The continual readjustments in the life of a city reflecting the total social relations of its inhabitants, lead to the concept of a city as a living organism. That such a concept is popularly held is shown by the common phrases, the “heart” of the city, to represent the business centre, the “arteries” of traffic to represent the streets, the ‘lungs" of the city to represent the parks, and to carry the simile further the railroad depots and wharves may be called the mouths through which the city is fed, the telephone and telegraph lines its nervous system, while man in his residence has been likened by Spencer to a particle of protoplasm surrounding itself with a cell.
Judy and I have talked a lot about the significance of analogies... Marshall McLuhan, the concept of Gaia, etc
