will the world always be made up of mostly small cities?

[dubu]

my big city project is almost done and just though of this.

[chris08876]

Once the big asteroid hits or a severe Venus effect occurs or if by chance a supernova occurs within 160 light years or about 1.5 quadrillion miles... most cities will be made of dirt!

Underground cities!

Maybe inside mountains for some areas. Survival will be key.

[Nouvellecosse]

Most of what we call "small" cities today would have been considered medium or large cities a couple hundred years ago. In 1800, Beijing was the largest city in the world with a population of just over a million. Today, a city that is 1/4 the size of the world's largest is considered a big city, so the same would probably have held back then as well meaning cities with a few hundred thousand would be big. Today they're considered small in most regions. So by the standards of most of history, the population is no longer mostly in small cities.

Since terms like small medium and large are relative (how big or small is a place compared to others) the question comes down to how people will view most cities. Today, Boston is still considered a "big city" even though megacities like Tokyo exist. So in the future, if there's a city that grows to be 3x the size of Tokyo, will people see a city 3x the size of Boston as being a big city while a city the size or present day Boston as not being big? If so, then most people will probably still live in cities considered small.

[dubu]

i remember the venus project, there was the start of all the videos that get millions of views (with the start of youtube). all those circular cities were small. wish i could make a video, doing that with a huge city is pretty hard. the venus project never evolved.

[chris08876]

Would be an interesting experiment to see if no borders were present... what would be the largest city within the decade.

Surely "some" cities would empty out faster than a guy running from a lion. Lots of work for the census that decade.

[dubu]

the only large cities in the cascade range are seattle, vancouver and portland. aka northern cali to canada. thats why east coast people always call the west coat LA and SF. thats only a small part of the west coast. people have been living in oregon and the east coast for 18,000 years, 200 years if you only count the oregon trail ect. no one built houses before then, so people wouldnt populate.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by dubu

the only large cities in the cascade range are seattle, vancouver and portland. aka northern cali to canada. thats why east coast people always call the west coat LA and SF. thats only a small part of the west coast. people have been living in oregon and the east coast for 18,000 years, 200 years if you only count the oregon trail ect. no one built houses before then, so people wouldnt populate.

Uhhhhh…

The Pacific Northwest coast tribes absolutely had wood frame houses of the same architectural quality found throughout contemporary Europe. These were seafaring people with perhaps the largest craft in the Americas and whose boating tech and capability rivaled (and sometimes exceeded) Europeans’ in the local conditions. The Tlingit defeated Russia in the Tlingit-Russia War of 1802 because of it.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Uhhhhh…

The Pacific Northwest coast tribes absolutely had wood frame houses of the same architectural quality found throughout contemporary Europe. These were seafaring people with perhaps the largest craft in the Americas and whose boating tech and capability rivaled (and sometimes exceeded) Europeans’ in the local conditions. The Tlingit defeated Russia in the Tlingit-Russia War of 1802 because of it.

there were indians that lived in huts and had bow and arrows all over the world, some reason they were more primitive in america. the indians died off mostly from getting sick. we dont know that much that far back.

[Age of Whamsies]

People value sovereignty. There are lots and lots of different ideas about what makes a good life and good society, and thus different people will always want to live in radically different ways. This fact alone will always ensure that cities never encompass everyone. The bigger cities get, the more enticing it becomes for people to leave start new communities/settlements, where they can run things their own way, even if it means they have to give up a level of material comfort.

I think its obvious that we are at "peak city" basically right now. The only reason cities have gotten as big as they have is that the industrial revolution created a huge demand for labor in dense centralized locations and explosive population growth (due to improvements in heath and nutrition). BOTH of those factors are now ending/already reversed.

On top of that, cities are and always have been net population sinks. We have extremely good data on this, because tax records and birth/marriage/death records are literally the oldest and best kept records we have as a species. No city that has ever existed has had a sustained positive birth rate: all cities are maintained by a constant trickle of newcomers from the countryside or immigrants.

If the demand for workers falls (due to AI/automation, outsourcing, demand loss due to population decline, etc), or if the supply of newcomers falls (due to a global birth rate collapse, which is itself due to urbanization), then cities shrink. And both of those are inevitable at this point.

[Age of Whamsies]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Uhhhhh…

The Pacific Northwest coast tribes absolutely had wood frame houses of the same architectural quality found throughout contemporary Europe.

Contemporary Europe? Definitely not. Not sure where you heard that. What you might be remembering is that Salish longhouses were of the same quality and strikingly similar to old northern European longhouses, which were built from the stone age up through the viking era.

In fact, in general, there is a very eerie resemblance between the pre-columbian PNW and the stone age European Baltic/North Sea region. They were similar in almost every possible way, from the dugout canoes to the longhouses to the fishing diet to the slave raids.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

These were seafaring people with perhaps the largest craft in the Americas and whose boating tech and capability rivaled (and sometimes exceeded) Europeans’ in the local conditions. The Tlingit defeated Russia in the Tlingit-Russia War of 1802 because of it.

100% accurate. Sailing ships are notoriously badly suited for fjord terrain, relative to canoes. The channels can get very tight, with sharp turns, and the terrain itself creates unpredictable shifts in wind and currents. The norwegians were absolutely dogged by this problem in their own territory until powered ships were invented

[dubu]

if robots become as smart as us then they could easily build a city. things will have to be more futuristic, unless the world just becomes like mad max.

[Age of Whamsies]

Originally Posted by dubu

if robots become as smart as us then they could easily build a city. things will have to be more futuristic, unless the world just becomes like mad max.

But again, why would we have the robots build a city? Most people don't want to be in cities. They want a house on some acreage, with pleasant views, just outside of a city (e.g. ~1hr). Thats the dream for most humans, and seems to be true regardless of time place or culture.

The same robots that could help make a city bigger will also make it easier to live a rural life. Land is very cheap (and will only get cheaper as the global population shrinks). There is a metric heckton of marginal land out there that is not profitable to run as a business, but is perfectly farm-able. And that amount of land is only increasing, because farming keeps getting more efficient.

For many humans, it will just be easier to leave cities and live as a subsistence farmer (but with modern standards of living) than to try to figure out how to compete with AI for employment in order to make rent and buy food.

EDIT: I read your post wrong. I thought you said the robots could build *us* a city. As far as robots building cities for themselves, those will look like datacenters, and will probably be in space

[dubu]

Originally Posted by Age of Whamsies

But again, why would we have the robots build a city? Most people don't want to be in cities. They want a house on some acreage, with pleasant views, just outside of a city (e.g. ~1hr). Thats the dream for most humans, and seems to be true regardless of time place or culture.

The same robots that could help make a city bigger will also make it easier to live a rural life. Land is very cheap (and will only get cheaper as the global population shrinks). There is a metric heckton of marginal land out there that is not profitable to run as a business, but is perfectly farm-able. And that amount of land is only increasing, because farming keeps getting more efficient.

For many humans, it will just be easier to leave cities and live as a subsistence farmer (but with modern standards of living) than to try to figure out how to compete with AI for employment in order to make rent and buy food.

when cities fall apart or go away is a few seconds, its not like people are just going to say were not building cities anymore. id rather live in a big city, depends on the city. i dont drive. thats good people will live away from cities too.

[dubu]

If robots built cities then you could have two of the same city but different. Like Pokemon red and blue. Everyone hates cities that look exactly the same. Unless it’s an old European city.

[MolsonExport]

show me two old European cities that look the same.

[MolsonExport]

when cities fall apart or go away is a few seconds

is a few seconds?

[dubu]

most cities work better with two downtowns and with many trains

[IMG][/IMG]

[dubu]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

is a few seconds?

some cities fall apart in 200 years some in a few seconds... i was trying to say.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

show me two old European cities that look the same.

they have that same vibe just like us cities have the same vibe.

[MolsonExport]

same vibe does not mean look the same. And both are entirely subjective.

The only cities that I know that fell apart in a few seconds were Nagasaki and Hiroshima.