When the capital was based in Nara there were, among those assembled in the city, over 130 persons who were what we may call the aristocracy, and the officials, including those down to the lowest ranks, numbered about ten thousand (the population of Nara at that time was 200,000). And since these officials, monks, and priests had their attendants, assistants, concubines, servants, errand boys, and slaves, it would seem that the greater part of the 200,000 people living in Nara in some way or another belonged to the temples, shrines, and the palace. The City as a Means of Supporting Idleness and Gluttony In this way the city came into being, underwent transformation, and developed. To put it more simply, politics brought the city into being as a place for domination (exploitation). Those who wished to fill their bellies under the wing of the rulers gathered in the same place, thus causing the growth of the city as an organ of exploitation. Now let us take a jump into the future. The city as a political entity has a 5,000-year history, but it is said that the industrial city has at best a 200-year history. According to Toshi Mondai no Kiso Chishiki ["Basic Knowledge of Urban Problems"], "Ancient cities were by and large organs of exploitation built upon a ruler, the priesthood, and the military, but with the advancement of industrialization, exchange and division of labor became the principal means of control in the social organization, and when that happened the scale and form of the city changed fundamentally. [25] These phenomena, known as industrialization, and urbanization in the age of industrialization, transcend the differences between capitalist and socialist states, as well as the differences between developed and undeveloped nations. [26] These are, we may say, phenomena which represent a change common to the whole world." In this quote the author is describing the limitless expansion of the modern city that I spoke of in Chapter I, "Urban Sprawl." This is the problem that we must concern ourselves with solely; what I wanted to get a general idea of here was whether or not it is historical fact that the ancient city, which is the ancestor of the modern city, came into being as a system (even on a small scale) made up of the dominators and the dominated, and the exploiters and the exploited, and if it arose in order to establish a World of Laws [27] (a society based upon laws devised by human beings) for idleness and gluttony. And I also wanted to know if the city, which now stands before us like the Rock of Gibraltar, was really born long ago as humanity's golden banner, and if, in a Natural World (a world governed by the laws of Nature), it is a necessity. I wonder if it was really the wish of Nature that the city come into being?