Towns andcities have a long history, although opinions vary on whichancient settlements are truly cities. Historically, the benefits of dense, permanent settlement were numerous, but required prohibitive amounts of food and labor to maintain. Ancient cities allowed for the pooling of resources, exchange of ideas, large marketplaces, and even some shared amenities such asdrinking water,sewerage, law enforcement, and roads. The first cities formed and grew once these benefits of proximity between people exceeded the cost of work required to maintain a settlement.[1] Various technologies such as bricks,pottery, and animal taming played a large role in the costs and benefits of maintaining the earliest forms of cities. Cities were first made possible by advances in technology.
There is not enoughevidence to assert with certainty what conditions gave rise to the first cities. Smaller human settlements (such asvillages) pre-date cities by many thousands of years. Before permanent settlement in cities, there were also large temporary settlements used for religious purposes or as a stopping place for nomadic people.
Anthropologists speculate on what they consider suitable pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that might have been important driving forces in the shift to permanent settlement. The conventional view holds that cities first formed after theNeolithic Revolution, and the introduction of agriculture. The ability to produce food from a fixed location made permanent settlements much more attractive to ancient people.[2] However, whether farming immigrants replaced foragers or foragers began farming is not clear. The increased food production per unit of land supported higher population density and more city-like activities in areas suitable for agriculture. In the book,Cities and Economic Development,Paul Bairoch takes up this position in his argument that agriculture and a surplus of food is necessary before cities can form.[3]
According toV. Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and a relatively large population.[4] Bairoch points out that, due to sparse population densities that would have persisted in pre-Neolithic, hunter-gatherer societies, the amount of land that would be required to produce enough food for subsistence and trade for a large population would make it impossible to control the flow of trade. To illustrate this point, Bairoch offers an example: "Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, [where] the density must have been less than 0.1 person per square kilometre".[5] Using this population density as a base for calculation, and allotting 10% of food towards surplus for trade and assuming that city dwellers do no farming, he calculates that "...to maintain a city with a population of 1,000, and without taking the cost of transport into account, an area of 100,000 square kilometres would have been required. When the cost of transport is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometres ...".[5] Bairoch noted that this is roughly the size ofGreat Britain. The urban theoristJane Jacobs suggests that city formation preceded the birth of agriculture, but this view is not widely accepted.[6]
In his bookCity Economics, Brendan O'Flaherty asserts "Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages".[7] O'Flaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known asincreasing returns to scale andeconomies of scale, which are concepts usually associated withbusinesses. Their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as well. Increasing returns to scale occurs when "doubling all inputs more than doubles the output [and] an activity has economies of scale if doubling output less than doubles cost".[8]
Similarly, "Are Cities Dying?", a paper by Harvard economistEdward L. Glaeser, delves into similar reasons for city formation: reduced transport costs for goods, people and ideas. Discussing the benefits of proximity, Glaeser claims that if a city is doubled in size, workers get a ten percent increase in earnings. Glaeser furthers his argument by stating that bigger cities do not pay more for equal productivity than in a smaller city, so it is reasonable to assume that workers become more productive if they move to a city twice the size as they initially worked in. The workers do not benefit much from the ten percent wage increase, because it is recycled back into the higher cost of living in a larger city.
The first true towns are sometimes considered large settlements where the inhabitants were no longer simply farmers of the surrounding area, but began to take on specialized occupations, and where trade, food storage and power were centralized. In 1950Gordon Childe attempted to define a historic city with ten general metrics.[9] These are:
This categorisation is descriptive, and it is used as a general touchstone when considering ancient cities, although not all have each of its characteristics.
The more complex human societies, called thefirst civilizations, emerged around 3000BCE in the river valleys ofMesopotamia,Minoan Crete, theIndus Valley Civilization,China, andEgypt. An increase infood production led to the significant growth in human population and the rise of cities. The peoples ofSouthwest Asia and Egypt laid the foundations ofWestern civilization: they developed cities and struggled with the problems of organised states as they moved from individual communities to larger territorial units and eventually toempires.[10] Among these early civilizations, Egypt is exceptional for its apparent lack of big cities.[11]
The growth of the population of ancient civilizations, the formation of ancient empires concentrating political power, and the growth in commerce and manufacturing led to ever greater capital cities and centres of commerce and industry, withAlexandria,Antioch andSeleucia of theHellenistic civilization,Pataliputra (nowPatna) in India,Chang'an (nowXi'an) in China,Carthage,ancient Rome and its eastern successor Constantinople (nowIstanbul).
The roster of early urban traditions is notable for its diversity. Excavations at early urban sites show that some cities were sparsely populated political capitals, others were trade centers, and still other cities had a primarily religious focus. Some cities had large dense populations, whereas others carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion without having large associated populations. Theories that attempt to explain ancient urbanism by a single factor, such as economic benefit, fail to capture the range of variation documented by archaeologists.[12]
The earliest knownproto-cities includeJericho andÇatalhöyük, a settlement in southernAnatolia that existed from approximately 7400 BCE to 5600 BCE whose earlier East Mound may have accommodated a population of 600-800 by 6700 BCE, and possibly several thousands at a later date.[13] Hunting, agriculture and animal domestication all played a role in the society of Çatalhöyük.
Eridu was one of the earliest cities (5400 BCE – 600 BCE), and located in southern modern dayIraq.[citation needed]
Mesopotamia, the area of theTigris andEuphrates within modern dayIraq andSyria, was home to numerous cities by the third millennium BCE. These cities formed the basis of theSumerian and subsequent cultures.[14] Cities such as Jericho,Uruk,Ur,Nineveh, andBabylon, made legendary by theBible, have been located and excavated, while others such asDamascus andJerusalem have been continuously populated.
ThePhoenician trading empire, flourishing around the turn of thefirst millennium BC, encompassednumerous cities extending fromTyre,Sidon, andByblos, across the Mediterranean toCarthage (in modernTunisia) andCádiz (in modernSpain). The name ofMelqart, an important Phoenician deity, comes fromM-L-K and Q-R-T, meaning "king" and "city".[15]
Beginning in the early first millennium, independentcity-states in Greece began to flourish, evolving the notion ofcitizenship, becoming in the process the archetype of thefree city, thepolis.[16] Theagora, meaning "gathering place" or "assembly", was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the polis.[17] These Greek city-states reached great levels of prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, that ofclassical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science, mathematics and philosophy, and nurtured inAthens under ademocratic government. The GreekHippodamus of Miletus (c. 407 BCE) has been dubbed the "Father of City Planning" for his design ofMiletus; the Hippodamian, or grid plan, was the basis for subsequent Greek and Roman cities.[18] In the 4th century BCE,Alexander the Great commissionedDinocrates of Rhodes to lay out his new city ofAlexandria, the grandest example of idealized urban planning of the ancient Mediterranean world, where the city's regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.
Therise of Rome again shifted the locus of political power, resulting in economic and demographic[a] gain for the city ofRome itself, and a new political regime in the form of theRoman Empire. Romefounded many cities (coloniae), characteristically imposing a grid pattern made of north–southcardines and east–westdecumani. The intersection of thecardo maximus and thedecumanus maximus marked theorigin of the citygrid. Following these standard plans, Rome founded hundreds of cities and exerted substantial influence toward urbanizing the Mediterranean. In the process, Rome developedsanitation,public housing,public buildings and theforum.[22] In thelate Roman Empire political power was increasingly held bybishops of theChristian Church.
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TheIndus Valley Civilization and ancient China are two other areas with major indigenous urban traditions. Among the early Old World cities,Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley Civilization in present-dayPakistan, existing from about 2600 BCE, was one of the largest, with a population of 50,000 or more and asophisticated sanitation system.[23] Additionally,Mehrgarh, an archaeological site dating to circa. 7000 BCE can be considered one of the first cities in the world, and the origin of agriculture in South Asia.
China's planned cities date to the turn of thesecond millennium BCE. City-states emerging at this time usedgeomancy to locate and plan cities, orienting their walls to cardinal points. Symbolic cities were constructed as celestialmicrocosms, with the central point corresponding to thepole star representing harmony and connection between the earthly and other realms. InChang'an the imperial palace lay to the north, facing south, absorbing the light of the sun, and royalty slept with their heads to the north and their feet to the south. Next came the Imperial City, and then the people's city, divided into eastern and western halves.[24]
Agriculture was practiced inWest Africa since the third millennium BC. Because of this, cities could develop as centers of non-agricultural activity, well before the influence of Araburban culture. From 1600 BC,Dhar Tichitt, in the south of present-dayMauritania, presented characteristics suggestive of an incipient form of urbanism.[25][26] The second place to show urban characteristics inWest Africa wasDia, in present-dayMali, from 800 BC.[25][26] Both Dhar Tichitt and Dia were founded by the same people: theSoninke, who would later also found theGhana Empire.[26]
Another ancient site,Jenné-Jeno, in what is todayMali, has been dated to the third century BCE. According to Roderick and Susan McIntosh, Jenné-Jeno did not fit into traditional Western conceptions of urbanity as it lacked monumental architecture and a distinctive elite social class, but it should indeed be considered a city based on a functional redefinition of urban development. In particular, Jenné-Jeno featured settlement mounds arranged according to a horizontal, rather than vertical, power hierarchy, and served as a center of specialized production and exhibited functional interdependence with the surrounding hinterland.[27]
More recently, scholars have concluded that thecivilization of Djenne-Djenno was likely established by theMande progenitors of theBozo people. Their habitation of the site spanned the period from 3rd century BCE to 13th century CE.[28] Archaeological evidence from Jenné-Jeno, specifically the presence of non-West African glass beads dated from the third century BCE to the fourth century CE, indicates that pre-Arabic trade contacts probably existed between Jenné-Jeno and North Africa.[29]
Additionally, other early urban centers in West Africa, dated to around 500 CE, includeAwdaghust,Kumbi Saleh, the ancient capital of Ghana, andMaranda, a center located on a trade route between Egypt and Gao.[30]
In theancient Americas, earlyurban traditions developed in theAndes andMesoamerica. In the Andes, the first urban centers developed in theNorte Chico civilization (alsoCaral or Caral-Supe civilization),Chavin andMoche cultures, followed by major cities in theHuari,Chimu andInca cultures. The Norte Chico civilization included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now theNorte Chico region of north-central coastalPeru. It is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, flourishing between the 30th century BCE and the 18th century BCE.[32] Mesoamerica saw the rise of early urbanism in several cultural regions, including thePreclassic Maya, theZapotec of Oaxaca, andTeotihuacan in central Mexico. Later cultures such as theAztec drew on these earlier urban traditions.
Teotihuacan, flourishing from 200 BCE to 750 CE, was the largest American city of thepre-Columbian era, possibly reaching a population of 125,000 in 200 CE. The city's grid plan originated with the "Avenue of the Dead", connecting theTemple of the Feathered Serpent and thePyramid of the Moon.[31] Beyond itsceremonial center the city featured religious buildings (23 temple complexes) and myriad workshops. Although its religious system was clearly expansive and significant, details of its political and economic functioning remain matters of speculation.[33]
In theremnants of the Roman Empire,cities of late antiquity at first gained independence, but lost their population and their importance, starting inRoman Britain andGermania. The locus of wealth in the West shifted toConstantinople and to theascendant Islamic civilization with its major citiesBaghdad,[b]Cairo, andCórdoba.[38]
From the 9th through the end of the 12th century,Constantinople, capital of theByzantine Empire, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, with a population approaching 1 million.[34][35] Following theByzantine–Ottoman wars and other conflicts, theOttoman Empire gainedcontrol over many cities in the Mediterranean area, includingConstantinople in 1453.
During theEuropean Middle Ages, a town was as much a political entity as a collection ofhouses. City residence brought freedom from customary rural obligations to lord and community:"Stadtluft macht frei" ("City air makes you free") was a saying in Germany. InContinental Europe cities with a legislature of their own were not unheard of, the laws for towns as a rule other than for the countryside, the lord of a town often being another than for surrounding land. In theHoly Roman Empire, some cities had no other lord than the emperor. Some planned towns were created, in Britain byKing Edward I to colonizeWales and in France,bastides, fortified cities designed on a regular plan.[39]
By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries some cities become powerful states, taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. In Italymedieval communes developed intocity-states including theRepublic of Venice and theRepublic of Genoa. These cities, with populations in the tens of thousands, amassed enormous wealth by means of extensive trade in easternluxury goods such asspices andsilk, as well asiron,timber, andslaves. Veniceintroduced theghetto, a specially regulated neighborhood forJews only. In Northern Europe, cities includingLübeck andBruges formed theHanseatic League for collective defense and commerce. Their power was laterchallenged and eclipsed by theDutch commercialcities ofGhent,Ypres, andAmsterdam. (City rights were granted by nobility.) The city's central function was commerce, enabled by waterways and ports; the cities themselves were heavily fortified with walls and sometimesmoats.[40]
Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case ofSakai, which enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan.
In the first millennium CE, an urban tradition developed in the Khmer region of Cambodia, whereAngkor grew into one of the largest cities (in area) of the world.[41] The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city ofTikal in Guatemala, was between 100 and 150 square kilometres (39 and 58 sq mi) in total size.[42] Although its population remains a topic of research and debate, newly identified agricultural systems in the Angkor area may have supported up to one million people.[43]
While thecity-states, orpoleis, of theMediterranean andBaltic Sea languished from the 16th century,Western Europe's larger capitals grew again as commercial hubs, especially following the emergence of anAtlantic trade. By the early 19th century,London had become the largest city in the world with a population of over a million, whileParis rivaled the well-developed regionally traditional capital cities of Baghdad, Beijing, Istanbul andKyoto.Bastion forts arose in an attempt to make cities defensible against strengthening military firepower.[39]
The Aztec city ofTenochtitlan, in present-day Mexico, had an estimated population between 200,000 and 300,000 when the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519. During theSpanish colonization of the Americas the old Roman city concept was extensively used. Cities were founded in the middle of the newly conquered territories, and were bound to several laws about administration, finances and urbanism.
West Africa already had cities before theCommon Era, but the consolidation ofTrans-Saharan trade in the Middle Ages multiplied the number of cities in the region, as well as making some of them very populous, notablyGao (72,000 inhabitants in 800 AD),Oyo-Ile (50,000 inhabitants in 1400 AD, and may have reached up to 140,000 inhabitants in the 18th century),Ile-Ifẹ̀ (70,000 to 105,000 inhabitants in the 14th and 15th centuries),Niani (50,000 inhabitants in 1400 AD) andTimbuktu (100,000 inhabitants in 1450 AD).[25][44]
Most towns remained small, so that in 1500 only some two dozen places in the world contained more than 100,000 inhabitants. As late as 1700, there were fewer than forty, a figure that rose to 300 in 1900.
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Thegrowth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massiveurbanization and the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas. England led the way asLondon became the capital of aworld empire and cities across the country grew in locations strategic formanufacturing.[45] In the United States from 1860 to 1910, theintroduction of railroads reduced transportation costs, and large manufacturing centers began to emerge, fueling migration from rural to city areas.
Industrialized cities became deadly places to live, due to health problems resulting fromovercrowding,occupational hazards of industry, contaminated water and air,poor sanitation, and communicable diseases such astyphoid andcholera.Factories andslums emerged as regular features of the urban landscape.[46]
The 19th century saw the rise ofpublic transportation, such ashorsebuses, followed byhorse trams. At the end of the 19th century, electricurban rail transport (includingtrams andrapid transit) began to replace them, later completed withbuses and othermotor vehicles.
Street lights were uncommon untilgas lighting became widespread in Europe in the early 19th century.Fuel gas was also used for heating and cooking. From the 1880s,electrification began, making electricity the main energy medium in cities until present day.
Modernwater supply networks began to expand during the 19th century.
Growth of cities continued through the twentieth century and increased dramatically in theThird World (includingIndia,China, andAfrica), due toindustrialization, active promotion of urbanization, and other factors.
Urban planning became widespread and professionalized. At the turn of the century, the "garden city" model became the icon of a self-contained, comprehensively designed, residential and commercial settlement. Professionalurban planners appeared in large numbers, not only to design cities, but to provide technical expertise to their administration.
Cities in the great depression of the 1930s, especially those with a base in heavy industry, were hard hit byunemployment. In the U.S. urbanization rate increased forty to eighty percent during 1900–1990. Today the world's population is slightly over half urban,[47] and continues to urbanize, with roughly a million people moving into cities every 24 hours worldwide.
During the 20th century,car ownership has increased steadily, parallel withsuburban sprawl,highways and other development for the car. Awareness ofecology in the mid-20th century created theenvironmental movement, which has addressed the need forsustainable development.
In the second half of the twentieth century,deindustrialization (or "economic restructuring") in the West led topoverty,homelessness, andurban decay in formerly prosperous cities. America's "Steel Belt" became a "Rust Belt" and cities such asDetroit, Michigan, andGary, Indiana began toshrink, contrary to the global trend of massive urban expansion.[48] Under theGreat Leap Forward and subsequentfive-year plans continuing today, thePeople's Republic of China has undergone concomitanturbanization andindustrialization to become the world's leadingmanufacturer.[49][50]
There is a debate about whethertechnology and instantaneous communications are making cities obsolete, or reinforcing the importance of big cities as centres of theknowledge economy.[51][52][53] Knowledge-based development of cities, globalization of innovation networks, and broadband services are driving forces of a new city planning paradigm towardssmart cities that use technology and communication to create more efficient agglomerations in terms of competitiveness, innovation, environment, energy, utilities, governance, and delivery of services to the citizen. Some companies are building brand newmasterplanned cities from scratch ongreenfield sites.
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