 Fantasy: April 12, 2017 Issue [#8226] |
  Fantasy
This week: Cities Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity. Where one city will rise a certain individual to glory, it will destroy another who is not suited to its personality. Only through travel can we know where we belong or not, where we are loved and where we are rejected.
-Roman Payne, Cities & Countries
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
-Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful, but the beauty is grim.
-Christopher Morley |
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When you think about it, cities are weird.
It's not every species on Earth that builds cities the way humans do. Sure, you have beehives and anthills, beaver lodges and such. But none of these creations are quite like the conurbations of human beings. Other animals build their warrens and live in them; we build cities, but not all of us live in them.
The question we have to ask ourselves as writers of fantasy (or science fiction, as it also sometimes deals with non-human sentients) is whether cities would appear in a similar fashion for the cultures and peoples of the world(s) we're creating.
An argument can be made that yes, cities will appear whenever a species moves from hunting/gathering to a more agricultural existence. It may seem paradoxical, but it is believed that the invention of agriculture was the event that spurred human development of cities - as food production became more efficient, there arose situations of surplus, leading to trade and the kind of diversification that allows some people to live in cities. Put another way, if you're not directly finding/growing your own food, you can focus on other interests and use the proceeds from these interests to buy food from those that are.
But this doesn't necessarily mean that the same would hold true for other species. We have no data points to support or refute the idea, as the only species we know of that have ever made such a transition would be our own. We do know, however, that not all human cultures developed cities as we define them, even after figuring out how to grow their own food and herd their own livestock. Plenty of human cultures developed agriculture and didn't bother with cities, at least in the way we know them.
There are advantages and disadvantages to civilization. With a higher population density, trade becomes easier - but disease has more opportunity. There is room for diversity of people and occupations - but differences can lead to conflict. We are social animals, and thrive on communication with others, which cities facilitate - but overcrowding can become a problem. It's up to an individual culture to decide which side is favored in the balance.
And yet, most writers of fantasy and science fiction make the assumption that other species with a certain level of technology would automatically start building and living in cities.
The point here is this: when world-building, think about whether the sentient beings you create would realistically build cities; and, if so, how they might differ from the cities we create. Not all societies are as cooperative as ours; not all species are dependent upon socialization as ours is. While it's difficult to conceive of life without cities for a technologically advanced people, it's part of our job to communicate that which is difficult to imagine. |
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