In the 19th century, London was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever known — and it was infamously filthy. It had choking, sooty fogs; the Thames River was thick with human sewage; and the streets were covered with mud.  But according to Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, mud was actually a euphemism. ‘It was essentially composed of horse dung,’ he tells Fresh Air’s Sam Briger. ‘There were tens of thousands of working horses in London [with] inevitable consequences for the streets. And the Victorians never really found an effective way of removing that, unfortunately.'”

Source: www.npr.org

History gets sanitized, and the we forget some of the more unpleasant parts of past geographies.  Victorian London was filthy, but this isn’t just a problem of the past as it remains an urban and developmental issue.  The NY Times just reported on how the sewage system is clogged with wet wipes say aren’t as ‘flushable’ as advertized.  These are the negative externalities of urbanization.  This map of San Francisco shows the spatial and social inequalities of public restrooms and other public amenities for the homeless.  India is the country with the most people without adequate access to sanitary waste disposal and that is a massive impediment to their progress.  Public urination is also health/gender issue and the city of  Hamburg is fighting back with a technological deterrent to public urination (actually quite entertaining).  And if you want the “news of the weird” version of this story on the geography of human waste…well, here you go (you were warned). 

Tags: London, UK, historical, pollution, urban ecology, podcast.