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.
[ On The Political Economy of the Roman Empire, Keith Hopkins ] And it is generally considered the largest city before 19th century London.
[2] 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.
[3] 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,
[4] 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
Main articles: City status in the 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. A small village without a church is called a hamlet.
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. For instance the City of South Perth
[5] 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), but it is considered a relatively inactive government.
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.
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'', which is the most adequate equivalence for ''city'' (in terms of differentiating it from a town).
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
Main articles: Global City
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. 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.
[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] 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,
Sydney,
Toronto,
Zürich,
Sao Paulo and
Mexico City which are "Beta World Cities". A third tier containing
Taipei,
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
Main articles: 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 some say dates back as far as Thomas Jefferson who wrote that "The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body."
citation needed" On the businessmen who brought manufacturing industry into cities and hence increased the population density necessary to supply the workforce, he wrote "the manufactures of the great cities... have begotten a depravity of morals, a dependence and corruption, which renders them an undesirable accession to a country whose morals are sound." 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
★
Citistate
★
World's Most Livable Cities
★
Large Cities Climate Leadership Group
★
Names of European cities in different languages
★
Urban culture
★
Urban sociology
★
Ekistics
★
Lost city
★
Shrinking Cities
★
Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
Lists
★
List of cities by country
★
List of cities by latitude
★
List of metropolitan areas by population
★
List of urban areas by population
★
List of cities by population
★
List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
★
Historical urban community sizes
Social problems in the city
★
Environmental racism &
Pollution
★
Ghetto
★
Homelessness
★
Urban decay
★
Shanty towns
References
1. The Indus Civilization - Population at Encyclopædia Britannica.
2. The organization of the grain trade in the early Roman Empire, David Kessler and Peter Temin
3. Rostovtzeff 1941: 1138-39)
4. news.ncsu.edu/releases/2007/may/104.html.
5. City of South Perth
★ 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
★
A Dynamic Map of the World Cities' Growth
★
Largest Cities Through History
★
Most populous city of each country
★
Best Cities
★
Global Culture Essays on cities in the age of globalization
★
City Commentary Magazine (Monthly publication on city life and urban issues in America with special features on international cities, United States)
★
Inner City Press (Weekly publication on cities, United States)
★
''Dictionary of the History of ideas'': The City
★
bifurcaciones.cl, urban cultural studies journal
★
The National League of Cities (United States)
★
African shack dwellers' organisation
★
Evangelizing World Class Cities, contains definitions of a city
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