From Stewart Brand's "Cities & Time" lecture: http://longnow.org/seminars/02005/apr/08/cities-and-time/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02005/apr/08/cities-and-tim

From Stewart Brand's "Cities & Time" lecture: http://longnow.org/seminars/02005/apr/08/cities-and-time/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02005/apr/08/cities-and-time/ Vast new urban communities is the main event in the world for the present and coming decades. The villages and countrysides of the entire world are emptying out. Why? I was told by Kavita Ramdas, head of the Global Fund for Women, “In the village, all there is for a woman is to obey her husband and family elder, pound grain, and sing. If she moves to town, she can get a job, start a business, and get education for her children. Her independence goes up, and her religious fundamentalism goes down.” So much for the romanticism of villages. In reality, life in the country is dull, backbreaking, impoverished, restricted, exposed, and dangerous. Life in the city is exciting, less grueling, better paid, free, private, and safe. Brand's lecture, in some versions, includes a photomontage of deserted country towns from all over the world. In every country, in every culture, rural residents are leaving for the city. Unless people need a lot of land to grow the food they need to survive, they have no incentive to stay on the land.