward in “The Lorax,” which so many of us happily read in school on Earth Day:
…the unfortunate aspect of the story is that urbanization comes off terribly. The forests are good; the factories are bad. Not only does the story disparage the remarkable benefits that came from the mass production of clothing in 19th-century textile towns, it sends exactly the wrong message on the environment. Contrary to the story’s implied message, living in cities is green, while living surrounded by forests is brown.
After implying that Seuss was a stooge in the service of suburban sprawl, Glaeser gets in a shot at Concord’s most beloved crank:
Of course, many environmentalists will still prefer to take their cue from Henry David Thoreau, who advocated living alone in the woods. They would do well to remember that Thoreau, in a sloppy chowder-cooking moment, burned down 300 acres of prime Concord woodland.
Glaeser is generally correct: Vertical development is less disruptive to nature. But I still doubt that we’ll ever see a children’s book with Jerome Rappaport as its hero.