The city problem: successful, growing cities have a constant need for new workers, BUT their own residents usually don't have (enough) kids
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So: why bother with cities in the first place? Cities are where we develop technology--outside them, regression to nature is the rule.
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You can analogize them to stars: stars are where elements heavier than hydrogen are made. Outside stars, you slide back to absolute zero.
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Humans cut off entirely from cities gradually lose the use of technologies they once had. If undisturbed for long enough, we'll forget fire.
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Now, this is fine if you earnestly believe humans should live among other animals as other animals.
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But if you want to see where technological development will go, then you want cities to work. Which brings us back to the problem.
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While city populations grow by migration, city technology develops by imitation. Up-and-coming cities imitate mature cities...
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...finding new, locally practical ways to accomplish the same results. This creation of new ways of working creates demand for more workers.
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Eventually, an up-and-coming city has imitated all that's worth imitating, invented whatever it can invent, and become a mature city.
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A mature city can only grow again when it finds itself "backward," behind the level of development of newer mature cities...
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...and therefore in a position to imitate and invent once again. Some cities pull this off, some never do, and simply stagnate indefinitely.
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This is the other problem with the imperial approach: betting that all future development will come out of one ever-growing city.
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