Ancient Rome the City, the Country, the Empire, and the Relevance of Scale and Location in Maritime Southeast Asia

“All roads lead to Rome” is an idiom that many of us are familiar with. However, I often wonder about the implication in Roman history and its relevance today, which is something that I’d like to share. Before delving further, let’s look at the three lands of Ancient Rome – Rome the City, Rome the Proto-Italian Country and Rome the Empire.

Are they the same thing?

Ancient Rome?was a civilization that started from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in 753 BC (the City) to its control of the Italian Peninsula by 281 BC (the Proto-Italy), followed by the lands around the Mediterranean Basin and beyond by 27 BC (the Empire).

Located on the banks of the river Tiber, Rome the City had been a crossroad of traffic and trade since its onset. During the peak of the Roman Empire in 117 CE, the Romans ruled over around 20% of the world’s population which covered an area of about 5 million square kilometres. The city of Rome itself was estimated to have a population of close to a million at the time. It was the point of convergence of all the main roads in the Roman Empire and the medieval pilgrimage routes through Europe. The vast network of ancient transportation infrastructure – land as well as maritime transport – was part of what made the Romans so strong economically, connecting all its provinces with Rome the City at the centre.

In urban planning, we are taught the concept of connecting centres and the hierarchy between the centres. We know that a well-planned city comprises multiple interconnected districts, and each district comprises multiple interconnected neighbourhoods. The advantage of “location, location, location” is clear when we compare the main centre versus all sub-centres down the hierarchy, as factors like connectivity, property value, the ability to attract the best talents and investments come into play. Such hierarchy does not only exist within a city, but also between many cities within a country or region. The hierarchy between different cities particularly takes a long time – decades and even centuries – to evolve and be firmly established. It gave birth to the Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities that many of us in the real estate industry are familiar with. It also created the crème-de-la-crème of all Tier 1 cities, like Ancient Rome the City, which offers higher-value products and services not available in some other Tier 1 cities.

Compared to Rome the City, or even Rome the Proto-Italy, Rome the Empire was much larger and more complex in terms of demography, geography and history, which was undoubtedly more difficult to manage. There is an inherent lower level of efficiency in managing something the scale of the Roman Empire, which was made worse with mismanagement. Many of the best brains, the best buildings and the best quality of life could be found in Rome the City, where all roads in the empire led to. Of course, people in Rome the City had great leadership, were highly motivated, creative and hardworking, but they also benefited from the city’s location advantage and positioning as the Mediterranean region’s main commercial centre.

Did the Romans understand that efficiency drops as the scale gets bigger?

Lately, I have been wondering how the Ancient Romans measured the economic performance of Rome the City versus that of Rome the Proto-Italy and Rome the Empire. Had there been an indicator similar to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita i.e. the total value of goods produced and services provided in a year divided by the population? Did the Romans understand scale and thus compared the GDP per capita of Rome the City with that of Alexandria, or did they compare with the whole of Egypt, the most profitable province that had once contributed up to two-thirds of Rome’s annual revenue?

I once worked for a client who has built condominiums but was unfamiliar with large-scale land use planning. When my master plan data indicated a sellable land area of only 60% of the total land area, I was asked to increase it to 80%. The client didn’t understand that this is impossible – because about 40% of the total land area is required for roads, infrastructure and open space in the master plan. The condominium only has one road leading to its carpark, while the master plan has a network of roads. The condominium only has a 22 kv substation, while the master plan has a 150 kv substation, supplying power to many smaller substations. In bigger master plans like a township, community facilities such as a hospital, school and police station are required, none of which is applicable to a building development. The greater the population, the demand for transportation, infrastructure, open space and community facilities increases exponentially, whereas the land use efficiency declines. Thus, as it is impossible for a township to have a higher efficiency score than a building, I believe that it would also have been impossible for Ancient Egypt – with its vast agricultural lands and deserts – to have a higher GDP per capita score than that of Ancient Rome the City.

In the 3rd century CE, the Roman Empire nearly collapsed due to barbarian invasions and other factors, many of which are tied to scale – an empire which is too large is simply too hard to govern. This caused the empire to be divided into Western and Eastern empires in 286 CE, although these two may still be too big to be managed efficiently. In 476 CE, the Western Roman Empire collapsed. History thus tells us that no empire or nation could remain in a status quo position and that the current economic giants of the world could meet the same fate as the Romans. In any case, scale and location will remain as important factors.

The relevance of scale and location in modern-day Asia

Over in Asia, we look forward to seeing if the projection by the World Bank and the IMF on the world’s biggest economies in 2024 would become a reality. It is projected that China would be the world’s biggest economy, overtaking the USA which has occupied the number one spot for over a century since the year 1900. What is interesting for my region of Maritime Southeast Asia is that Indonesia is projected to become the world’s 5th biggest economy. This is significant as Indonesia’s economic power status will benefit its neighbours especially Singapore, which will remain as the de-facto economic capital of Southeast Asia – as “all roads in Southeast Asia lead to Singapore” – and Malaysia which shares a similar language and culture as Indonesia. A prosperous Indonesia presents a tremendous market and investment opportunity for Singapore and Malaysia, both of whom could also contribute to Indonesia’s development and help to ensure that all three countries remain relevant and close to each other.

Due to their shared history and geography, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are very similar to each other in many aspects. All of them celebrate their respective national day in the month of August, albeit on different dates, and coincidentally all their flags prominently feature the colours of red and white. However, the three countries also differ greatly especially because of their hugely different sizes. Comparing the scale of Singapore (729 km2; 5.7 million people), Malaysia (330,803 km2; 32.7 million people) and Indonesia (1,904,569 km2; 270.2 million people) is almost like comparing Ancient Rome the City, Ancient Rome the Proto-Italy and Ancient Rome the Empire.

In my humble opinion, it is the ‘empire-like’ scale of Indonesia coupled with an extensive and well-planned infrastructure network, some of which are currently under development, that would be its biggest asset in reaching the projected economic power status. While Indonesia has suffered from mismanagement in the past, the country has seen tremendous improvements in the recent decade that perhaps, it should now be seen from a new set of lenses. Among others, the GDP per capita comparison between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore that is often reported in the media may be better replaced with a GDP per capita comparison between Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which is fairer as these are all highly-developed cities. Unlike Rome the City, or even Rome the Proto-Italy, Rome the Empire had a higher percentage of economically less-productive villages, farmlands, forests and deserts in its total land area, which made it impossible to compete with Rome the City or Rome the Proto-Italy in terms of GDP per capita. A city-to-city comparison would thus be fairer in reflecting the progress of Indonesia in my opinion, even though metro Jakarta is almost ten times the size of Singapore and has a population equivalent to the whole population of Malaysia.

Conclusion

Once we understand the scale and location context, I think that we would be in a better position to make a fair comparison, learn from, appreciate and complement each other. As Roman history has shown us, proven solutions for Rome the City may work brilliantly for other cities like Athens and Constantinople, but may not necessarily work for Rome the Proto-Italy or Rome the Empire. Perhaps the best advice I found is from Singapore’s prime minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong who, in response to proposals for post-Brexit Britain to copy Singapore’s low-tax, deregulated-economy model, said: “Maybe, maybe if you look at Singapore, you might think you have some ideas that you can use, we hope so. But I don’t think you can take one society’s solution and just plonk it on a different society.” (Bloomberg, 7 Nov 2018).

The Eastern Roman Empire – also called the Byzantine Empire – survived for another one thousand years after the fall of the Western Empire until 1453 CE when it was conquered by the Ottomans. In the 5th century CE, the Eastern Romans almost succeeded in restoring the Western Empire if not for climate change (the Late Antiquity Little Ice Age) and pandemic (the Justinian Plague). However, while the Eastern Romans had bad luck at the time, Arabia had benefited from the Little Ice Age which made its arid lands cooler, more fertile and even facilitated the rise of Islam. I wonder what would the current climate change (global warming) and pandemic (Covid-19) do to my region of Maritime Southeast Asia – would nature continue to hurt us, presumably because of our environmentally-irresponsible behaviour, or would it facilitate our rise like it did to 5th century Arabia? I don’t know but certainly hope for the latter. Whichever way it turns out, I bet that scale and location will play a part.

Note: the views and opinions in this article are the views and opinions of the author.

? Copyright Amin Rasidi