III.
ECOLOGYOFDAILYLIFE
147. Authentic development includes efforts to bring about an integral improvement in the qualityof
human life, and this entails considering the setting in which people live their lives. These settings
influence the way we think, feel and act. In our rooms, our homes, our workplaces and
neighbourhoods, we use our environment as away of expressingour identity. Wemake every effort to
adapt to our environment, but when it is disorderly, chaotic or saturated with noise and ugliness, such
overstimulationmakes it difficult to find ourselves integrated and happy.
148. An admirable creativity and generosity is shown by persons and groups who respond to
environmental limitations by alleviating the adverse effects of their surroundings and learning to orient
their lives amid disorder and uncertainty. For example, in some places, where the façades of buildings
are derelict, people show great care for the interior of their homes, or find contentment in the kindness
and friendliness of others. Awholesome social life can light up a seemingly undesirable environment.
At times a commendable human ecology is practised by the poor despite numerous hardships. The
feeling of asphyxiation brought on by densely populated residential areas is countered if close and
warm relationships develop, if communities are created, if the limitations of the environment are
compensated for in the interior of each person who feels held within a network of solidarity and
belonging. In this way, any place can turn from being a hell on earth into the setting for a dignified
life.
149. The extreme poverty experienced in areas lacking harmony, open spaces or potential for
integration, can lead to incidents of brutality and to exploitation by criminal organizations. In the
unstable neighbourhoods of mega-cities, the daily experience of overcrowding and social anonymity
can create a sense of uprootedness which spawns antisocial behaviour and violence. Nonetheless, I
wish to insist that love always proves more powerful. Many people in these conditions are able to
weave bonds of belonging and togetherness which convert overcrowding into an experience of
community inwhich the walls of the ego are torn down and the barriers of selfishness overcome. This
