[antnisp]

Ironically, there is little confrontation between a skyscraper and a wheat field, in the sense that they are both extremely artificial and totally man made.

[thevardanian]

There's a huge confrontation.

One is a agrarian and the other urban.

Two types of completely different civilizations clashing.

[jsonne]

I assure you the wheat field will survive without the skyscraper, the other way around not so much. Cities may believe that they are independent of agrarian and rural society but the reality is that modern cities consume an incredible amount of raw resources and by necessity require the resources that an agrarian society produces. While it may sting and be sub optimal an agrarian society doesn't per say need an urban one to survive.

[crooked-v]

"Agrarian society" doesn't really exist anymore in the first world, given the overwhelming centralized corporatization of farming.

[AngryData]

The Amish might count atleast.

[adrianN]

Modern farming is also dependent on machines and chemicals manufactured in cities.

[mc32]

Those chemicals are not typically made in cities but either outskirts or in far flung towns outside cities.

[jayd16]

How are they confrontational? They go hand in hand.

Nomadism and foraging is the opposite of urbanization and agriculture.

[carapace]

No, no, no: you can't have the skyscraper without the wheat field. Agriculture and city are part and parcel of each other since Ur.

(I often wonder how dense you could get and still be ecologically harmonious using e.g. Permaculture; you might be able to reach the density of a town.)

[thevardanian]

No. There's a distinct difference between rural and urban, which has only grown since industrial revolution.

[carapace]

You said,

> There's a huge confrontation.

Which I agree with, history shows that urban folks and rural folks are often at odds, to put it mildly.

However, you also said,

> Two types of completely different civilizations clashing.

Which I disagree with, rural (not wild) areas are just as artificial and man-made (for all that they have more foliage and critters per area) as cities. Agriculture and urbanity have proceeded hand-in-glove. Farms and cities are both parts of the same civilization.

[thevardanian]

Yah... With that same logic so is the untouched forest from which we get our rarest mushrooms from, or wild game from.

[carapace]

I don't follow, wild areas are not the same as rural areas.

What you're describing is hunter-gatherer (which IS a different civilization, in my opinion, from urban/agriculture) even if it's happening on the fringes of some other civilization.

As far as i know, and I'm not a historian, there haven't been farming (rural or pastoral) civilizations without some town or city involved, farms have always been the umbra of the city.

There were nomadic herders, hunter-gatherers, and farmer/city-states, but there never were cities without farmers nor farmers without cities, ever. So I say they are part of the same civilization even though they are in tension within that system.

[delinka]

Clashing. Or harmonizing. Depending on perspective.

[bootcode]

Ask the Swiss. A friend worked at UBS (bank) and told sometimes a cow would peek in through the window.

[carlosdp]

Huh, cool observation