Who do we who live in the city have to thank for the fact that it is possible for us to live in the city?
The question is left ambiguous and unclear intentionally. Just answer as you wish.
-FrL-
Where else do we have to go? I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at, but I have only my parents to thank for my existence, and no one else.
Did they use contraception ? If yes… then they were avoiding you !! :eek:
I would like to thank the local and state government for taking care of little things like streets, sewers, water, electricity, public health (hospitals and clinics), crime prevention and other policing duties, education from pre-school to higher education, regulating local business and allowing it to thrive… and the myriad of other public services provided by city, county, and state officials (that haven’t been Libtertarianized to suck and cost more for less service yet).
So, thanks government!
REG
They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had,
not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.
STAN
And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG
Yes.
STAN
And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG
All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given
us IN RETURN? (he pauses smugly)
XERXES
The aqueduct?
REG
What?
XERXES
The aqueduct.
REG
Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.
MASKED COMMANDO
And the sanitation!
STAN
Oh yes ... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
REG
All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two
things that the Romans HAVE done ...
MATTHIAS
And the roads ...
REG
(sharply) Well YES OBVIOUSLY the roads ... the roads go without saying.
But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads ...
ANOTHER MASKED COMMANDO
Irrigation ...
OTHER MASKED VOICES
Medicine ... Education ... Health
REG
Yes ... all right, fair enough ...
COMMANDO NEARER THE FRONT
And the wine ...
GENERAL
Oh yes! True!
FRANCIS
Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
MASKED COMMANDO AT BACK
Public baths!
STAN
AND it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
FRANCIS
Yes, they certainly know how to keep order ...
(general nodding)
... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
(more general murmurs of agreement)
REG
All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine
and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater
system and baths and public order ... what HAVE the Romans done for US?
XERXES
Brought peace!
REG
(very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all)
What!? Oh ... (scornfully) Peace, yes ... shut up!
Well, modern city dwelling that isn’t routinely made miserable by typhoid outbreaks and whatnot started to become possible with the work of Louis Pasteur. Add in Oliver Evans, James Harrison, John Gorrie, Ferdinand Carre, Raoul Pictet and Karl von Linde, among others, for their contributions to the science of refrigeration, thus allowing food to transported and stored in large and relatively germ-free quantities (without which, feeding a major city would require lots of nearby stockyards and slaughterhouses, with attendant risk of disease).
Somewhere along the way, you should give a nod to Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla, for developing the means to deliver electricity to cities, thus reducing the need for every building to have gas lighting and coal/gas heating, making city air less polluted.
Also, the combustion engine did help in getting all that horseshit out of town.
In fact, cities could and did exist without these comforts. They were just really really icky. Compare London in 1666, which finally solved the recurring plague problem by burning a large portion of itself to the ground, to the modern city. No contest.
Depends how big the city is.
I understand that basic 19th century water treatment improvements did a lot to reduce urban mortality.
How about the nomad’s wife who said “I’m tired of packing and unpacking this fucking tent!” 
We have to thank Otis.
Yes, I know, he drank too much and Barney would often have difficulty getting him to leave the cell, but without the elevator, what good would tall buildings be?
Thank yourself, as it is you who has done whatever it is necessary to make yourself valuable enough to others for you to be able to afford to live in a city. Especially considering most cities forbid private companies from competing with the City in doing things like cleaning streets, hauling trash, providing water and or sewage treatment and all that, thus making the cost of living in a city artifically high.
Why on earth would you thank anyone but yourself?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a conservative.
Not at all, or I would have said you should thank god.
At one time, thanking oneself would have been the ‘liberal’ attitude. I guess your post is proof that liberal becoming a bad word is proof that its all the conservatives fault it has become so.
Its funny liberals and conservatives fight each other so much, when the one main thing they agree on is that individuals are shit.
Because it takes more than one person to make or have a city. A guy standing around praising himself isn’t a city.
No, but two hundred thousand all standing around each other praising themselves does. A group of individuals is just that, a group of individuals. No deep mystical process occurs that doesnt occur when those people are alone.
I’d say we’d have to thank the police force. As much as I am distrustworthy of the police and generally dislike them, there’s no question that without them many things would be worse. And crime in cities is usually worse, too, meaning city cops have extra BS to put up with.
Does this actually mean there is no one to thank? I like myself quite a bit, but I don’t pretend that if it weren’t for me, this city wouldn’t be here.
Now if Frylock can get to the bottom of what (s)he meant.
The OP makes no mention of what city, and (s)he has no location listed. It was also made clear that the question was left vague on purpose. I have a feeling that (s)he doesn’t really mean “city” as you all percieve. I answered that I thank my parents because I believe the OP is on some kind of religious agenda. And like many times before, I could be wrong…
…if not a religious agenda, some kind of “who do we all have to thank for our existence” kind of thing… and not, say, the actual cities in which we all live in. :dubious:
Well, but you pay for the police. Obviously, if you pay them, you dont ~owe~ them thanks, but if one wants to thank them above and beyond that then its up to ones own sense of curtesy. If what they are paid isnt enough, then they can ask for more or leave the job. Its not as if they do it for free; then you would ~owe~ them thanks, at the very least.
As to your last, I dont think the OP was asking about who to thank for the city being there, it sounded to me like the OP was asking who they should thank for being able to live in one. If the question is who to thank for cities existing, then that would go to whomever invented agriculture. Given a large enough food supply, people will congregate in large numbers regardless of the infrastructure. I was addressing what I thought the OP was asking; who they should thank for being able to live in a city. And my answer to that still is yourself. Its not like anyone needs permission.
The whole OP reminded me of a few years ago, when some friends and their kids were up for Thanksgiving. I worked extra hours in Oct so I could take a week off at TG. I bought the turkey and everyting esle, spent all goddamn day cooking it and everything else, had the whole table all spread nice and fancy, managed to grab a quick shower to wash off the sweat from cooking, sit down at the table out of breath and my frineds wife looks at her kids and says ‘Who do we thank for the food we are about to eat kids?’ and as I was getting ready to say Youre Welcome, she says ‘We thank god, thats who’. Her kids got a lesson that day that not everyone believes in some invisible man, and they also got a lesson in what cussing at the dinner table during TG sounds like.
Now, one could go on and on that I owe the turkey growers thanks, the truck drivers thanks, and everyone on the chain who contributed to that turkey being on the table. But I paid all of them. It was a trade, my labor for theirs. I dont ~owe~ them thanks, no. If one wants to thank someone for something that they have allready paid them for, then its a matter of that individuals choice of curtesy. They do not in any objective way ~owe~ it.
Just as in my reply to the OP; they should thank themselves for being able to afford (pay for) to live in a city. All the extra overhead that living in a city entails, they can afford and pay for (Im assuming). Thus, he doesnt objectively owe anyone anything. If the OP wants to thank someone other than themselves, its purely a matter of that individuals sense of curtesy; it certainly isnt ~owed~.
Well, sort of or no.
If you mean, “Cities of ten thousand or less”, then I agree.
(Well, actually, I’d restate the case: agriculture produces storable wealth, which makes it susceptible to raids by other tribes, which produces incentives for strong militaries. Stronger militaries involve concentrations of warriors that can best be supported by cities. It’s not that agriculture produced greater surpluses, btw, at least initially, as I understand it.)
OTOH, if you mean a city of a million or more, then basic sanitary services become necessary. This involves some engineering.
Numbers are approximate and have not been reviewecd or verified.
No, a group of two hundred thousand standing around praising themselves is a war, or at least a riot. It takes substantial effort to form an unshapen mass of humanity into a peaceful and orderly city.