Ancient and modern cities aren't so different

[regeneratia]

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-ancient-modern-cities.html

Ancient and modern cities aren't so different

February 20th, 2015 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Their results, published in the new open-access journal Science Advances this month, indicate that the bigger the ancient settlement, the more productive it was.

"It was shocking and unbelievable," says Ortman. "We were raised on a steady diet telling us that, thanks to capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that."

Bettencourt adds: "Our results suggest that the general ingredients of productivity and population density in human societies run much deeper and have everything to do with the challenges and opportunities of organizing human social networks."

"It was shocking and unbelievable," says Ortman. "We were raised on a steady diet telling us that, thanks to capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-ancient-modern-cities.html#jCp

"It was shocking and unbelievable," says Ortman. "We were raised on a steady diet telling us that, thanks to capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-ancient-modern-cities.html#jCp"

[bubblykiss]

More people make more stuff, check.

Does the modern equation take into account social welfare programs, the increased longevity of our species and larger numbers of mentally ill people (who are probably the best artists any society can produce)?

[Harte]

Those darn journals!

SO repetitive.

Harte

[Hanslune]

In the past the limitations on the size of a city was its ability to feed itself and not kill off the population by acting as a breeding place of disease and to avoid drowning in its populations waste.

...........................

Yeah that one phrase got used a lot!

Edited February 21, 2015 by Hanslune