Plato's New City.

Plato and the Ideal City What was Plato's concept of the ideal city-state? First, Plato perceived the ideal society as a city-state of no more than 20,000 people, ruled by the elite. He wanted something better than the kind of rule that had existed among the Spartans ands societies with aristocracies, and looking into the past he saw that societies led by aristocrats could degenerate and that some aristocrats were unfit for leadership. Plato envisioned a …

…that the shaping of the city need to be overhauled. Yet Plato never stop to ask some basic questions regarding a city: How could a large city maintain its existence by being isolated? How could a city thrive as a society with art, poets, passionate music, no mix of vocations, and no luxuries? Plato's concepts and ideas were indeed revolutionary. Yet Plato's ideas existed beyond the grasp of the senses or even the human mind.