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Are cities the new countries?

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Re: Are cities the new countries?

#71

Post by wj »

When I submitted the (exact) same article last night I thought about how this topic was covered in a book I read titled, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. Part of the premise was that people in some of the large (and prosperous) cities of the world have more in common with each other than they might with the many of the people of their own country.

Due to the mobility offered by airlines, the concentration of successful people going to relatively few universities, and the global reach of their companies, many New Yorkers might know more people living in London than they knew living in the majority of U.S. states.

http://www.amazon.com/Superclass-Global-Power-Elite-Making/d...

Personally I have always felt that people who live in large cities have a much easier time navigating foreign large cities (even if they don't speak the language) than people from smaller towns in the same country. Using a subway for instance.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#72

Post by Spooky23 »

nkoren wrote: post #27

Yes. Countries were relevant back in the days when territory was the most prized thing and war was the best means of acquiring it. Countries evolved as a means of ensuring territorial integrity, via means both explicit (borders enforced by militaries) and implicit (cultural/linguistic homogeneity, leading to xenophobia and other such barriers). But territories are no longer the most prized thing: economies are. And e…

Betting on cities is betting on continued decline of nations.

Writing off the nation in exchange for the bright lights of the city is also a dangerous bet, because cities are very fragile.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#73

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #62
nkoren wrote: post #27

Yes. Countries were relevant back in the days when territory was the most prized thing and war was the best means of acquiring it. Countries evolved as a means of ensuring territorial integrity, via means both explicit (borders enforced by militaries) and implicit (cultural/linguistic homogeneity, leading to xenophobia and other such barriers). But territories are no longer the most prized thing: economies are. And e…

All you folks in the city will learn your lesson pretty quick once the food stops flowing in. Don't get too uppity!

In the US, less than 2% of the population works on farms. That's roughly 6 million people at a full 2%, less than the population of NYC alone.

Should farmers decide to not ship out food for some reason, it would be easy for cities to keep them in line if they are facing an existential crisis.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#74

Post by Spooky23 »

wj wrote: post #71

When I submitted the (exact) same article last night I thought about how this topic was covered in a book I read titled, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. Part of the premise was that people in some of the large (and prosperous) cities of the world have more in common with each other than they might with the many of the people of their own country. Due to the mobility offered by airlin…

That's a great example of the endgame of income inequality will transform the world.

I find it sad, as that is the cynical world my children will inherit.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#75

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #73
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you folks in the city will learn your lesson pretty quick once the food stops flowing in. Don't get too uppity!

In the US, less than 2% of the population works on farms. That's roughly 6 million people at a full 2%, less than the population of NYC alone. Should farmers decide to not ship out food for some reason, it would be easy for cities to keep them in line if they are facing an existential crisis.

No, it would be impossible to get farmers to farm if they decide not to. And equally unlikely that city folks could do the job, cold. It'd be mass starvation and revolution.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#76

Post by nkoren »

walterbell wrote: post #66
nkoren wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're conflating the concept of "countries" with the concept of "land". Cities do indeed need resources which are produced from the land, but the artefacts of countryhood (national identify, borders, etc.) don't really contribute to this production. In practice, cities are supplied by "city regions", which arise through natural economic and geographic forces, and which do their damnedest to ignore artificial…

> Hence the irrelevancy of countries as an institution. How do you see the evolving boundaries of force monopolies between nations, cities and private entities. Pre-nations, it was complicated, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

Well, in some ways it was more complicated; in other ways it was much simpler.

Prior to Westphalia, the borders in Europe were predicated on religious affiliation. This made for a very complicated map. So Westphalia established the idea that a nation could be a superset which included both Catholics and Protestants. This makes for a simpler map -- if one is mapping the boundaries of the newly-established idea of nationhood, and then retroactively mapping that concept onto the past.

However imagine drawing a map of the present, but with pre-Westphalian sensibilities. You'd want to know: where are the Catholics living, and where are the Protestants living? That map has gotten a lot more complicated (even before you try to account for all the Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, etc.), and at this point the question hardly makes sense outside of certain bits of Ireland.

Analogously, force monopolies are primarily of interest (at a national level) where territorial integrity is the primary name of the game. But if economic exchange (both competitive and cooperative) between cities were to become the acknowledged name of the game, then although force monopolies would almost certainly continue to exist, they'd be of as much interest as (say) the boundaries between different police departments.

In other words, I suspect the mapmakers of the future draw on the basis of something other than force-monopoly boundaries. This may look more complicated to our eyes -- but we might also look more complicated to theirs.

[edit: grammar]

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#77

Post by wink »

Maybe they have a lot in common with other big cities, but I'm not sure it's accounting for more than other factors.

Anecdotal example: When talking to people from other countries (but same professional background and income bracket, tech conferences for me specifically) the differences are often very visible and also major than talking to someone from the countryside. Sure, there's always stuff that's different (and the ribbing under friends and colleagues of "quality of life/size of your house" versus "only 30mins to work instad of 60+/small apartment" never gets old - at least here in Germany)

So yes - for exactly the topics mentioned: transportation, housing, etc it's absolutely true - but not necessarily for most aspects of life.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#79

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #75
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, less than 2% of the population works on farms. That's roughly 6 million people at a full 2%, less than the population of NYC alone. Should farmers decide to not ship out food for some reason, it would be easy for cities to keep them in line if they are facing an existential crisis.

No, it would be impossible to get farmers to farm if they decide not to. And equally unlikely that city folks could do the job, cold. It'd be mass starvation and revolution.

If farmers don't grow, they might not get to live either. They don't get medicine, farming equipment, fertilizer, gasoline, electricity, cell phones, the Internet, clothes, or anything else they've come to depend on. A lot of farming is automated, using GPS and other systems to drive tractors with extreme accuracy. Without gasoline alone it would be impossible for many farmers to find the labor to grow what they do. Farming is a lot more high tech than you might think.

In short, farmers are just as dependent on cities as cities are on them. They trade not out of the goodness of their hearts but for selfish reasons. Even farmers themselves must trade, as not all farmers grow food, and not all farmers that grow food can live on just what they grow. A cotton farmer in Alabama is going to have just as hard a time eating as a banker on Wall Street.

Re: Are cities the new countries?

#80

Post by walterbell »

nkoren wrote: post #76
walterbell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hence the irrelevancy of countries as an institution. How do you see the evolving boundaries of force monopolies between nations, cities and private entities. Pre-nations, it was complicated, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

Well, in some ways it was more complicated; in other ways it was much simpler. Prior to Westphalia, the borders in Europe were predicated on religious affiliation. This made for a very complicated map. So Westphalia established the idea that a nation could be a superset which included both Catholics and Protestants. This makes for a simpler map -- if one is mapping the boundaries of the newly-established idea of nati…

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

City-level economic exchange of creativity does interact with force monopolies via industrial espionage, now global thanks to networked computer systems.

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