Cities – What Good Are They?
Historically, Cities have been centers of civilization. They provide a centralized control point for civilization and civilized humans to congregate, exchange information, products, goods & services and in general to cohabitate.
Cities and industrial production grew hand in hand as manually intensive labor required man-power. Cities grew from feudal protectorates in Medieval times. Cities were protected centers of civilization. Because distance impeded both industry as well as commerce, cities made sense.
But, now visit any city on the planet. Sure there are industrial centers, but now cities are just focal points for bureaucratic control, centers for socialized distribution of merchandise, usually produced far far away. How many skyscrapers actually produce any hard goods? Certainly they do not produce food or other consumable products (except in newer high-rise gardens and solar power arrays).
Cities have become information hubs. Control points for bureaucracies (Federal, State, Local) to consolidate their power, write ridiculous laws that are designed to control the populace, not protect them. I mean the Code of Hammurabi was only 282 laws for an entire civilization! Sure, civilization has gotten a bit more complex, but how many laws, regulations and controls have been implemented.?
Are you looking for an exact number? Because you're not going to find it. Just in the United States, there are levels of government... city laws, county laws, State laws, and finally federal laws. Different cities, counties, and States may have similar -but different- laws, and they all fall under federal law. My guess? Hundreds of thousands. Everything we do is governed even though we're supposed to be the "land of the free". Now consider the entire Planet!
Bureaucracies control practically everything we do and try to control what we think and believe. In the USA, there are laws that control 'hate crimes'; laws that control what you think and believe. Violence of one human against another was codified by Hammurabi, what the heck do we need additional variations of the type, style and complexion of the crime?
In the USA, the Federal Tax code, another bureaucratic control, is over 9,471 pages and over 7 million words. Enforcement is unrestricted and there is no 'due process' when it comes to IRS confiscatory powers. We have created a true monster in our midst.
All these rules and regulations are designed to control the populace by bureaucracies and their government agencies. We as citizens just roll over and allow this to happen. Why?
I'll tell you why. Humans have been so indoctrinated as to how they live or are supposed to live that the 'free will' given to each soul has been subverted and suppressed. Like a broken horse, we follow the lead of the bureaucracies that have the bit in our mouth. That bit is the power of intimidation and threat of intimidation by those who believe that they know what is best, how one should live their lives, raise their children and conduct business.
This 'Centralized Control' system is a simple outgrowth of the Feudal State where serfs were cowed into submission by threats of force of arms and intimidation by powerful land owners. Human civilization needed to be close as there was no other way to transport goods & services or to communicate. You see communicate is the key for without communication, civilization cannot exist. A society depends on communication between individuals to permit groups to accomplish more than what a single person could otherwise accomplish. There is power in numbers, leverage in groups and amazing things in civilizations.
But maybe the time of the Feudal State has run it's course. Communication and information exchange have come of age. The growth of the Internet and free exchange of information has provided the ability to decentralize, downsize and in many cases totally eliminate bureaucracies as they have no foundation in a distributed civilization. The advent of massive digital repositories has digitized the vast array of human information, thoughts, theories, and science. We can find, identify and research almost unlimited subjects and the storehouse continues to grow exponentially.
The Internet and it's Freedom is the core of our future civilization. It MUST be protected from bureaucratic control as it is the last bastion of Free Thought on the Planet. With a free Internet or whatever it will be called in our future, it is the basis of communication and information exchange between individuals and peoples across the globe. This growing freedom is and will continue to provide an evolutionary basis for Human Civilization to continue to grow, expand and mature. As the freedom to disperse and roam becomes more apparent, the need for cities and physical civilization centers will fade.
There will continue to be industrial centers as certain material and resource concentrations will always be necessary as well as certain power generation facilities and distribution hubs. BUT the need for massive office towers is and will continue to be unnecessary. These edifices serve only to concentrate and control individual purposed collectives who's primary function is information management and exchange. With digital and world-wide Internet and digital communications, these physically dense structures no longer are necessary. Individuals and small groups can function effectively anywhere on the planet as long as they are 'connected'! The Internet provides this connection and it's very nature is decentralization. This fortunate design provides sustainability and growth beyond what we see today. Future digital models will astound us by today’s standards and appear magical in their power and breadth.
The cities of tomorrow will be more social and possibly virtualized. Since there is no need for civilization to support centralized cities for bureaucracies and control, virtual communities full of like minded individuals will continue to grow and expand into physical entities or not as the members so desire. Rules and regulations will become more basic, simple and thus easier to follow. Centralized authority will continue to be necessary for protection of the individual members of the community, production and distribution of goods and services, but on a more localized basis.
Global inter-community product and information exchange can and will continue on a more distributed scale. Localization of production and consumption will reduce the need for massive conglomerates who now control primary food, medical and other resources. Distributed centers, renationalized and localized will place more control into the hands of local civilized entities.
All this will continue to erode the centralized bureaucracies and global conglomerates. Eventually we will begin to occupy the planet in a more environmentally equitable manner. Reduction of massive centers, pollution will be abated. Localization will focus manufacturing and distribution to regional areas and key raw materials will be moved between regional entities.
All the while virtualized communities will grow and flourish. It has begun to happen as real world monetary systems merge with virtual worlds on the Internet. Where virtual goods are purchased with real world coinage. A virtualized coinage is being formed within the Internet gaming communities that may well serve for tangible goods and services monetary exchange in the future. The gaming world is the test and development bed of our future Internet Global Communities.
For additional information about distributed computing, see: http://www.satelliteofficesolutions.com/