Quote:
Originally Posted by Segun
Very interesting. It looks like the inspiration for Tattooine in Star Wars. The "insulae" that Eschaton mentioned is interesting as well. I had a more Indian/Sub-Saharan African/Carribean type of shantytown in mind.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ekuK1fMp1S1SwZtr7
^ I can't imagine that not existing in ancient history. Who knows, maybe they were more progressive in planning and social structure. |
Generally, as societies advance, stratify and become less equal, they become less progressive. e.g. people are only willing to be reciprocal with people in their own social strata. Earlier societies and less advanced societies tend to operate on norms of universal reciprocity because they have less rigid social stratification demarcating the boundaries of acceptable reciprocity.
I.E. I could totally see this being the case. I wasn’t saying that Africa never had examples of this type of urbanism at all, but rather that the examples came and went and feature significant decay and ruin across all historical time periods. It was just never maintained except for a sparse handful of very specific monuments, and even those are better described as ruins and relics than anything deliberately preserved.