cities

• historically › walls protected against attacks by humans, beasts

66:5.8The pur­pose of an an­cient city wall was to pro­tect against fe­ro­cious beasts as well as to pre­vent sur­prise at­tacks by hos­tile hu­mans. Those liv­ing with­out the walls and in the for­est were de­pen­dent on tree dwellings, stone huts, and the main­te­nance of night fires. It was there­fore very nat­u­ral that these teach­ers should de­vote much time to in­struct­ing their pupils in the im­prove­ment of hu­man dwellings. By em­ploy­ing im­proved tech­niques and by the use of traps, great prog­ress was made in an­i­mal sub­ju­ga­tion.

• culture thrives best in c.; multiply power for good or evil

68:6.5Fron­tier so­ci­ety de­vel­ops the un­skilled side of hu­man­ity; the fine arts and true sci­en­tific prog­ress, to­gether with spir­i­tual cul­ture, have all thrived best in the larger cen­ters of life when sup­ported by an ag­ri­cul­tural and in­dus­trial pop­u­la­tion slightly un­der the land-man ra­tio. Cities al­ways mul­ti­ply the power of their in­hab­i­tants for ei­ther good or evil.

• historically › fugitives secure against attack in cities of refuge

69:4.4For ages silent barter con­tin­ued be­fore men would meet, un­armed, on the sa­cred mar­ket place. These same mar­ket squares be­came the first places of sanc­tu­ary and in some coun­tries were later known as “cities of refuge.” Any fugi­tive reach­ing the mar­ket place was safe and se­cure against at­tack.

• historically › commons represent earlier collective ownership

69:9.14In early days only the crops were pri­vate, but suc­ces­sive crops con­ferred ti­tle; agri­cul­ture was thus the gen­e­sis of the pri­vate own­er­ship of land. In­di­vid­u­als were first given only a life tenure­ship; at death land re­verted to the tribe. The very first land ti­tles granted by tribes to in­di­vid­u­als were graves—fam­ily bury­ing grounds. In later times land be­longed to those who fenced it. But the cities al­ways re­served cer­tain lands for pub­lic pas­turage and for use in case of siege; these “com­mons” rep­re­sent the sur­vival of the ear­lier form of col­lec­tive own­er­ship.

• managed as commercial associations in advanced states

71:3.11In a real com­mon­wealth the busi­ness of gov­ern­ing cities and prov­inces is con­ducted by ex­perts and is man­aged just as are all other forms of eco­nomic and com­mer­cial as­so­ci­a­tions of peo­ple.

• no power to tax or incur debt in continental nation

72:7.3Cities have no tax­ing power, nei­ther can they go in debt. They re­ceive per capita al­lowances from the state trea­sury and must sup­ple­ment such rev­enue from the earn­ings of their so­cial­is­tic en­ter­prises and by li­cens­ing var­i­ous com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

• historically › devoted to manufacture, trade arose ca. 8000 B.C.

79:1.4When cli­matic con­di­tions made hunt­ing un­prof­itable for the mi­grat­ing And­ites, they did not fol­low the evo­lu­tion­ary course of the older races by be­com­ing herders. Com­merce and ur­ban life made their ap­pear­ance. From Egypt through Mes­o­po­ta­mia and Tur­kes­tan to the rivers of China and In­dia, the more highly civ­i­lized tribes be­gan to as­sem­ble in cities de­voted to man­u­fac­ture and trade. Ado­nia be­came the cen­tral Asian com­mer­cial metropo­lis, be­ing lo­cated near the pres­ent city of Ashkhabad. Com­merce in stone, metal, wood, and pot­tery was ac­cel­er­ated on both land and wa­ter.

• historically › Dravidians among first to build

79:3.7The Dra­vid­i­ans were among the ear­li­est peo­ples to build cities and to en­gage in an ex­ten­sive ex­port and im­port busi­ness, both by land and sea. By 7000 B.C. camel trains were mak­ing reg­u­lar trips to dis­tant Mes­o­po­ta­mia; Dra­vid­ian ship­ping was push­ing coast­wise across the Ara­bian Sea to the Sume­rian cities of the Per­sian Gulf and was ven­tur­ing on the wa­ters of the Bay of Ben­gal as far as the East In­dies. An al­pha­bet, to­gether with the art of writ­ing, was im­ported from Sume­ria by these sea­far­ers and mer­chants.

• historically › arose ca. 10,000 B.C.; early unsanitary conditions
• historically › rose 2 feet every 25 years from dirt and trash

81:3.3About twelve thou­sand years ago the era of the in­de­pen­dent cities was dawn­ing. And these prim­i­tive trad­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing cities were al­ways sur­rounded by zones of agri­cul­ture and cat­tle rais­ing. While it is true that in­dus­try was pro­moted by the el­e­va­tion of the stan­dards of liv­ing, you should have no mis­con­cep­tion re­gard­ing the re­fine­ments of early ur­ban life. The early races were not overly neat and clean, and the av­er­age prim­i­tive com­mu­nity rose from one to two feet ev­ery twenty-five years as the re­sult of the mere ac­cu­mu­la­tion of dirt and trash. Cer­tain of these olden cities also rose above the sur­round­ing ground very quickly be­cause their un­baked mud huts were short-lived, and it was the cus­tom to build new dwellings di­rectly on top of the ru­ins of the old.

• historically › destruction of houses after death delayed

87:1.3The prim­i­tives feared sick­ness be­cause they ob­served it was of­ten a har­bin­ger of death. If the tribal med­i­cine man failed to cure an af­flicted in­di­vid­ual, the sick man was usu­ally re­moved from the fam­ily hut, be­ing taken to a smaller one or left in the open air to die alone. A house in which death had oc­curred was usu­ally de­stroyed; if not, it was al­ways avoided, and this fear pre­vented early man from build­ing sub­stan­tial dwellings. It also mil­i­tated against the es­tab­lish­ment of per­ma­nent vil­lages and cities.

• he who rules self greater than he who captures city

143:2.3“Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who cap­tures a city. Self-mas­tery is the mea­sure of man’s moral na­ture and the in­di­ca­tor of his spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment. In the old or­der you fasted and prayed; as the new crea­ture of the re­birth of the spirit, you are taught to be­lieve and re­joice. In the Fa­ther’s king­dom you are to be­come new crea­tures; old things are to pass away; be­hold I show you how all things are to be­come new. And by your love for one an­other you are to con­vince the world that you have passed from bond­age to lib­erty, from death into life ev­er­last­ing.

• cannot withstand siege unless united

153:4.3Then said Je­sus: “How can Sa­tan cast out Sa­tan? A king­dom di­vided against it­self can­not stand; if a house be di­vided against it­self, it is soon brought to des­o­la­tion. Can a city with­stand a siege if it is not united? If Sa­tan casts out Sa­tan, he is di­vided against him­self; how then shall his king­dom stand? But you should know that no one can en­ter into the house of a strong man and de­spoil his goods ex­cept he first over­power and bind that strong man. And so, if I by the power of Beelze­bub cast out dev­ils, by whom do your sons cast them out? There­fore shall they be your judges. But if I, by the spirit of God, cast out dev­ils, then has the king­dom of God truly come upon you. If you were not blinded by prej­u­dice and mis­led by fear and pride, you would eas­ily per­ceive that one who is greater than dev­ils stands in your midst. You com­pel me to de­clare that he who is not with me is against me, while he who gath­ers not with me scat­ters abroad. Let me ut­ter a solemn warn­ing to you who would pre­sume, with your eyes open and with pre­med­i­tated mal­ice, know­ingly to as­cribe the works of God to the do­ings of dev­ils! Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, all your sins shall be for­given, even all of your blas­phemies, but whoso­ever shall blas­pheme against God with de­lib­er­a­tion and wicked in­ten­tion shall never ob­tain for­give­ness. Since such per­sis­tent work­ers of in­iq­uity will never seek nor re­ceive for­give­ness, they are guilty of the sin of eter­nally re­ject­ing di­vine for­give­ness.

• heathen lay siege to

155:1.3Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach the twenty-four, say­ing: “The hea­then are not with­out ex­cuse when they rage at us. Be­cause their out­look is small and nar­row, they are able to con­cen­trate their en­er­gies en­thu­si­as­ti­cally. Their goal is near and more or less vis­i­ble; where­fore do they strive with valiant and ef­fec­tive ex­e­cu­tion. You who have pro­fessed en­trance into the king­dom of heaven are al­to­gether too vac­il­lat­ing and in­def­i­nite in your teach­ing con­duct. The hea­then strike di­rectly for their ob­jec­tives; you are guilty of too much chronic yearn­ing. If you de­sire to en­ter the king­dom, why do you not take it by spir­i­tual as­sault even as the hea­then take a city they lay siege to? You are hardly wor­thy of the king­dom when your ser­vice con­sists so largely in an at­ti­tude of re­gret­ting the past, whin­ing over the pres­ent, and vainly hop­ing for the fu­ture. Why do the hea­then rage? Be­cause they know not the truth. Why do you lan­guish in fu­tile yearn­ing? Be­cause you obey not the truth. Cease your use­less yearn­ing and go forth bravely do­ing that which con­cerns the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom.

• whose builder is God

178:3.4“When you see this city de­stroyed, for­get not that you have en­tered al­ready upon the eter­nal life of end­less ser­vice in the ever-ad­vanc­ing king­dom of heaven, even of the heaven of heav­ens. You should know that in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse and in mine are many abodes, and that there awaits the chil­dren of light the rev­e­la­tion of cities whose builder is God and worlds whose habit of life is righ­teous­ness and joy in the truth. I have brought the king­dom of heaven to you here on earth, but I de­clare that all of you who by faith en­ter therein and re­main therein by the liv­ing ser­vice of truth, shall surely as­cend to the worlds on high and sit with me in the spirit king­dom of our Fa­ther. But first must you gird your­selves and com­plete the work which you have be­gun with me. You must first pass through much tribu­la­tion and en­dure many sor­rows—and these tri­als are even now upon us—and when you have fin­ished your work on earth, you shall come to my joy, even as I have fin­ished my Fa­ther’s work on earth and am about to re­turn to his em­brace.”