Urban growth and resource limits

The Republic primary

Socrates and Glaucon contrast a healthy, minimal city with a luxurious one, showing that luxury expands needs, creates unnecessary occupations, increases reliance on physicians, strains farmland, and leads to war.

And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed t…