jax

Consequences of urban technical complexity & contentment.
City streets are:
arrowline

"Not the cluster of magnificent forms and spaces; it is the long and empty view, of traffic lights . . . leading to an interstate . . . . The highway never seems to end"    

John Brinkerhoff Jackson, 1994.

Los Angeles set next to

Chicago, Grant Park, beside Lake Michigan

JVS; 2004.

Pursell | Pacey | Time-Line | Core | Pursell all Chapters | Pacey Chapter One| Postman | Kaku
Joseph Siry, Ph.D.

Navigating the site:

\boat

Analysis

Articles

Authors

Autonomy

Atoms

atoms

Bibliography

Biodiversity

Briefings

Capacity

Concepts

CORE acronym

Courses

prof

Culture

Demography

Ecology

Eco-design

Facts

Gardens

Geography

Genes

Government

History

Inquiry

Land

Landscape

Methods

New

Office

Photographs

camera

Presentations

Recent material

Research

Reviews

Science

Science subjects

Site Map

Sources

books

Technology

Technology time-line

Tragedy

Vita

Vocabulary

WEAL acronym

Writing

writing

World view

Z-A site contents

computer

 

 

 

top of the page

 


return to previous page

Technology

Small Hopper painting

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930

The role of population growth in driving technical change as in the cases of the Neolithic revolution, the mechanical, industrial and atomic advances in tools based on new modes of power.

"There is no need to dwell on the ever-increasing importance of mechanical time in modern America with our insistence on schedules, programs, timetables, and the automatic recurrence of events – not only in the workplace but in social life and celebrations."  

Jackson, 1994, p. 160.           

 " . . . be reminded that this reverence for the clock and the calendar has robbed much social intercourse of its spontaneity and has in fact relegated place and a sense of place to a subordinate position in our lives."

Jackson, 1994, p. 160-161.  

 

two kinds of tool complexes | step ladder | three periods | six advances | home

line

Survival technology refers to the tools used to sustain a living for populations. Such related tool complexes that allow people to grow food, irrigate their fields, or transport produce for mechanical processing and packaging requires a mastery of fire, plants, animals and water.

It was the use of fine technology in the mastery of water and fire that allowed a sort of elaboration of tools that were not essentially necessary for survival, but brought a sort of added set of features that Arnold Pacey, physicist and historian of tools, has called "fine technology" because it required a precision use of devices to achieve even an entertaining effect let alone sustain growing dependency of people on their tool complexes and supply networks. In the case of fountains, the artifice incorporated a functional blend of useful tools and beautiful results.

water wheelArab fountain

A Roman waterwheel in comparison to an Arab fountain in the Alhambra.

Discerning types of capabilities with tool complexes

figure

Solar electricity is produced from a series of connected photovoltaic cells.

1) survival versus fine technology:

plow
A Roman plow is survival technology while a clock is based on fine technology. Clock

Brief description

 

2) mechanized versus automated technology:

Brief description

technical change

Vast changes caused by the development of technology begin to accumulate and when orchestrated they have impacts far beyond even the combined influences of two or more forms of motive power cause changes in the layout of buildings or the dispersal of the population.

crad

One way to think about the relation of new tools development to population is that technology allows the production of wealth that can sustain a larger population. As the population grows new tools are invented or more widely dispersed and the population grows further.

two kinds of tool complexes | step ladder | three periods | six advances | homeline

The step progression of population and technical change.

  past           present  
            Modern
6 billion
          Early modern
half billion
 
        Medieval
100 million
   
      Ancient
10 million
     
    Neolithic
1 million
       
eras Paleolithic
100,000
         
 
10,000
           
date 20,000 ya 10,000 ya 200 BC 1300 AD 1700 AD 1850 AD 2000 AD

As populations grew in both size and density people became accustomed to an array of technological devices that sustain more food production, reliable water delivery systems and effective transportation networks that enabled cities to service and not just harbor these densely clustered and rising populations.

two kinds of tool complexes | step ladder | three periods | six advances | homeline

Three periods of technical changes induced by new means of motive power for tools and devices were described by Lewis Mumford.

technological periods Paleotechnical Eotechnical Neotechnical
eras
ancient medieval early modern
population
1 million
10 million
100 million
power sources
water
wind
steam

Lewis Mumford, historian of tools and urbanization, divided the immediate past into technological periods and their effect on urban populations with respect to the motive power that was used primarily in each era from water mills, to wind mills, and the perfection of the steam engine.

Cities began with the Neolithic, when the domestication of plants and animals allowed for concentrations of sedentary populations in villages and towns. The process of moving from Paleolithic to the present exploitation of tools gives the false impression of progress, but the population presses against the means of feeding, housing and clothing ever greater numbers.

two kinds of tool complexes | step ladder | three periods | six advances | homeline

Ages, materials & sources of motive power altered tool complexes:

Paleolithic changes rested on the domestication of fire (survival)

Neolithic changes depended on the domestication of animals & plants.

ancient technology rested on the control of water. (fine)

medieval technology added wind to water mastery. (survival and fine)

early modern society used steam from water to master machinery. (fine)

modern society has added electricity to steam engines and the mastery of wind and water in automated systems or networks of power. (fine)

What appears to be an advance in any era or at any stage from survival to fine techniques are really two sided swords that bring with every advantage a price that may have to be paid because greater numbers of people are supported by every technical development, unless the intelligence to maintain the tool complexes is widely disseminated, the tools can fall into disuse and techniques become forgotten.

two kinds of tool complexes | step ladder | three periods | six advances | homeline

Navigating this site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research

"History has the cruel reality of a nightmare and the grandeur of humans consists in their making beautiful lasting works out of the real substance of that nightmare. . . it consists in transforming the nightmare into vision, in freeing ourselves from the shapeless horror of reality --if only for an instant-- by means of creation."

Octavio Paz, 1950

On the web:
E-libris

 

Pacey Meaning | Syllabus | Core | Pursell | Pursell Contents

Topic Overview

Three facets of technology and tools

"The important thing is to not stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing."

A. Einstein

    book
    tulips
    Tools of Toil: what to read.
    Tools are historical building blocks of technology.

BookJohn Brinkerhoff Jackson, A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Ideas

Actions & Values

Terms | Glossary | Word webs | Basic vocabulary | Advanced Vocabulary

Science Index | Site Analysis | Population Index | Global Warming Index | Nature

This page was renewed on

• 07/27/2006 •