The countryside is the goose that lays the golden eggs. The city
gathers, guards and eventually consumes the eggs or converts them into
capital forms and lives in part on this unearned income.
The city is the mecca which attracts by its wide ranging opportunities.
It is also the center in which policies are made and offered to the
countryside as normal facts of life. The countryside accepts city
leadership including a higher wealth-power per capita ratio for the
city.
Cities, with their accumulations of population and wealth, are walled or
otherwise defended. When danger threatens, countrymen often move inside
the walls until the danger abates.
Cities and city life increase and expand with the growth and expansion
of civilization. Cities are the centers from which civilization grows
and expands. Historically, a number of cities or city-states have
competed for survival and supremacy. One by one they have dropped out of
the race or have been out-classed, defeated and/or absorbed by the
victors in the competitive struggle. One location proved to be more
advantageous than others. The inhabitants of one locality were more
skillful, more far sighted than those of rival localities. Many
competed. Eventually one survived the final round of struggle, emerging
as the nucleus of an expanding empire and a maturing civilization. A
protracted conflict raging first in Italy and later in the entire
Mediterranean basin, resulted in the Roman Empire and eventually in
Roman civilization.
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