Manuel De Landa is a mexican born Writer, artist and philosopher who now lives in New York City, throughout his career he has addressed a wide range of subjects and focuses on current issues around philosophy and science.
Geological history 1000 - 7000 A.D starts by describing everything was just a biological mix of chemicals which produced a great variety of combinations, some of these giving rise to the living organisms; one which would evolve to become the human race. Part of this evolution for some was the introduction of rigid bones into soft bodies, this gave a certain freedom as De Landa Describes “freeing them from many constraints and literally setting them into motion to conquer every available niche in the air, in water and on land” and conquer the human race did. Amassing in groups to survive the eventually growing to dominate the surface of the globe for self interest humans have fort hard to define themselves as collective societies, cities are the embodiment of the history and identity which make up said societies.
De Landa points out cities have become the rigid bones that support and free society's soft temperamental body. However contrary to a humans endoskeleton cities act as a exoskeleton protecting humankind from the elements of the globe, the very elements that have been there from the start of evolution.
In order for Cities (Our collective identities) to flourish with life and ideas a certain density was required this density meant that the city had to dominate the land around it to please it appetite this has been achieved with the invention of money. This automatically led to Value and created hierarchies in and out of the city centers, De Landa quotes Howard Odum in saying that “Money is like energy, only it runs in the opposite direction: energy flows from agricultural villages to the towns they feed, while money flows from town to countryside, to pay for the food “The flow of energy makes possible the circulation of money [including the energy spent on paperwork, banking, closing deals] and the manipulation of money can control the flow of energy””. As money can be manipulated in this way the city has become home to the elites (the controllers of the flow of money) and in order to enforce some kind of equilibrium the populace has forced its collective power upon them which takes the form of government, this government is in constant conflict and cooperation with the elites. It is this which will allow a city to grow or decay, of course some central places may have certain geographical advantages such as a abundance of sought after resources or a central location with the network mesh which will give them a much better choice of how they survive.
So De Landa paints a scene where there are the highly regulated cities, countries or conglomerates ( E.U or the newly emerging pan pacific nations) that have a rigid nature in order to control its inhabitants and reinforce or destroy social identity, contrary to the more flexible realm in between these bodies of authority which which have the capital power and control of money. De Landa Describes these two entities as Central Places and Network Systems, both can be seen as vital to the survival and growth of one another.
Under the operation of capitalism with help from industrialization and the computer age this system has now grown to a uncontrollable size, cities boundaries lack definition and spill out into the network. in turn the network has penetrated deep into the heart of the cites, even the most historic and cultural quarters giving way to mass tourism and turned into a profit making machine for their owners.
In the rush to grow, modernize and populate a great deal of negative dept and anti markets have occurred, in this process standardization and drive for efficiency has lead to a capital monopoly help by a small number of elites. this combined with environmental awareness has led to a emerging social crisis. It is apparent that as long as this monopoly holds the whole process of capitalism will inevitably collapse or stagnate. De Landa explains that Capitalism will be unable to grow at its usual rate because it lack the novation to do so, the innovation that first set capitalism in international motion was produced buy the interfacing of small shops and businesses with the desire to grow. only on this small scale does a operator have the ability to work around regulations implied buy the city, also the scale of such a small operator does not directly rely on so much energy input from the material system.
De Landa offers a possible way out of the emerging crisis buy saying that we need to emphasize and concentrate on the dynamics of many interacting decision makers not individual ideas. If so would we then start to see the mergence and diffusion of governments in order to enforce a ethical basis for a global society? In such a scenario the central places and the network mesh would become one, architecture being the only absolute reminisce of central places.
All quotes taken from Geological History 1000-7000 a.d
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