Diamond’s environmental determinist perspective suggests that this sphere collapses when people mismanage their natural resources. What he gets wrong is that the public is diverse and always changing. And often, these changes can be seen clearly in city layouts. By ignoring this capacity for change, Diamond has injected a popular nihilism into stories about city-building. He suggests some civilizations are doomed to fail, while others will inevitably succeed. Perhaps a better way to look at cities is as ecosystems whose components are always transforming, and whose boundaries expand and
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