Follow the money! If you want to understand how a communityphysical or virtual-has grown and survived, look to its economic base.
You will see that the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow River were made possible by invention of the wheel, the plow, and the irrigation ditch; they emerged in the midst of fertile agricultural hinterlands and busied themselves with the accumulation and exchange of excess agricultural production. When barbarian invaders threatened, cities like Rome and Constantinople became fortified enclosures with large military populations engaged in protecting the citizenry and civil institutions. With the development of maritime trade, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa-owing to their favorable locations-flourished as mercantile centers. With steam and steel in the nineteenth century came mushrooming industrial cities like Manchester and Pittsburgh. And in the soft cities of cyberspace the economic engine is the bit business-the production, transformation, distribution, and consumption of digital information. 1
Economics 101 / Economics 0 and 1
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