Clifford D. Simak City Analysis

In the story “City” by Clifford D. Simak, it takes you through the struggle that the city was going through. Within the first two tales give you a great sense of when this book was published was during the year 1952. So, throughout the stories I could find that three pieces of direct evidence that Simak was trying to tie in the era of the book. The first is on page twenty with it saying, “The, city is an anachronism. It has outlived its usefulness. Hydroponics and helicopter spelled its downfall. In the first instance the city was a tribal place, an area where the tribe banded together for mutual protection. In later years a wall was thrown around it for mutual protection” (Simak 20). I found that what Simak is trying to deliver through this
passage is that the city grew to fast to the point that everything started to die. Once everyone moved into the city all at once business and groups started to fall apart. The second passage I found was this on page twenty-one saying,“An what have we left? A few blocks of business houses. I few acres of industrial plants. A City government geared to take care of a million people without the million people” (Simak 21). In this passage I believe that Simak was trying to describe that if the city keeps growing like it is. The government will have taxes to the point of no return. In that everything will have no worth anymore due to the over population. The final one that I found was,“Sick of watching men blundering along with their eyes tight shut. Sick of seeing an old tradition being kept alive when it should have been laid away. The final evidence that Simak is describing is that something that we have within are government should be used anymore but is still being used. Overall, Simak is trying to get the american public to understand all that is being done to help cities grow actually isn't helping.