plutocracy leads to the contamination of life.

Bad air is the plutocratic contamination of life on the planet. During the heyday of the industrial age factories making goods for the wealthy and the burgeoning middle class caused air bad enough to kill people. The result was zoning as public health stepped in to protect people. Then the one great medical discovery of the last 200 years- a water source in London was shown to be the source of cholera in th 1850s- extended zoning to sewers to prevent water contamination.

The link to the wealth is more easily visible in up and coming tigers like India and China. Less than $10M people own cars in India's urban area which encompasses a population under 400M. More than half cannot afford a bicycle. Yet instead of building sidewalks fit for Caesar the government spends all its money on road for cars. The predictable outcome of high pedestrian fatalities overcomes other public health issues like the spread of AIDS via the new highways by truckers. Focused only on wealth the lack of intermodal planning, i.e. traffic planning for the poor, pedestrians and cyclists, instead of only the wealthy drivers, results in a public health catastrophe for the poor, via sky high death rates. But instead traffic tie ups delaying the wealthy are studied, and blamed on pedestrians for not subserviently observing traffic laws, i.e. jaywalking to obtain access denied by speed and power of auto traffic; and the burden shifts to controlling children and the elderly even though the environment has been engineered against community.

In the UN Chronicles Molly O'Meara Sheehan writes that: Studies in Europe show that pollution from motor vehicles can actually kill more people than do vehicle accidents. In Austria, France and Switzerland, the number of premature deaths brought about by particulate emissions from vehicles is about twice that from traffic accidents, according to a report in the Lancet medical journal.

By pushing out cities with low density transit becomes difficult to establish. A transit hub on a 1/4 mile radius would means for 2000 riders at 25% the density would need to be 80 workers to the acre. Since only the rich are able destroy openspace, by commuting from distant open space workers are left in a bind looking for affordable housing and squandering their earnings on transportation. Water sheds are destroyed and the costs shifted via taxes to everyone.

Today cars are the main contaminants for water and air from blindly adopting the lifestyles of the wealthy. Washing cars sends pollutants into streams and bays. And 60% of water pollutants, from brake and tire dust and oil dropping and gasoline tailings also comes from cars.

Public health needs to address these contaminants. California law presently forbids building a school within 500' of a highway. But major roads like El Camino are just as polluting. Public health needs to step up.