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"I did more research, and realized I almost would rather be a biologist than a writer, because there was incredible stuff going on!"
- Greg Bear

Municipal Darwinism  
  The process by which smaller towns were eaten by larger ones.  

Traction Cities rumbled across the landscape, seeking their natural prey - other cities.

The little town was so close that he could see the antlike shapes of people running about on its upper tiers. How frightened they must be, with London bearing down on them and nowhere to hide! But he knew he mustn't feel sorry for them. It was natural that cities ate towns, just as the towns ate smaller towns and smaller towns snapped up the miserable static settlements. That was Municipal Darwinism, and it was the way the world had worked for a thousand years, ever since the great engineer Nikolas Quirke had turned London into the first traction city.
Technovelgy from Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve.
Published by EOS in 2003
Additional resources -

You know what they say - "it's a town-eat-town world."

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Mortal Engines
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip Reeve
  Tech news articles related to Mortal Engines
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip Reeve

Municipal Darwinism-related news articles:
  - Smart Homes And Municipal Darwinism

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