Humans reached a point, a long time ago, when they stopped behaving like other animals--a distinct human ecosystem, the city, was born
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Outside the city, we still foraged and hunted like other animals do--it was in cities that agriculture and all other technology emerged
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The city is still a half-born ecosystem, still in development, far from ideal--what would it look like if finished?
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In an ecosystem, most waste products from one part are reused in another part; the only real "inputs" are water and sunlight
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That is, a rainforest doesn't need anything shipped in from a desert, and vice versa--everything they need is in the soil, + water and light
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So, a city ecosystem might be considered "complete" when it no longer needs inputs *besides water and light* from outside the city
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One crucial addition: inputs *from other cities* are essentially inputs from *inside* the city, don't count against the "no inputs" rule
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A weird ecosystem; spatially discontinuous, it exists all over the world but is only manifest at specific places in it
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This is literally what I believe the telos of cities is--whether or not it can ever be achieved is another matter
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