Urban Geography Reading 01
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The Early Development and History of Cities
Villages were the earliest communal living developments by humans. What made villages possible was the domestication of animals and learning to plant crops. Most geographers agree that this occurred about 10,000 years ago. Over time, changes in human settlement patterns allowed early man to form larger and larger villages. These changes include the creation of religion and the need for worship, a predicatable food surplus, trade over long distances, and a division of labor.
Somewhere around 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, man started the move away from being a self-sufficient villager to a city dwelling specialist, this move has been continuing every since. Many social and economic changes had to happen for cities to get their start. These changes included religion, a need for a trade center, the need to band together for protection, and sometimes, the geographic location of these early cities was just excellent for human habitation.
The first urban centers evolved in lower Mesopotamia and then in the Nile valley of Egypt. By about 2500 B.C., cities flourished in the Indus Valley on the Indian subcontinent. They developed along the Huang River in China by 1500 B.C. Cities did not arise in the Americas until about 500B.C.: the first were in what is now Mexico.
All early cities shared certain characteristics that made them different from smaller settlements. Each developed in a productive agricultural environment where not all people needed to be farmers. Much of the population was not involved in food production. People became specialists such as soldiers, priests, and craftsmen; some were skilled in the science of metal making. Only a few people were literate, able to read and write. They formed the elite, a small but powerful minority, who encouraged the arts and helped manage commerce and running of the city. Usually the city's ruler governed with absolute authority and was also the high priest of the communities' religion.
Many cities were planned and laid out along a grid, a network of intersecting lines, much like a modern street grid. Temples and palaces, examples of the world's first urban architecture, usually occupied the center, and defensive walls surrounded the city. Unlike many of our modern cities, the rich lived near the religious "Citadel" at the center of the city and the poor lived on the edges of the city, just inside the wall. The reason for this arrangement was it gave the rich or governing class of the city more protection from danger. During these early times, all cities were centers of religion, government, and trade. Far reaching trade routes made them centers of wealth, and some, such as Babylon, became centers of empires. Few had populations of more than 20,000.
These early cities were experiments in a new way of life. For one reason or another, every one of them failed. Wars, drought, or the brakedown of trade routes brought their collapse. Their economies were so fragile, that they could not survive major disasters.
Gradually, technology improved and new cities emerged. Realize that the concept of city may be easily moved. Only an idea has to be moved, not any actual goods. New, larger empires developed around the Mediterranean Sea and in Asia. Great trade routes, such as those created by the Romans, spread civilization as well as goods and contributed to the rise of cities from China to North Africa and Spain.
The city is a mental concept that involves, more than anything else, an organization of society. The architecture, water control, capacity to create monumental structures, etc., are all somewhat secondary, compared to the need to secure a steady supply of food for a non-agricultural population . This requires long distance trade and scientific advances in agriculture.
Athens and Rome
Athens, in Greece, became a powerful city-state. During its golden age in the fifth century B.C., it had a population of perhaps 150,000. Later cities of the Western world adopted its city plan, which included an agora- a gathering place for commerce and public meetings- surrounded by schools, libraries, and theaters. Every agora was the province of the citizens and served as the locale for public meetings, education, and general public interaction. Every Greek city also had an Acropolis in which ceremonial worship was located, as was the seat of power for the city government. Athens was the first ancient city to survive the collapse of its power. It endured as an artistic and intellectual center through the period of the Roman empire.
Under Imperial Rome, urbanity, the city way of life, spread to northern Europe. The Romans built road systems and planned cities from the Middle East to the British Isles. The city of Rome itself was centered on the forum, a concentration of buildings used much as those of the Athenian agora were. This forum, was most often located at the intersection of the two major roads in the Roman City. Rome's population may have reached one million people around A.D. 100. The ruling class lived in palaces with plumbing and central heating. The masses lived in shabby apartments, a Roman invention, that were the first high density dwellings in the Western world. These shabby apartment complexes, called insula, were often three or four stories high and poorly maintained.
Two major advances developed by the Romans were the ability of Romans to transport water to city populations and the magnificent paved road structure that connected Rome to its empire.
As the Roman Empire declined, so did city life in Europe. Some Mediterranean cities continued to prosper, among them Constantinople and Venice. Cities flourished in Asia and in the Americas.
The Rise of European Cities
European city life flourished again in the 11th century as a result of successes in long distance trade. Because of a new and powerful merchant class, more cities and towns were founded in the 12th and 13th centuries than at any other time between the end of the Roman Empire and the Industrial Revolution. Led by merchants, who became the middle class, many communities gained independence and self rule.
Medieval European cities were characterized by four features; the fortress, the wall, the marketplace, and the cathedral. The fortress was the fortified seat of power and was often in the center of the city. The wall around the city provided some protection for the city. The marketplace was the zone of active economic, political, social, and religious activity. Lastly, the cathedral was located in the city. Many times the marketplace was the open plaza in front of the cathedral. The cathedral was often the most dramatic architecture in the city, being that religion was the center of medieval life. For most people, urban life meant crowded dwellings, narrow lanes, and unsanitary conditions.
One reason why people flocked to the cities during this time was because if a person could exist in a city for a year without recapture, he or she would be freed of obligation to a fuedal lord. "Town air makes a person free" was the guideline for the people attempting to free themselves of a serf role in the countryside.
Because of plagues, wars, disruption of trade, and uprisings of craftsmen and laborers, the growth of European cities declined in the 14th and 15th centuries.
During the Renaissance through about 1800, European cities grew and changed dramatically. There was an explosion of city size. In 1500, Paris, Naples, Venice, and Milan had a population between 100,000 and 200,000. By 1800, London had grown to more than 850,000 people and many other cities had entered this category.
Cities developed interests during this time that brought major changes to how cities were planned and laid out. City dwellers looked to ancient Rome and Athens for basic ideas about planning and architecture. To accommodate all the government workers in these reconstructed cities, the first office buildings were constructed. Broad boulevards were laid out, at the expense of the middle class, for the enjoyment of wealthy citizens and the movement of troops. Paris is the best example of this development. Many Parisian streets were widened into broad boulevards and avenues during this time. Open squares, palaces, and splendid gardens were built for aristocrats. The new capital of the United States, Washington D.C., was laid out by a French engineer in the 1790s; his plan called for wide circles and broad avenues. This spirit of reorganization of city space can be seen in other American cities such as Philadelphia, Columbia, South Carolina; and Williamsburg, Virginia. Grand designs for cities reached its peak with the rebuilding of central Paris in the mid-1800s.
In European cities, living space for the working classes was limited. They were crowded together in cramped medieval sections of cities or in congested suburbs. This problem of overcrowding survives into the present day.
As you can guess by the reading, urban populations began to grow. In 1600, only 2 percent of the population of Germany, France, and England was urban. By 1800 these numbers had changed, England was 20 percent urbanized. By 1870, half of England's population was urbanized.

The Industrial Revolution and the American Experience

The Industrial Revolution involved radical changes in industry and technology. These changes began in Great Britain during the late 1700s and later spread to Europe and the United States.
Old cites became new industrial cities as factories were built near their centers. They continued as hubs of commerce and finance. In contrast to earlier times, many wealthy people moved to the outskirts of cities, leaving the centers largely to the poor.
The rich were about the only group to leave the cities. The influences of cities grew even stronger as wealth, political power, and changing thoughts about cities began to take hold. Centers of learning were increasingly located in the city. The industrial revolution removed the idea of the farmer and the countryside as the major form of human settlement. The city had become the center of decision making in the European world.
The plight of the worker did not improve as fast as the city was growing. The major attraction to city life was that factory work provided steady income. Wages were low, hours were long and even ten year old children worked 14 hour days. Manufacturing centers of the time produced massive amounts of waste, air, and water pollution. Life expectancy in urban area was low. In 1893, male workers in Manchester, England lived an average of 28 years, nearby rural farmers lived an average of 52 years.
Despite the plight of factory workers, increased amounts of manufactured goods, along with technology, improved the quality of life for the general population. In the Western world, largely farming societies became largely industrial societies.
In America, the idea of the city got off to a slow start but, like the country as a whole, grew very quickly. In 1790, the five largest cities in the USA were; New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, and Baltimore. New York had the largest population with 33,131 people. In 1830, America's urban population was at 8 percent, by 1880, it was at 28 percent, and by 1930 it was at 56 percent.
Early American cities grew for a variety of reasons. Most of the reasons had to do with the constant advancement in the transportation of goods and people. The earliest large American cities were cities that had a good, natural harbor. These port cities were located on the eastern seaboard of the USA and remained major cities for all of the American colonial period.
By 1800, many settlers were moving into the interior of the USA. These settlers were moving mostly along the great waterways of the eastern USA, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes. Since these early settlers had goods to sell to the markets back east, many of the early 1800s' cities were along these waterways; Cinncinatti, Louisville, St. Louis, Detroit, and New Orleans. Water transportation was so important to the early nation that the country went through a period of time called "canal madness", in which the entire interior of the eastern USA worked hard to connect itself by canal to the markets of the east coast. When the Erie Canal started up, the cost of shipping goods from the Great Lakes to New York fell from 100 dollars a ton to 25 dollars a ton. As long as water transportation was the major way goods and people were transported great distances, the cities connected to rivers and canals would remain America's largest cities.
As America advanced west across the Mississippi to the California coast, technology brought America the railroad. The railroad changed the growth of cities from the dependence on rivers and good harbors to dependence on the location of a railroad running through its area. The new large cities of the west were railroad centers. These cities included Chicago, Denver, and Atlanta. Older cities that found themselves connected to a railroad and having a good harbor grew even faster, witness Chicago and New York.
Technology even began to improve the way individual citizens could travel around, within, and between cities. The street car made its first appearance around the middle of the 1800s. These first street cars were driven by horses or mules and were very slow. Later, electricity would power the streetcar, as well as, the subway train. These advancements in personal transportation allowed people to live farther from their jobs in the central city and still get to work on time each day. These advancements also guaranteed that far greater numbers of people could live far from the city and still "commute" to work each day.
As American cities grew larger, land in the City's Central Business District (CBD) became more valuable and costly for any person wanting to build in the Central Business District of a city. Land values forced American architects to develop methods of building taller and taller buildings on smaller and smaller pieces of land. Central Business Districts of American cities started to develop that "skyscaper skyline" by the later 1800s.
As you read earlier, the cities of this time were not the best places to live. So, why did people continue to come to the city in such large numbers? By the late 1800s, the American city had everything the young person who wanted to get ahead needed; the possibility of an exciting job, good schools, theatre, libraries, music halls, art galleries, and the every present bright lights to attract people seeking adventure.
As the 20th Century dawned, the invention and mass production of the automobile would further transform the American city. By the 1970s, 74 percent of the American population was living in an urban setting. The need for adequate roads, parking, and later highways for city workers to commute to work and back will keep urban planners busy far into the next century. In later readings you will learn some of the reasons why cities grow and some of the theories behind why cities grow. You will even learn about some of the problems caused by this greatest human invention that we call the "City".

References and acknowledgements
Site and Insight; Kit Salter
Regions and Concepts; Harm de Blij and Peter Mueller
Exploring Your World, Adventures in Geography; The National Geographic Society
The lectures of Dave Lanegran and Jerry Pitzl during the 1986 Summer Institute at Maclester College in St. Paul, Mn.