MARK BURRY

Metro systems
Going Underground
Subways are spreading fast

THE world’s first underground train, on the world’s first metro system, travelled the three-and-a-half miles from Paddington to Farringdon on January 9th 1863. Then, as now, Londoners queued to get aboard the packed carriages. In October that year The Economist ran an editorial arguing that more such lines under the capital were needed to relieve its congested streets. It concluded that such a network, if well run, would surely be profitable.

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Air conditioning
No sweat
Artificial cooling makes hot places bearable—but at a worryingly high cost

DUBAI

SUMMER humidity in the Gulf often nears 90%. Winds are scant. Even in the shade the heat hovers far above the body’s natural temperature. No wonder that before 1950, fewer than 500,000 lived along the whole 500-mile southern littoral. Now, rimmed by the mirrored facades of office towers, gleaming petrochemical works, marinas, highways, bustling airports, vast shopping malls and sprawling subdivisions of sumptuous villas, it is home to 20m people. Their lives are made possible by “coolth”—artificially cooled air.

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