Conurbia

Just as the village and the town were dependent upon the water and land about them, so our modern urbias, suburbias, and conurbias are dependent upon the natural resources they can command.

The result were urban clusters — "conurbia," or "megalopolises" as they are called today. Where this occurred, the usual distinction between town and country lost meaning.

Since ceramic materials and production know-how are found in at least 1 16 different locales throughout the Japanese archipelago, the fine ceramics industry has tended to develop outside the congested areas of the Kanto-Kansai conurbia.

In our first years here, though we had neighbors within a comfortable half mile, we could see not a single light at night except stars and moon and the glow on the sky above the valley conurbia.