Cities

Its fun to comment on a book that was published the same year I write the comments.  Joel Kotkin's The City was published in April of this year.

I learned three things of contemporary relevance from Kotkin's book.

First, that Islam grew so rapidly and to such a great geographical extent because of its practice of protecting the cities it conquered. Something that was never practiced before. That meant that the extensive trade networks of the 7th-8th Century were kept intact and because of a common religion, protected routes and a common language, commerce could grow rapidly and spread Islam even further.  I know Islam came to Indonesia as a commercial religion.

Second, since Kotkin recognizes the historic importance of Amsterdam in the creation of global commerce and democracy, I don't need to beat that drum anymore.  The knowledge must be fairly widespread.

Third, we finally have an explanation of why China never joined the Enlightenment or the Industrial revolution.  She never had real cosmopolitan cities.  China's cities were always the sacred centers of government and could move at the will of the emperor.  Cities are commercial, diverse and based on middleclass meritocracy.  China never had it.  China was entirely an agricultural universe and is only now, in the past two decades, slowly becoming urbanized.

What lessons are to be learned from Kotkin?  I will write more on this later.  Begin with the fact that the world's greatest city is Tokyo which has neighborhoods, multiple centers, 43 million people, superb transportation, is exciting and growing.