Two Tales of Progress

Globalization's toxic side

How that slick - a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda - reached Oudrawogol's backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost €250,000, or about $300,000, or perhaps twice that, counting the cost of delays. But because of decisions and actions made not only here but in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world's poorest people.

So far eight people have died, dozens have been hospitalized and 85,000 have sought medical attention, paralyzing the health care system in a country divided and impoverished by civil war, and the crisis has forced a government shakeup.

"In 30 years of doing this kind of work I have never seen anything like this," said Jean-Loup Queru, an engineer with a French cleanup company brought in by the Ivoirian government. "This kind of industrial waste, dumped in this urban setting, in the middle of the city - never."....

A bad scene in a hip Tokyo neighborhood

[Shimokitazawa] is popular for its cozy residential feel, drawing hordes of students and young office workers, who regularly throng its maze of narrow lanes and alleys. Its tiny shops, many in converted houses or low-rise apartments, often bear names that recall a counterculture across the Pacific: the Village Vanguard Diner, Haight Ashbury, Mojo Rising.

But a shadow has fallen straight across the heart of this pulsing neighborhood. In four years, city officials plan to start building a 27-meter-wide, or 81-foot, thoroughfare that will slice Shimokitazawa in two.

The road has set off a rare battle for preservation in a country where big construction projects have long been welcomed as progress and used to grease the wheels of politics. The fight pits boutique and bar owners, among them the first bearers of hippie culture to the neighborhood three decades ago, against city hall and older residents who resent the relative newcomers....