For most people, your life, your town, and your livelihood were circumscribed by how far you were willing to walk in a day with a crushing load on your back. That kept towns small. Before industrial techs remade the world, “urban” areas required nearly a half an acre of farmland per resident to prevent starvation—over seven times the land we use today, plus another one hundred times as much area in forestland to produce charcoal to cook and see the population through the winter. It made cities stay small. Grow too big and either a) food must come from too far away (in other words, you starve),
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