City

From New World Encyclopedia


An aerial view of the city of Chicago.
Tokyo, the largest metropolis on Earth, at street level.

A city is an urban area with a high population density and a particular administrative, legal, or historical status.

Large industrialized cities generally have advanced systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, transportation, and more. This close proximity greatly facilitates interaction between people and firms, benefiting both parties in the process. However, there is debate now whether the age of technology and instantaneous communication with the use of the Internet are making cities obsolete.

A big city, or metropolis, may have suburbs. Such cities are usually associated with metropolitan areas and urban sprawl, creating large numbers of business commuters. Once a city sprawls far enough to reach another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis.

The birth of cities

There is insufficient evidence to assert what conditions in world history spawned the first cities. Theorists, however, have offered arguments for what the right conditions might have been and have identified some basic mechanisms that might have been the important driving forces.

Cities or agriculture first?

The conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic revolution. The Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city development (Bairoch 1988, p. 3-4). The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon nomadic lifestyles and to choose to settle near others who lived off of agricultural production. The increased population density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per unit of land, created conditions that seem more suitable for city-like activities. In his book, “Cities and Economic Development,” Paul Bairoch takes up this position as he provides a seemingly straightforward argument, which makes agricultural activity appear necessary before true cities can form.

According to Vere Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade (Pacione 2001, p. 16). 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 “Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, [where] the density must have been less than 0.1 person per square kilometer,” (Bairoch 1988, p. 13) as an example.

Using this population density as a base for calculation, and allotting 10 percent of food towards surplus for trade and assuming that there is no farming taking place among the city dwellers, he calculates that “in order to maintain a city with a population of 1,000, and without taking the cost of transportation into account, an area of 100,000 square kilometers would have been required. When the cost of transportation is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometers..." (Bairoch 1988, p. 13). Bairoch noted that 200,000 square kilometers is roughly the size of Great Britain.

In her book “The Economy of Cities,” Jane Jacobs makes the controversial claim that city-formation preceded the birth of agriculture. Jacobs does not lend her theory to any strict definition of a city, but her account suggestively contrasts what could only be thought of as primitive city-like activity to the activity occurring in neighboring hunter-gatherer settlements.

To argue that cities came first, Jacobs offers a fictitious scenario where a valued natural resource leads to primitive economic activity that eventually creates conditions for the discovery of grain culture. Jacobs calls the imaginary city New Obsidian, where a stock of obsidian is controlled and traded with neighboring hunting groups. Those that do not control the stock demand the obsidian, so hunters travel great distances to barter what they have. Hunters value obsidian because “[o]bsidian makes the sharpest tools to be had" (Jacobs 1969, p. 23). Hunters arrive with live animals and produce, providing New Obsidian with food imports. When New Obsidians want goods that they do not have access to at their settlement, they take the obsidian as a currency to other settlements for trade. This basic economic activity turns the little city into a sort of “depot” where, in addition to exporting obsidian, a service of obtaining, handling and trading of goods that are brought in from elsewhere are made available for secondary customers.

This activity brings more people to the center as jobs are created and goods are being traded. Among the goods traded are seeds of all different sorts and they are stored in unprecedented combinations. In various ways, some accidental, the seeds are sown, and the variation in yields among the different types of seeds are readily observed, more readily than they would in the wild. The seeds that yield the most grain are noticed and trading them begins to occur within the city. Owing to this local dealing, New Obsidians find that their grain yields are the best and for the first time “the selection becomes deliberate and conscious. The choices made now are purposeful, and they are made among various strains of already cultivated crosses, and their crosses, mutants, and hybrids (Jacobs 1969, p. 23). The new way of producing food allows for food surplus and the surplus is offset by the population increase that results from an increase in labor that the new production method has created.

The new source of food allows New Obsidian to switch its imports from mostly food, to mostly other materials that neighboring settlements are rich in, but could not barter with before. The craftsman that develop in New Obsidian make good use of the explosion of the new material imports and the work to be done increases rapidly, along with the population as neighboring settlements are absorbed by the city activities.

Why do cities form?

Theorists have suggested many possible reasons for why people would have originally decided to come together to form dense populations. In his book “City Economics,” Brendan O’Flaherty asserts “Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages" (O'Flaherty 2005, p. 12). O’Flaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known as increasing returns to scale and economies of scale, which are concepts normally associated with firms, but 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” (O'Flaherty 2005, p. 572-573). To offer an example of these concepts, O’Flaherty makes use of “one of the oldest reasons why cities were built: military protection” (O'Flaherty 2005, p. 13). In this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for protection (i.e.: a wall) and the output is the area protected and everything of value contained in it. O’Flaherty then asks that we suppose that the area to be protected is square and each hectare inside it has the same value of protection. The advantage is expressed as: (O'Flaherty 2005, p. 13).

(1) , where "O" is the output (area protected) and "s" stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that output is proportional to the square of the length of a side.

The inputs depend on the length of the perimeter:

(2) , where "I" stands for the quantity of inputs. This equation shows that the perimeter is proportional to the length of a side.

So there are increasing returns to scale:

(3) . This equation (algebraically, combining (1) and (2)) shows that with twice the inputs, you produce quadruple the output.

Also, economies of scale:

(4) . This equation (combining (1) and (2)) shows that the same output requires less input.

“Cities, then, economize on protection, and so protection against marauding barbarian armies is one reason why people have come together to live in cities...” (O'Flaherty 2005, p. 13).

Similarly, “Are Cities Dying?” [1] by Edward L. Glaeser, delves into similar reasons for city formation: reduced transport costs for goods, people, and ideas. An interesting piece from Glaeser’s article is his argument about the benefits of proximity. He claims that if you double a city size, workers have a 10-percent increase in earnings. Glaeser furthers his argument by logically stating that bigger cities don’t pay more for equal productivity in a smaller city, so it is reasonable then to assume that workers actually become more productive if you move them to a city twice the size than they initially worked in. However, the workers don’t really benefit from the 10-percent wage increase because it is recycled back into the higher cost of living in a bigger city.


History

Towns and cities have a long history, although opinions vary on whether any particular ancient settlement can be considered to be a city. A city formed as central places of trade for the benefit of the members living in close proximity to others facilitates interaction of all kinds. These interactions generate both positive and negative externalities between other’s actions. Benefits include reduced transport costs, exchange of ideas, sharing of natural resources, large local markets, and later in their development, amenities such as running water and sewage disposal. Possible costs would include higher rate of crime, higher mortality rates, higher cost of living, worse pollution, traffic and high commuting times. Cities will grow when the benefits of proximity between people and firms are higher than the cost. 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. In 1950 Gordon Childe attempted to define a historic city with 10 general metrics[2]. These are:

  1. Size and density of the population should be above normal.
  2. Differentiation of the population. Not all residents grow their own food leading to specialists.
  3. Payment of taxes to a deity or king.
  4. Monumental public buildings.
  5. Those not producing their own food are supported by the king.
  6. Systems of recording and practical science.
  7. A system of writing.
  8. Development of symbolic art.
  9. Trade and import of raw materials.
  10. Specialist craftsmen from outside the kin-group.

This categorization is descriptive, and not all ancients cities fit into this well, but it is used as a general touchstone when considering ancient cities.

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

Early cities developed in a number of regions of the ancient world. Mesopotamia can claim the earliest cities, particularly Eridu, Uruk, and Ur. Although it has sometimes been claimed that ancient Egypt lacked urbanism, in fact several types of urban settlements were found in ancient times. The Indus Valley Civilization and China are two other areas of the Old World with major indigenous urban traditions. Among the early Old World cities, Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley Civilization in present-day Pakistan was one of the largest, with an estimated population of 40,000 or more.[3] Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, the large Indus capitals, were among the first cities to use grid plans, drainage, flush toilets, urban sanitation systems, and sewage systems. At a somewhat later time, a distinctive urban tradition developed in the Khmer region of Cambodia, where Angkor grew into one of the largest cities (in area) the world has ever seen.

In the ancient Americas, early urban traditions developed in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Mesoamerica saw the rise of early urbanism in several cultural regions, including the Classic Maya, the Zapotec of Oaxaca, and Teotihuacan in central Mexico. Later cultures such as the Aztec drew on these earlier urban traditions. In the Andes, the first urban centers developed in the Chavin and Moche cultures, followed by major cities in the Huari, Chimu and Inca cultures.

This 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.

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 centers 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.

Keith Hopkins estimates that ancient Rome had a population of about a million people by the end of the first century B.C.E., after growing continually during the third second, and first centuries B.C.E.[4] 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 C.E. that counted 180,000 adult male citizens in Alexandria.[5] Similar administrative, commercial, industrial and ceremonial centers emerged in other areas, most notably medieval Baghdad, which according to George Modelski, later became the first city to exceed a population of one million by the eighth century instead of Rome.[6]

While David Kessler and Peter Temin consider ancient Rome to be the largest city before nineteenth-century London,[7] George Modelski considers medieval Baghdad, with an estimated population of 1.2 million at its peak, to be the largest city before nineteenth-century London.[6] Others estimate that Baghdad's population may have been as large as two million in the nine century.[8]

Agriculture was practiced in sub-Saharan Africa since the third millennium B.C.E. Because of this, cities were able to develop as centers of non-agricultural activity. Exactly when this first happened is still a topic of archeological and historical investigation. Western scholarship has tended to focus on cities in Europe and Mesopotamia, but emerging archeological evidence indicates that urbanization occurred south of the Sahara in well before the influence of Arab urban culture. The oldest sites documented thus far are from around 500 C.E., including Awdaghust, Kumbi-Saleh the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda a center located on a trade rout between Egypt and Gao.[9]

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 sixteenth century, Europe's larger capitals benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an Atlantic trade. By the late-eighteenth 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 locations in the world contained more than 100,000 inhabitants: as late as 1700 there were fewer than 40, 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-eighteenth 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 40 to 80 percent during 1900-1990. Today the world's population is slightly over half urban, 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 heat-absorbent surfaces that heat up in sunlight and that channel rainwater into underground ducts.

Waste and sewage are two major problems for cities, as is air pollution coming from various forms of combustion, including fireplaces, wood or coal-burning stoves, other heating systems, and internal-combustion engines. 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 makes using auto mobiles inconvenient and pedestrian traffic is more prominent in metropolitan areas than a rural or suburban one.

Cities also generate positive external effects. The close physical proximity facilitates knowledge spillovers, helping people and firms exchange information and generate new ideas. A thicker labor market allows for better skill-matching between firms and individuals. Another positive external effect of cities comes from the diverse social opportunities created when people of different backgrounds are brought together. Larger cities typically offer a wider variety of social interests and activities, letting people of all backgrounds find something they can be involved in.

Cities may however also have a positive influence on the environment. UN Habitat stated in its reports that city living can be the best solution for dealing with the rising population numbers (and thus still be a good approach on dealing with overpopulation).[10] This is because cities concentrate human activity into one place, making the environmental damage on other places smaller. Letting the cities have a positive influence however, can only be achieved if urban planning is improved[11] and if the city services are properly maintained.

The difference between towns and cities

The difference between towns and cities is differently understood in different parts of the world. Indeed, languages other than English often use a single word for both concepts (French ville, German Stadt, Swedish stad, etc.). Even within the English-speaking world there is no one standard 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. And the word "town" (also "downtown") may mean the center of the city.

Global cities

Modern global cities, like New York City, often include large, central-business districts that serve as hubs for economic activity.
File:Teheran Ave night.jpg
Seoul is an example of a beta world city.

A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent center 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.[12]

Other global cities include Singapore which is a city-state, Chicago, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Milan, and Hong Kong which are all classed as "Alpha World Cities" and San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Mexico City, Zürich, Madrid, Sao Paulo, Brussels, Moscow, and Seoul which are "Beta World Cities." A third tier containing Barcelona, Antwerp, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon, Osaka, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Montreal, Manila, Rome, Washington, D.C., Berlin, and Santiago, among others, is called "Gamma world cities."

Hamburg is considered a gamma world city.

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, Delhi, Mumbai, Istanbul, Mecca, Mashhad, Karbala, Karachi, Lahore, Jerusalem, 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: 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.

Social problems in the city

Pollution

Motor-vehicle emissions are one of the leading causes of air pollution in cities. China, the United States, Russia, Mexico, and Japan are the world leaders in air-pollution emissions. Principal, stationary-pollution sources include chemical plants, coal-fired power plants, [[oil refineries], petrochemical plants, nuclear-waste disposal activity, incinerators, large livestock farms (dairy cows, pigs, poultry, etc.), PVC factories, metals-production factories, plastics factories, and other heavy industry.

Adverse air quality can kill many organisms including humans. Ozone pollution can cause respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, throat inflammation, chest pain, and congestion. Water pollution causes approximately 14,000 deaths per day, mostly due to contamination of drinking water by untreated sewage in developing countries. Noise pollution induces hearing loss, high blood pressure, stress, and sleep disturbance. Mercury has been linked to developmental deficits in children and neurologic symptoms. Lead and other heavy metals have been shown to cause neurological problems. Chemical and radioactive substances can cause cancer and as well as birth defects.

Ghetto

A ghetto is an area where people from a specific ethnic background, culture, or religion live in seclusion, voluntarily or more commonly involuntarily with varying degrees of enforcement by the dominant social group. The first ghettos were established to confine Jewish populations in Europe. They were surrounded by walls, segregating and so-called "protecting them" from the rest of society. In the Nazi era these ghettos served to confine, and subsequently exterminate Jews in massive numbers.

Today, the term ghetto is used to describe a blighted area of a city containing a concentrated and segregated population of a disliked minority group. These concentrations of population may be planned, as through government-sponsored housing projects, or the unplanned result of self-segregation and migration. Often municipalities will build highways and set up industrial districts around the ghetto to further isolate it from the rest of the city. The continued existence of ghettos in many parts of the world is a blight upon humanity that requires resolution.

Homelessness

Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter.

The term "homelessness" may also include people whose primary nighttime residence is in a homeless shelter, in an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or in a public or private place not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

An estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless.

Shanty towns

Shanty towns (also called squatter-settlement camps, favelas, or Georgie Slums) are settlements (sometimes illegal or unauthorized) of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap plywood, corrugated metal, and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity, or telephone services.

Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, or partially developed nations with an unequal distribution of wealth (or, on occasion, developed countries in a severe recession). In extreme cases, shanty towns have populations approaching that of a city.

Urban decay

Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring, property abandonment, high unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate and unfriendly urban landscapes.

The effects of urban decay run counter to the development patterns found in most cities in Europe and countries outside of North America, where slums are usually located on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas while the city center and inner city retain high real-estate values and a steady or increasing population. In contrast, North American cities often experienced an outflux of population to city suburbs or exurbs, as in the case of white flight. This trend has started to reverse in some cities, where affluent parts of the population have moved back into erstwhile blighted areas.

There is no single cause of urban decay, though it may be triggered by a combination of interrelated factors, including urban-planning decisions, poverty, the development of freeways and railway lines, suburbanization, redlining, immigration restrictions, and racial discrimination.

Notes

  1. Glaeser, Edward L. The Journal of Economic Perspectives: A Journal of the American Economic Association. 12, no. 2, (1998): 139. Nashville, Tenn.: The Association, 1987. ISSN: 0895-3309, OCLC: 87375136
  2. Childe, V. Gordon (April). The Urban Revolution. Town Planning Review 21 (1): 3–19.
  3. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1998) Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press, Karachi and New York.
  4. On The Political Economy of the Roman Empire, Keith Hopkins
  5. Rostovtzeff 1941: 1138-39)
  6. 6.0 6.1 George Modelski, World Cities: –3000 to 2000, Washington DC: FAROS 2000, 2003. ISBN 2-00309-499-4. See also Evolutionary World Politics Homepage.
  7. The organization of the grain trade in the early Roman Empire, David Kessler and Peter Temin
  8. Trudy Ring, Robert M. Salkin, K. A. Berney, Paul E. Schellinger (1996), International dictionary of historic places, Volume 4: Middle East and Africa, Taylor and Francis 
  9. History of African Cities South of the Sahara By Catherine Coquery -Vidrovitch. 2005. ISBN 1558763031
  10. UN Habitat calling urban living 'a good thing
  11. Un Habitat calling to rethink urban planning
  12. 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

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Bairoch, Paul. Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0226034652
  • Monti, Daniel J., Jr. The American City: A Social and Cultural History. Oxford, Eng./ Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. ISBN 978-1-55786-918-0
  • O'Flaherty, Brendan. City Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0674019188
  • Pacione, Michael. The City: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. New York: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 978-0415252709

External links

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