I’m attracted to the idea that civilizations are organisms that metabolize. I first came across this idea when reading a book about the history of the Anasazi, a sophisticated and complex society in the Southwestern desert region of the United States that collapsed suddenly. The book’s author suggested that the more centralized a society becomes, the more vulnerable it is to a sudden downfall because its metabolism increases beyond its ability to consume. i.e. the bigger you get, the more food you eat. The article below suggests that cities are indeed like biological organisms but behave differently. As they increase in size, rather than slowdown as an animal would, it consumes at an alarmingly higher rate. The study also argues that cities have a way of re-organzing themselves to adjust. In other words, cities are self-organzing, intelligent systems.
Scientists Discover Why Life Is Faster in Big Cities:
Start Slide Show with PicLens LiteThe researchers showed that city growth driven by wealth creation increases at a rate that is faster than exponential; the only way to avoid collapse as a population outstrips the finite resources available to it is through constant cycles of innovation. These effectively re-engineer the initial conditions of growth. But the greater the absolute population, the smaller the relative return on each such investment - new ideas must come ever faster. Thus, the bigger the city, the faster life is; but the rate at which life gets faster must itself accelerate to maintain the city as a growing concern so much so that to maintain growth, major innovations must now occur on time-scales that are significantly shorter than a human lifespan.
