Adrian Buck’s Reviews > Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention > Status Update

"Despite Silicon Valley being in the business of manufacturing technologies of long-distance virtual communication, cyber space has not supplanted city-space."

If modern cities are so difficult to eradicate, how are there so many ancient cities that seem to simply be abandoned?

Fascinating chapter using architecture and film, rather than text to explore the history of the city.

Walking in cities versus walking in country: walking in itself lessens alienation, in cities there is a little more alienation to overcome. In walking we take possession of the landscape we traverse.

Financial markets, consumerism, individualism: Amsterdam in the 1600s, New York in the 1920s

Slavs as far west as Lübeck :)

Land trade before cars - 30 miles a day, and then the trader looks for food accomodation. Settlements spring up along his route 30 miles apart, funded from his expenditure. And then other traders flock there to trade with him. Rail and roads speed up travel, eliminating the unnecessary settlements, sea and air travel ends it altogether.

Did Roman cities collapse because Christians turned their backs on them?

Monogamy as a form of socialism?... Chapter 2 more of a history of how cities have been depicted, rather than how they have operated...the workings of cities are mysterious...Polyglotism as bad as prostitution.