The city of
Chicago, as seen from the sky.
A city is an urban settlement with a particularly important status which
differentiates it from a town.
City is primarily used to designate an urban settlement with a large population. However, city may also indicate a special
administrative, legal, or historical status.
In the United States, "city" is primarily a legal term meaning an urban area with a degree of autonomy (i.e. a
township), rather than meaning an entire large settlement (metropolitan area). Outside the United States, "city" implies an entire settlement or metropolitan
area, although there are notable exceptions, e.g. the term City of London. In the UK, a
city is a settlement with a charter ("letters patent") from the crown.
Overview
Present-day cities are products of the industrial revolution and are generally
distinguished by land area and population. Large, industrialized cities generally have advanced organizational systems for
sanitation, utilities, land distribution,
housing, and transportation.
A big city, or metropolis, is usually accompanied by a subcity; for example,
Aurora, Colorado is a subcity of Denver,
Colorado. Such cities also contain large amounts of urban sprawl, creating large
amounts of business commuters. Once a city sprawls far enough to reach another city, this region can be deemed a megalopolis, or a cluster of urban areas.
Geography
Older cities appear to be jumbled together, seemingly without a structural plan. This quality is a legacy of earlier unplanned
or organic development, and is often perceived by today's tourists to be picturesque. In
contrast, cities founded after the advent of the automobile and planned accordingly tend to
have expansive boulevards impractical to navigate on foot.
Modern city planning has seen many different schemes for how a city should look. The most commonly seen pattern is the
grid, favoured by the Romans, almost a rule in parts of the New
World, and used for thousands of years in China. Derry was
the first ever planned city in Ireland, begun in 1613, with the walls being completed 5 years
later in 1618. The central diamond within a walled city with four gates was thought to be a good design for defence. The grid
pattern chosen was widely copied in the colonies of British North America. However, the grid has been around for far longer than
the British Empire. The Ancient Greeks often gave their colonies around the Mediterranean a grid plan. One of the best examples
is the city of Priene. This city even had its different districts, much like modern city planning
today. Also in Medieval times we see a preference for linear planning. Good examples are the cities established in the south of
France by various rulers and city expansions in old Dutch and Flemish cities.
Map of
Haarlem, the
Netherlands, of around 1550. The city
is completely surrounded by a city wall and defensive canal. The square shape was inspired by Jerusalem.
Other forms may include a radial structure in which main roads converge on a central point, often the effect of successive
growth over long time with concentric traces of town walls and citadels - recently supplemented by ring-roads that take traffic around the edge of a town. Many
Dutch cities are structured this way: a central square surrounded by concentric canals.
Every city expansion would imply a new circle (canals + town walls). In cities like Amsterdam
and Haarlem, and elsewhere, such as in Moscow, this pattern is
still clearly visible.
History
Cities with at least a million inhabitants in 2006
Towns and cities have a long history, although opinions vary on whether any particular ancient settlement can be considered to be a city. Cities formed as central places of trade for the
benefit of the members living there. Benefits include reduced transport costs, exchange of ideas, and sharing of natural
resources. The first true towns are sometimes considered to be 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 was
centralized. One characteristic that can be used to distinguish a small city from a large town is organized government. A town
accomplishes common goals through informal agreements between neighbors or the leadership of a chief. A city has professional
administrators, regulations, and some form of taxation (food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to feed the
government workers. The governments may be based on heredity, religion, military power, work projects (such as canal building),
food distribution, land ownership, agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, finance, or a combination of those. Societies that live
in cities are often called civilizations. A city can also be defined as an absence of
physical space between people and firms.
Ancient times
By this definition, the first cities we know of were located in Mesopotamia, such as
Eridu, Uruk, and Ur, and in
Egypt along the Nile, the Indus Valley Civilization and China. Before this time it was
rare for settlements to reach significant size, although there were exceptions such as Jericho,
Çatalhöyük and Mehrgarh. Among the early cities,
Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley Civilization was one of the largest, with an estimated
population of 41,250,[1] as well as one of the most
developed in many ways, as it was the first to use urban planning, municipal governments, grid plans, drainage, flush toilets, urban sanitation systems, and sewage systems.
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, with Alexandria,
Antioch and Seleucia of the Hellenistic civilization, Pataliputra (now
Patna) in India, Chang'an (now
Xi'an) in China, Carthage,
ancient Rome, its eastern successor Constantinople
(later Istanbul), and successive Chinese, Indian and Muslim capitals approaching or exceeding the half-million population level.
It is estimated that ancient Rome had a population of about a million people by the end of the first century BC, after growing
continually during the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st centuries BCE.[2] And it is generally considered the largest city before 19th century London.[3] Alexandria's population was also close
to Rome's population at around the same time, the historian Rostovtzeff estimates a total population close to a million based on
a census dated from 32 CE that counted 180,000 adult male citizens in Alexandria.[4] Similar administrative, commercial, industrial and ceremonial centres emerged in other areas, most
notably Baghdad, which to some urban historians, later became the first city to exceed a
population of one million by the 8th century instead of Rome.
Middle Ages
During the European Middle Ages, a town was as much a political entity as a collection of
houses. 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. In Continental 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 the Holy Roman Empire some
cities had no other lord than the emperor. In Italy, Medieval
communes had quite a statelike power.
In exceptional cases like Venice, Genoa or Lübeck, cities themselves became powerful states, sometimes taking surrounding areas under their control or
establishing extensive maritime empires. Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case of Sakai, which enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan.
Early Modern
While the city-states, or poleis, of the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea languished from the 16th century,
Europe's larger capitals benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an Atlantic trade. By the late 18th century, London had become
the largest city in the world with a population of over a million, while Paris
rivaled the well-developed regionally-traditional capital cities of Baghdad, Beijing, Istanbul and Kyoto. During the Spanish
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.
Most towns remained far smaller places, 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 which would rise thereafter to 300 in 1900. A small city of
the early modern period might contain as few as 10,000 inhabitants, a town far fewer still.
Industrial Age
The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive
urbanization 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. In the United States from 1860 to 1910, the invention of railroads reduced transportation costs, and large
manufacturing centers began to emerge, thus allowing migration from rural to city areas. However, cities during those periods of
time were deadly places to live in, due to health problems resulting from contaminated water and air, and communicable diseases.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s cities were hard hit by unemployment, especially those with a base in heavy industry. In
the U.S. urbanization rate increased forty to eighty percent during 1900-1990. Today the world's population is slightly over half
urban,[5] with millions still streaming annually into the
growing cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America. There has also been a shift to suburbs, perhaps to avoid crime and traffic, which are two
costs of living in an urban area.
External Effects
Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates. This is due to the large
clustering of hard surfaces that heat up in sunlight and that channel
rainwater into underground ducts.
Garbage and sewage are two major problems for cities, as is
air pollution coming from internal combustion
engines (see public transport). The impact of cities on places elsewhere, be it
hinterlands or places far away, is considered in the notion of city footprinting
(ecological footprint). Other negative external effects include health consequences such as communicable diseases, crime,
and high traffic and commuting times. Cities cause more interaction with more people than rural areas, thus a higher probability
to contracting contagious diseases. However, many inventions such as inoculations, vaccines, and water filtration systems have
also lowered health concerns. Crime is also a concern in the cities. Studies have shown that crime
rates in cities are higher and the chance of punishment after getting caught is lower. In cases such as burglary, the higher
concentration of people in cities create more items of higher value worth the risk of crime. The high concentration of people
also create traffic problems and higher commute times, causing less time to be spent on more
valuable activities.
The difference between towns and cities
The difference between towns and cities is differently understood in different parts of the English speaking world. There is no one standard international definition of a city: the term may be
used either for a town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population size; for a town
dominating other towns with particular regional economic or administrative significance. Although city can refer to an
agglomeration including suburban and satellite areas, the
term is not usually applied to a conurbation (cluster) of distinct urban places, nor
for a wider metropolitan area including more than one city, each acting as a focus for
parts of the area.
United Kingdom
-
In the United Kingdom, a city is a town which has been known as a city since
time immemorial, or which has received city status by letters patent — which is normally granted on the basis of size, importance or royal connection (the
traditional test was whether the town had a cathedral). In the United Kingdom, when people
talk about cities, they generally include the suburbs in that. Some cathedral cities, such as
St David's in Wales and Wells
in England, are quite small, and may not be known as cities in common parlance. Preston became England's newest city in the year 2002 to mark the Queen's jubilee, as did Newport in Wales, Stirling in Scotland, and Lisburn and
Newry in Northern Ireland.
A Review of Scotland's Cities led to the Fair City of Perth, Scotland,
losing city status.
By both legal and traditional definition, a town may be of any size, but must contain a market
place. A village must contain a church[citation needed]. A small village without a church is called a hamlet[citation needed].
Australia and New Zealand
In Australia and New Zealand, city is used to
refer both to units of local government, and as a synonym for urban area.[citation needed] For instance the City of South Perth[6] is part of the urban area known as Perth, commonly described as a city. On the other hand, Gisborne is known as the first city to see the sun, despite being administered by a district
council, not a city council.
United States
In most U.S. states, a city is designated by the election of a mayor and city council, while a town is governed by people,
select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. There are some very large towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004) and some very small cities (such
as Shafer, Minnesota, with a population of 343 in 2000), and the line between town and
city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state. Cities in the United States do have many oddities, like Maza, North Dakota, the smallest city in the country, has only 5 inhabitants, but is still
incorporated. It does not have an active government, and the mayoral hand changes frequently (due to the lack of city laws).
In many U.S. states, any incorporated town is also called a city. If a distinction is being made between towns and cities,
exactly what that distinction is often depends on the context. The context will differ depending on whether the issue is the
legal authority it possesses, the availability of shopping and entertainment, and the scope of the group of places under
consideration. Intensifiers such as "small town" and "big city" are also common, though the flip side of each is rarely used.
Some states also make a distinction between villages and other forms of municipalities. Even
though Americans are aware that "village" means something smaller than a town, the word has often been co-opted by enterprising
developers to make their projects sound welcoming and friendly. In other cases, villages combine with larger other communities to
form larger towns; a well-known example of an urban village is New York City's famed Greenwich Village, which started as a quiet country settlement but was absorbed by the growing
city.
In all the New England states, city status is conferred by the form
of government, not population. Town government has a board of selectmen for the
executive branch, and a town meeting for
the legislative branch. New England cities, on the other hand, have a mayor for the executive, and a legislature referred to as either the city council or the board of aldermen.
In Virginia, all incorporated municipalities designated as cities are independent of the adjacent or surrounding county while a town is an incorporated municipality which
remains a part of an adjacent or surrounding county. The largest incorporated municipalities by population are all cities,
although some smaller cities have a smaller population than some towns. For example, the smallest city of Norton has a population of 3,904 and the largest town of Blacksburg has a population of 39,573.
In Pennsylvania any municpality with more than 10 persons can incorporate as a Borough.
Any Township or Borough with at least 10,000 population can ask the legistlature to charter as a city. In Pennsylvania a village is simply an unincorporated town within a township.
Germany
In many other languages, there is no difference between city and town. The German word for both is Stadt,
while a town with more than 100,000 inhabitants is called a Großstadt (major city), which is the most adequate equivalence
for city (in terms of differentiating it from a town). On the other hand, most towns are communities belonging to a
Landkreis (county), but there are some cities, usually with at least 50000 inhabitants, that are counties by themselves
(kreisfreie Städte).
China
There is a formal definition of city in China provided by the Chinese government. For an
urban area that can be defined as a city, there should be at least 100,000 non-agricultural population. City with
less than 200,000 non-agricultural population refers to a Small city, 200,000-500,000 non-agricultural population is a Medium
city, 500,000-1,000,000 non-agricultural population is a Large city and >1,000,000 non-agricultural population is an
Extra-large city. Also, there is an administrative definition based on the city boundary too and a city has its legal city
limits. In 1998, there were 668 cities in China - China has the largest urban population in the world.
Chile
Chile's Department of National Statistics defines a city (ciudad in Spanish) as an
urban entity with more than 5,000 inhabitants. A town (pueblo), is an urban entity
with 2,001 to 5,000 persons, however, if the area has some economic activity, the designation may include populations as small as
1,001. The department also defines Major Cities as provincial or regional capitals with populations of 100,001 to 500,000; Great
Urban Areas which are comprised of several entities without any appreciable limit between them and populations which total
between 500,001 and 1,000,000. A Metropolis is the largest urban area in the country where
there are more than one million inhabitants. The "urban entity" is defined as a concentration of habitations with more than 2,000
persons living in them, or more than 1,000 persons if more than half of those persons are in some way gainfully employed.
Tourist and recreation areas with more than 250 living units
may be considered as urban areas.
Global cities
-
Modern global cities, like
New York City, often include large central business districts
that serve as hubs for economic activity.
A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of
trade, banking, finance,
innovations, and markets. The term "global city", as opposed to megacity, was coined by Saskia Sassen in a seminal 1991 work.[citation needed] Whereas "megacity" refers to any city of enormous size, a global city is
one of enormous power or influence. Global cities, according to Sassen, have more in common with each other than with other
cities in their host nations. Examples of such cities include London,
New York City, Paris and Tokyo. The notion of global cities is rooted in the concentration of power and capabilities within all cities. The city is seen as a container where skills and resources
are concentrated: the better able a city is to concentrate its skills and resources, the more successful and powerful the city.
This makes the city itself more powerful in the sense that it can influence what is happening around the world. Following this
view of cities, it is possible to rank the world's cities hierarchically.[7] Other global cities include Singapore which is a city-state, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Milan and Chicago which are all classed as "Alpha World Cities" and San Francisco, Madrid, Sydney,
Toronto, Zürich, Sao Paulo
and Mexico City which are "Beta World Cities". A third tier containing Taipei, Osaka, Buenos Aires,
Melbourne, Montreal, Caracas, Manila and Santiago, among
others is called "Gamma world cities" .
Critics of the notion point to the different realms of power. The term global city is heavily influenced by economic
factors and, thus, may not account for places that are otherwise significant. For example, cities like Rome, Istanbul, Mecca, Mashhad, Karbala and Lisbon are powerful in
religious and historical terms but would not be considered
"global cities". Additionally, it has been questioned whether the city itself can be regarded as an actor.
In 1995, Kanter argued that successful cities can be identified by three elements. To be successful, a city needs to have good
thinkers (concepts), good makers (competence) or good traders (connections). The interplay
of these three elements, Kanter argued, means that good cities are not planned but managed.
Inner city
-
In the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland, the term "inner city" is sometimes used with the connotation of being an
area, perhaps a ghetto, where people are less wealthy and where there is more crime. These
connotations are less common in other Western countries, as deprived areas are located in varying parts of other Western cities.
In fact, with the gentrification of some formerly run-down central city areas the reverse
connotation can apply. In Australia, for example, the term "outer suburban" applied to a person implies a lack of sophistication.
In Paris, the inner city is the richest part of the metropolitan area, where
housing is the most expensive, and where elites and high-income individuals dwell. In the developing world, economic
modernization brings poor newcomers from the countryside to build haphazardly at the edge of current settlement (see
favelas, shacks and shanty
towns).
The United States, in particular, has a culture of anti-urbanism that dates back to colonial times. The American
City Beautiful architecture movement of the late 1800s was a reaction to
perceived urban decay and sought to provide stately civic buildings and boulevards to inspire civic pride in the motley residents
of the urban core. Modern anti-urban attitudes are to be found in America in the form of a planning profession that continues to
develop land on a low-density suburban basis, where access to amenities, work and shopping is provided almost exclusively by car
rather than on foot.
However, there is a growing movement in North America called "New Urbanism" that calls
for a return to traditional city planning methods where mixed-use zoning allows people to walk from one type of land-use to
another. The idea is that housing, shopping, office space, and leisure facilities are all provided within walking distance of
each other, thus reducing the demand for road-space and also improving the efficiency and effectiveness of mass transit.
See also
Lists
Social problems in the city
References
- ^ The Indus Civilization - Population at Encyclopædia
Britannica.
- ^ On The Political Economy of the Roman Empire, Keith
Hopkins
- ^ The organization of the grain trade in the early Roman Empire, David
Kessler and Peter Temin
- ^ Rostovtzeff 1941: 1138-39)
- ^ news.ncsu.edu/releases/2007/may/104.html.. Retrieved on 2007-06-03.
- ^ City of South Perth. Retrieved on 2007-06-03.
- ^ John Friedmann and Goetz Wolff, "World City Formation: An
Agenda for Research and Action," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 6, no. 3 (1982): 319
- Toynbee, Arnold (ed), Cities of Destiny, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Pan historical/geographical essays, many images.
Starts with "Athens", ends with "The Coming World City-Ecumenopolis".
- Chandler, T. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987.
- Modelski, G. World Cities: –3000 to 2000. Washington, DC: FAROS 2000, 2003.
- League of Women Voters of Vermont. Vermont Citizens' Guide to Government in Vermont, 7th Edition. Rutland, Vermont:
Sharp Offset Printing, 2004.
- M. Weber, The City (tr. 1958)
- L. Mumford, The City in History (1961)
- S. Thernstrom and R. Sennett, ed., Nineteenth-Century Cities (1969)
- W. A. Robson and D. E. Regan, ed., Great Cities of the World (3d ed., 2 vol., 1972)
- P. Geddes, City Development (1973)
- W. Rybczynski, City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World (1995)
External links
