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A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agreed definition of the lower boundary for their size. In a narrower sense, a city can be defined as a permanent and Urban density populated place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, , sanitation, Public utilities, land use, Manufacturing, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations, and , sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving the efficiency of goods and service distribution.
Historically, city dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for sustainability. Present-day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan areas and —creating numerous Commuting traveling toward for employment, entertainment, and education. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are to varying degrees also connected globally beyond these regions. This increased influence means that cities also have significant influences on global issues, such as sustainable development, climate change, and global health. Because of these major influences on global issues, the international community has prioritized investment in Sustainable city through Sustainable Development Goal 11. Due to the efficiency of transportation and the smaller land consumption, Urban density cities hold the potential to have a smaller ecological footprint per inhabitant than more sparsely populated areas. Therefore, Compact city are often referred to as a crucial element in fighting climate change. However, this concentration can also have some significant harmful effects, such as forming urban heat islands, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources.
National use a variety of definitions – invoking factors such as population, population density, number of , economic function, and infrastructure – to classify populations as urban.
According to the "functional definition", a city is not distinguished by size alone, but also by the role it plays within a larger political context. Cities serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas.Smith, " Earliest Cities ", in Gmelch & Zenner (2002).Marshall (1989), pp. 14–15. The presence of a literate elite is often associated with cities because of the cultural diversities present in a city.Prokopovych, M. (13 May 2015). Literary and artistic metropolises. EGO. Retrieved 5 March 2023, from http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/crossroads/courts-and-cities/markian-prokopovych-rosemary-h-sweet-literary-and-artistic-metropolisesKaplan et al. (2004), pp. 23–24. A typical city has professional administrators, regulations, and some form of taxation (food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to support the Civil service. (This arrangement contrasts with the more typically egalitarianism relationships in a tribe or village accomplishing common goals through informal agreements between neighbors, or the leadership of a chief.) The governments may be based on heredity, religion, military power, work systems such as canal-building, food distribution, land-ownership, agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, finance, or a combination of these. Societies that live in cities are often called .
In the United Kingdom, city status is awarded by the Crown and then remains permanent, with only two exceptions to this rule due to policy changes. A lack of official qualifying criteria results in some particularly small cities, notably St Davids with a population of 1,751 .
In toponymic terminology, names of individual cities and towns are called astionyms (from Ancient Greek italic=no 'city or town' and italic=no 'name').
Urban areas as a rule cannot produce their own food and therefore must develop some city region with a hinterland that sustains them.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 155–156. Only in special cases such as which play a vital role in long-distance trade, are cities disconnected from the countryside which feeds them.Marshall (1989), p. 15. "The mutual interdependence of town and country has one consequence so obvious that it is easily overlooked: at the global scale, cities are generally confined to areas capable of supporting a permanent agricultural population. Moreover, within any area possessing a broadly uniform level of agricultural productivity, there is a rough but definite association between the density of the rural population and the average spacing of cities above any chosen minimum size." Thus, centrality within a productive region influences siting, as economic forces would, in theory, favor the creation of marketplaces in optimal mutually reachable locations.
In a radial structure, main roads converge on a central point. This form could evolve from successive growth over a long time, with concentric traces of and marking older city boundaries. In more recent history, such forms were supplemented by moving traffic around the outskirts of a town. Dutch cities such as Amsterdam and Haarlem are structured as a central square surrounded by concentric canals marking every expansion. In cities such as Moscow, this pattern is still clearly visible.
A system of rectilinear city streets and land plots, known as the grid plan, has been used for millennia in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The Indus Valley Civilization built Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and other cities on a grid pattern, using ancient principles described by Kautilya, and aligned with the compass points.Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives; ABC-CLIO, 2008; pp. 231 , 346 . The ancient Greek city of Priene exemplifies a grid plan with specialized districts used across the Hellenistic Mediterranean.
Metropolitan areas include and organized around the needs of commuting, and sometimes edge city characterized by a degree of economic and political independence. (In the US these are grouped into metropolitan statistical areas for purposes of demography and marketing.) Some cities are now part of a continuous urban landscape called urban agglomeration, conurbation, or megalopolis (exemplified by the BosWash corridor of the Northeastern United States.)
Cities, characterized by population density, function, and urban planning, have existed for thousands of years.Nick Compton, "What is the oldest city in the world?", The Guardian, 16 February 2015. In the conventional view, civilization and the city were both followed by the development of agriculture, which enabled the production of surplus food and thus a social division of labor (with concomitant social stratification) and trade. Early cities often featured granary, sometimes within a temple.Kaplan et al. (2004), p. 26. "Early cities also reflected these preconditions in that they served as places where agricultural surpluses were stored and distributed. Cities functioned economically as centers of extraction and redistribution from countryside to granaries to the urban population. One of the main functions of this central authority was to extract, store, and redistribute the grain. It is no accident that granaries—storage areas for grain—were often found within the temples of early cities." A minority viewpoint considers that cities may have arisen without agriculture, due to alternative means of subsistence (fishing),
In the fourth and third millennium BC, complex civilizations flourished in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, India,
Among the early Old World cities, Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley civilization in present-day Pakistan, existing from about 2600 BC, was one of the largest, with a population of 50,000 or more and a sophisticated sanitation system. China's planned cities were constructed according to sacred principles to act as celestial microcosms.Southall (1998), pp. 38–43.
The Ancient Egyptian cities known physically by archaeologists are not extensive. They include (known by their Arab names) El Lahun, a workers' town associated with the pyramid of Senusret II, and the religious city Amarna built by Akhenaten and abandoned. These sites appear planned in a highly regimented and stratified fashion, with a minimalistic grid of rooms for the workers and increasingly more elaborate housing available for higher classes.Moholy-Nagy (1968), pp. 158–161.
In Mesopotamia, the civilization of Sumer, followed by Assyria and Babylon, gave rise to numerous cities, governed by kings and fostered multiple languages written in cuneiform. The trading empire, flourishing around the turn of the first millennium BC, encompassed numerous cities extending from Tyre, Cydon, and Byblos to Carthage and Cádiz.
In the following centuries, independent of Ancient Greece, especially Classical Athens, developed the polis, an association of male landowning citizenship who collectively constituted the city. The agora, meaning "gathering place" or "assembly", was the center of the athletic, artistic, spiritual, and political life of the polis.
In the ancient Americas, early urban traditions developed in the Andes and Mesoamerica. In the Andes, the first urban centers developed in the Norte Chico civilization, Chavin and Moche cultures, followed by major cities in the Huari culture, Chimu, and Inca cultures. The Norte Chico civilization included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. It is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, flourishing between the 30th and 18th centuries BC. Mesoamerica saw the rise of early urbanism in several cultural regions, beginning with the Olmec and spreading to the Maya city, the Zapotec of Oaxaca, and Teotihuacan in central Mexico. Later cultures such as the Aztec, Andean civilizations, Maya peoples, Mississippians, and Pueblo peoples drew on these earlier urban traditions. Many of their ancient cities continue to be inhabited, including major metropolitan cities such as Mexico City, in the same location as Tenochtitlan; while ancient continuously inhabited Pueblos are near modern urban areas in New Mexico, such as Acoma Pueblo near the Albuquerque metropolitan area and Taos Pueblo near Taos; while others like Lima are located nearby ancient sites such as Pachacamac.
From 1600 BC, Dhar Tichitt, in the south of present-day Mauritania, presented characteristics suggestive of an incipient form of urbanism. The second place to show urban characteristics in West Africa was Dia, in present-day Mali, from 800 BC. Both Dhar Tichitt and Dia were founded by the same people: the Soninke people, who would later also found the Ghana Empire.
Another ancient site, Jenné-Jeno, in what is today Mali, has been dated to the third century BCE. According to Roderick and Susan McIntosh, Jenné-Jeno did not fit into traditional Western conceptions of urbanity as it lacked monumental architecture and a distinctive elite social class, but it should indeed be considered a city based on a functional redefinition of urban development. In particular, Jenné-Jeno featured settlement mounds arranged according to a horizontal, rather than vertical, power hierarchy, and served as a center of specialized production and exhibited functional interdependence with the surrounding hinterland.McIntosh, Roderic J., McIntosh, Susan Keech. "Early Urban Configurations on the Middle Niger: Clustered Cities and Landscapes of Power," Chapter 5.
More recently, scholars have concluded that the civilization of Djenne-Djenno was likely established by the Mande progenitors of the Bozo people. Their habitation of the site spanned the period from 3rd century BCE to 13th century CE. Archaeological evidence from Jenné-Jeno, specifically the presence of non-West African glass beads dated from the third century BCE to the fourth century CE, indicates that pre-Arabic trade contacts probably existed between Jenné-Jeno and North Africa.
Additionally, other early urban centers in West Africa, dated to around 500 CE, include Aoudaghost, Koumbi Saleh, the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda, a center located on a trade route between Egypt and Gao. History of African Cities South of the Sahara By Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch. 2005.
In the Holy Roman Empire, beginning in the 12th century, free imperial cities such as Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Basel, Zürich, and Nijmegen became a privileged elite among towns having won self-governance from their local lord or having been granted self-governance by the emperor and being placed under his immediate protection. By 1480, these cities, as far as still part of the empire, became part of the Imperial Estates governing the empire with the emperor through the Imperial Diet.
By the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities had become powerful states, taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. In Italy, developed into city-states including the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa. In Northern Europe, cities including Lübeck and Bruges formed the Hanseatic League for collective defense and commerce. Their power was later challenged and eclipsed by the Dutch commercial cities of Ghent, Ypres, and Amsterdam.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 47–50.
In the first millennium AD, the Khmer Empire capital of Angkor in Cambodia grew into the most extensive preindustrial settlement in the world by area,Evans et al., A comprehensive archaeological map of the world's largest preindustrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, 23 August 2007." Map reveals ancient urban sprawl ", BBC News, 14 August 2007. covering over and possibly supporting up to one million people. Metropolis: Angkor, the world's first mega-city , The Independent, 15 August 2007
West Africa already had cities before the Common Era, but the consolidation of Trans-Saharan trade in the Middle Ages multiplied the number of cities in the region, as well as making some of them very populous, notably Gao (72,000 inhabitants in 800 AD), Old Oyo (50,000 inhabitants in 1400 AD, and may have reached up to 140,000 inhabitants in the 18th century), Ile-Ifẹ̀ (70,000 to 105,000 inhabitants in the 14th and 15th centuries), Niani (50,000 inhabitants in 1400 AD) and Timbuktu (100,000 inhabitants in 1450 AD). African cities from 500 AD to 1900 By David Satterthwaite. 2021.
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 regarding administration, finances, and urbanism.
Some industrialized cities were confronted with health challenges associated with overcrowding, occupational hazards of industry, contaminated water and air, poor sanitation, and communicable diseases such as typhoid and cholera. Factories and emerged as regular features of the urban landscape.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 54–55.
Amidst these economic changes, high technology and instantaneous telecommunication enable select cities to become centers of the knowledge economy.Flew, T. (2008). New media: an introduction, 3rd edn, South Melbourne: Oxford University PressHarford, T. (2008) The Logic of Life. London: Little, Brown. A new smart city paradigm, supported by institutions such as the RAND Corporation and IBM, is bringing computerized surveillance, data analysis, and E-governance to bear on cities and city dwellers. Some companies are building brand-new master-planned cities from scratch on greenfield land sites.
Urbanization rapidly spread across Europe and the Americas and since the 1950s has taken hold in Asia and Africa as well. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs reported in 2014 that for the first time, more than half of the world population lives in cities.Somini Sengupta, " U.N. Finds Most People Now Live in Cities "; The New York Times, 10 July 2014. Referring to: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division; World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision ; New York: United Nations, 2014.
Latin America is the most urban continent, with four-fifths of its population living in cities, including one-fifth of the population said to live in (, poblaciones callampas, etc.).Paulo A. Paranagua, " Latin America struggles to cope with record urban growth " (), The Guardian, 11 September 2012. Referring to UN-Habitat, The State of Latin American and Caribbean Cities 2012: Towards a new urban transition ; Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2012. Batam, Indonesia, Mogadishu, Somalia, Xiamen, China, and Niamey, Niger, are considered among the world's fastest-growing cities, with annual growth rates of 5–8%.Helen Massy-Beresford, " Where is the fastest growing city in the world? "; The Guardian, 18 November 2015. In general, the more developed countries of the "Global North" remain more urbanized than the less developed countries of the "Global South"—but the difference continues to shrink because urbanization is happening faster in the latter group. Asia is home to by far the greatest absolute number of city-dwellers: over two billion and counting. The UN predicts an additional 2.5 billion city dwellers (and 300 million fewer country dwellers) worldwide by 2050, with 90% of urban population expansion occurring in Asia and Africa.Mark Anderson & Achilleas Galatsidas, " Urban population boom poses massive challenges for Africa and Asia " The Guardian (Development data: Datablog), 10 July 2014.
Megacities, cities with populations in the multi-millions, have proliferated into the dozens, arising especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.Kaplan et al. (2004), p. 15. "Global cities need to be distinguished from megacities, defined here as cities with more than 8 million people. ... Only New York and London qualified as megacities 50 years ago. By 1990, just over 10 years ago, 20 megacities existed, 15 of which were in less economically developed regions of the world. In 2000, the number of megacities had increased to 26, again all except 6 are located in the less developed world regions."Frauke Kraas & Günter Mertins, "Megacities and Global Change"; in Kraas et al. (2014), p. 2. "While seven megacities (with more than five million inhabitants) existed in 1950 and 24 in 1990, by 2010 there were 55 and by 2025 there will be—according to estimations—87 megacities (UN 2012; Fig. 1). " Economic globalization fuels the growth of these cities, as new torrents of foreign capital arrange for rapid industrialization, as well as the offshoring from Europe and North America, attracting from near and far.Frauke Kraas & Günter Mertins, "Megacities and Global Change"; in Kraas et al. (2014), pp. 2–3. "Above all, globalisation processes were and are the motors that drive these enormous changes and are also the driving forces, together with transformation and liberalisation policies, behind the economic developments of the last c. 25 years (in China, especially the so-called socialism with Chinese characteristics that started under Deng Xiaoping in 1978/1979, in India essentially during the course of the economic reform policies of the so-called New Economic Policy as of 1991"; Cartier 2001; Nissel 1999). Especially in megacities, these reforms led to enormous influx of foreign direct investments, to intensive industrialization processes through international relocation of production locations and depending upon the location, partially to considerable expansion of the services sector with increasing demand for office space as well as to a reorientation of national support policies—with a not to be mistaken influence of transnationally acting conglomerates but also considerable transfer payments from overseas communities. In turn, these processes are flanked and intensified through, at times, massive migration movements of national and international migrants into the megacities (Baur et al. 2006). A deep gulf divides the rich and poor in these cities, which usually contain a super-wealthy elite living in gated community and large masses of people living in substandard housing with inadequate infrastructure and otherwise poor conditions.Shipra Narang Suri & Günther Taube, "Governance in Megacities: Experiences, Challenges and Implications for International Cooperation"; in Kraas et al. (2014), p. 196.
Cities around the world have expanded physically as they grow in population, with increases in their surface extent, with the creation of high-rise buildings for residential and commercial use, and with development underground.Eduardo F.J. de Mulder, Jacques Besner, & Brian Marker, "Underground Cities"; in Kraas et al. (2014), pp. 26–29.
Urbanization can create rapid demand for water resources management, as formerly good sources of freshwater become overused and polluted, and the volume of sewage begins to exceed manageable levels.
The chief official of the city is very often called the "mayor". Whatever their true degree of political authority, the mayor typically acts as the figurehead or personification of their city.: "The figurehead of city leadership is, of course, the mayor. As 'first citizen', mayors are often associated with political parties, yet many of the most successful mayors are often those whoare able to speak 'for' their city. Rudy Giuliani, for example, while pursuing a neo-liberal political agenda, was often seen as being outside the mainstream of the national Republican party. Furthermore, mayors are often crucial in articulating the interests of their cities to external agents, be they national governments or major public and private investors."
Legal conflicts and issues arise more frequently in cities than elsewhere due to the bare fact of their greater density.McQuillan (1937/1987), §1.63. "The problem of achieving equitable balance between the two freedoms is infinitely greater in urban, metropolitan and megalopolitan situations than in sparsely settled districts and rural areas. / In the latter, sheer intervening space acts as a buffer between the privacy and well-being of one resident and the potential encroachments thereon by his neighbors in the form of noise, air or water pollution, absence of sanitation, or whatever. In a congested urban situation, the individual is powerless to protect himself from the "free" (i.e., inconsiderate or invasionary) acts of others without himself being guilty of a form of encroachment." Modern city governments thoroughly regulation everyday life in many dimensions, including public health and personal health, transport, burial, resource use and extraction, recreation, and the nature and use of . Technologies, techniques, and laws governing these areas—developed in cities—have become ubiquitous in many areas.McQuillan (1937/1987), §1.08.
Municipal officials may be appointed from a higher level of government or elected locally.McQuillan (1937/1987), §1.33.
The related concept of good governance places more emphasis on the state, with the purpose of assessing urban governments for their suitability for development assistance.Gupta, Verrest, and Jaffe, "Theorizing Governance", in Gupta et al. (2015), pp. 31–33. "The concept of good governance itself was developed in the 1980s, primarily to guide donors in development aid (Doonbos 2001:93). It has been used both as a condition for aid and a development goal in its own right. Key terms in definitions of good governance include participation, accountability, transparency, equity, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, and rule of law (e.g. Ginther and de Waart 1995; UNDP 1997; Woods 1999; Weiss 2000). ... At the urban level, this normative model has been articulated through the idea of good urban governance, promoted by agencies such as UN Habitat. The Colombian city of Bogotá has sometimes been presented as a model city, given its rapid improvements in fiscal responsibility, provision of public services and infrastructure, public behavior, honesty of the administration, and civic pride." The concepts of governance and good governance are especially invoked in emergent megacities, where international organizations consider existing governments inadequate for their large populations.Shipra Narang Suri & Günther Taube, "Governance in Megacities: Experiences, Challenges and Implications for International Cooperation"; in Kraas et al. (2014), pp. 197–198.
Government is legally the final authority on planning but in practice, the process involves both public and private elements. The legal principle of eminent domain is used by the government to divest citizens of their property in cases where its use is required for a project.McQuillin (1937/1987), §§1.75–179. "Zoning, a relatively recent development in the administration of local governmental units, concerns itself with the control of the use of land and structures, the size of buildings, and the use-intensity of building sites. Zoning being an exercise of the police power, it must be justified by such considerations as the protection of public health and safety, the preservation of taxable property values, and the enhancement of community welfare. ... Municipal powers to implement and effectuate city plans are usually ample. Among these is the power of eminent domain, which has been used effectively in connection with slum clearance and the rehabilitation of blighted areas. Also available to cities in their implementation of planning objectives are municipal powers of zoning, subdivision control and the regulation of building, housing and sanitation principles." Planning often involves tradeoffs—decisions in which some stand to gain and some to lose—and thus is closely connected to the prevailing political situation.Levy (2017), p. 10. "Planning is a highly political activity. It is immersed in politics and inseparable from the law. ... Planning decisions often involve large sums of money, both public and private. Even when little public expenditure is involved, planning decisions can deliver large benefits to some and large losses at others."
The history of urban planning dates back to some of the earliest known cities, especially in the Indus Valley and Mesoamerican civilizations, which built their cities on grids and apparently zoned different areas for different purposes.Jorge Hardoy, Urban Planning in Pre-Columbian America; New York: George Braziller, 1968. The effects of planning, ubiquitous in today's world, can be seen most clearly in the layout of planned communities, fully designed prior to construction, often with consideration for interlocking physical, economic, and cultural systems.
Landless urban workers, contrasted with and known as the proletariat, form a growing stratum of society in the age of urbanization. In Marxism doctrine, the proletariat will inevitably revolt against the bourgeoisie as their ranks swell with disenfranchised and disaffected people lacking all stake in the status quo. The global urban proletariat of today, however, generally lacks the status of factory workers which in the nineteenth century provided access to the means of production.
As hubs of trade, cities have long been home to retail commerce and consumption through the interface of shopping. In the 20th century, using new techniques of advertising, public relations, decorative arts, and design, transformed urban shopping areas into encouraging self-expression and escape through consumerism.: "Indeed, the design of the buildings often revolves around the consumable fantasy experience, seen most markedly in the likes of Universal CityWalk, Disneyland and Las Vegas. Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable (1997) names architectural structures built specifically as entertainment spaces as 'Architainment'. These places are, of course, places to make money, but they are also stages of performance for an interactive consumer."Leach (1993), pp. 173–176 and passim.
In general, the density of cities expedites commerce and 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. Population density also enables sharing of common infrastructure and production facilities; however, in very dense cities, increased crowding and waiting times may lead to some negative effects.
Although manufacturing fueled the growth of cities, many now rely on a tertiary or service economy. The services in question range from tourism, hospitality, entertainment, and housekeeping to grey-collar work in law, financial consulting, and management.Saskia Sassen, " Global Cities and Survival Circuits "; in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy ed. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild; New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002.
According to a scientific model of cities by Professor Geoffrey West, with the doubling of a city's size, salaries per capita will generally increase by 15%.
Density makes for effective mass communication and transmission of news, through , printed , , and digital media. These communication networks, though still using cities as hubs, penetrate extensively into all populated areas. In the age of rapid communication and transportation, commentators have described urban culture as nearly ubiquitousGraeme Hugo, Anthony Champion, & Alfredo Lattes, " Toward a New Conceptualization of Settlements for Demography ", Population and Development Review 29(2), June 2003.Magnusson (2011), p. 21. "These statistics probably underestimate the degree to which the world has been urbanized, since they obscure the fact that rural areas have become so much more urban as a result of modern transportation and communication. A farmer in Europe or California who checks the markets every morning on the computer, negotiates with product brokers in distant cities, buys food at a supermarket, watches television every night, and takes vacations half a continent away is not exactly living a traditional rural life. In most respects such a farmer is an urbanite living in the countryside, albeit an urbanite who has many good reasons for perceiving himself or herself as a rural person."Mumford (1961), pp. 563–567. "Many of the original functions of the city, once natural monopolies, demanding the physical presence of all participants, have now been transposed into forms capable of swift transportation, mechanical manifolding, electronic transmission, worldwide distribution." or as no longer meaningful.
Today, a city's promotion of its cultural activities dovetails with place branding and city marketing, public diplomacy techniques used to inform development strategy; attract businesses, investors, residents, and tourists; and create shared identity and sense of place within the metropolitan area.Ashworth, Kavaratzis, & Warnaby, "The Need to Rethink Place Branding"; in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth (2015), p. 15.Adriana Campelo, "Rethinking Sense of Place: Sense of One and Sense of Many"; in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth (2015).Greg Kerr & Jessica Oliver, "Rethinking Place Identities", in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth (2015). Physical inscriptions, plaques, and on display physically transmit a historical context for urban places. Some cities, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, and Rome have indelible religious status and for hundreds of years have attracted . Patriotic tourists visit Agra to see the Taj Mahal, or New York City to visit the World Trade Center. Elvis lovers visit Memphis to pay their respects at Graceland. Place brands (which include place satisfaction and place loyalty) have great economic value (comparable to the value of commodity ) because of their influence on the decision-making process of people thinking about doing business in—"purchasing" (the brand of)—a city.
Bread and circuses among other forms of cultural appeal, attract and entertain commoner.Moholy-Nagy (1968), pp. 136–137. "Why do anonymous people—the poor, the underprivileged, the unconnected—frequently prefer life under miserable conditions in tenements to the healthy order and tranquility of small towns or the sanitary subdivisions of semirural developments? The imperial planners and architects knew the answer, which is as valid today as it was 2,000 years ago. Big cities were created as power images of a competitive society, conscious of its achievement potential. Those who came to live in them did so in order to participate and compete on any attainable level. Their aim was to share in public life, and they were willing to pay for this share with personal discomfort. 'Bread and games' was a cry for opportunity and entertainment still ranking foremost among urban objectives."Fred Coalter, " The FIFA World Cup and Social Cohesion: Bread and Circuses or Bread and Butter? "; International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education Bulletin 53 , May 2008 (Feature: Feature: "Mega Sport Events in Developing Countries"). Sports also play a major role in city branding and local identity formation. Cities go to considerable lengths in competing to host the Olympic Games, which bring global attention and tourism.Stephen V. Ward, "Promoting the Olympic City"; in John R. Gold & Margaret M. Gold, eds., Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning and the World's Games, 1896–2016; London & New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2008/2011; . "All this media exposure, provided it is reasonably positive, influences many tourist decisions at the time of the Games. This tourism impact will focus on, but extend beyond, the city to the country and the wider global region. More importantly, there is also huge long term potential for both tourism and investment (Kasimati, 2003).
Powers engaged in geopolitics conflict have established fortified settlements as part of military strategies, as in the case of garrison towns, America's Strategic Hamlet Program during the Vietnam War, and Israeli settlements in Palestine.Ashworth (1991). "In more recent years, planned networks of defended settlements as part of military strategies can be found in the pacification programmes of what has become the conventional wisdom of anti-insurgency operations. Connected networks of protected settlements are inserted as islands of government control into insurgent areas—either defensively to separate existing populations from insurgents or aggressively as a means of extending control over areas—as used by the British in South Africa (1899–1902) and Malaya (1950–3) and by the Americans in Cuba (1898) and Vietnam (1965–75). These were generally small settlements and intended as much for local security as offensive operations. / The planned settlement policy of the State of Israel, however, has been both more comprehensive and has longer-term objectives. ... These settlements provide a source of armed manpower, a defence in depth of a vulnerable frontier area and islands of cultural and political control in the midst of a potentially hostile population, thus continuing a tradition of the use of such settlements as part of similar policies in that area which is over 2,000 years old." While occupying the Philippines, the US Army ordered local people to concentrate in cities and towns, in order to isolate committed insurgents and battle freely against them in the countryside.See Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell's telegraphic circular to all station commanders, 8 December 1901, in Robert D. Ramsey III, A Masterpiece of Counterguerrilla Warfare: BG J. Franklin Bell in the Philippines, 1901–1902 , Long War Series, Occasion Paper 25; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center; pp. 45–46. "Commanding officers will also see that orders are at once given and distributed to all the inhabitants within the jurisdiction of towns over which they exercise supervision, informing them of the danger of remaining outside of these limits and that unless they move by December 25th from outlying barrios and districts with all their movable food supplies, including rice, palay, chickens, live stock, etc., to within the limits of the zone established at their own or nearest town, their property (found outside of said zone at said date) will become liable to confiscation or destruction."Maj. Eric Weyenberg, U.S. Army, Population Isolation in the Philippine War: A Case Study ; School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; January 2015.
During World War II, national governments on occasion declared certain cities open city, effectively surrendering them to an advancing enemy in order to avoid damage and bloodshed. Urban warfare proved decisive, however, in the Battle of Stalingrad, where Soviet forces repulsed German occupiers, with extreme casualties and destruction. In an era of low-intensity conflict and rapid urbanization, cities have become sites of long-term conflict waged both by foreign occupiers and by local governments against insurgency.Ashworth (1991), p. 3. Citing L.C. Peltier and G.E. Pearcy, Military Geography (1966). Such warfare, known as counterinsurgency, involves techniques of surveillance and psychological warfare as well as close combat,R.D. McLaurin & R. Miller. Urban Counterinsurgency: Case Studies and Implications for U.S. Military Forces . Springfield, VA: Abbott Associates, October 1989. Produced for U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. and functionally extends modern urban crime prevention, which already uses concepts such as defensible space.Ashworth (1991), pp. 91–93. "However, some specific sorts of crime, together with those antisocial activities which may or may not be treated as crime (such as vandalism, graffiti daubing, littering and even noisy or boisterous behavior), do play various roles in the process of insurgency. This leads in consequence to defensive reactions on the part of those responsible for public security, and by individual citizens concerned for their personal safety. The authorities react with situational crime prevention as part of the armoury of urban defense, and individuals fashion their behavior according to an 'urban geography of fear'."
Although capture is the more common objective, warfare has in some cases spelled complete destruction for a city. Mesopotamian tablets and ruins attest to such destruction,Adams (1981), p. 132 "Physical destruction and ensuing decline of population were certain to be particularly severe in the case of cities that joined unsuccessful rebellions, or whose ruling dynasts were overcome by others in abbtle. The traditional lamentations provide eloquently stylized literary accounts of this, while in other cases the combinations of archaeological evidence with the testimony of a city's like Ur's victorious opponent as to its destruction grounds the world of metaphor in harsh reality (Brinkman 1969, pp. 311–312)." as does the Latin motto Carthago delenda est.Fabien Limonier, " Rome et la destruction de Carthage: un crime gratuit? " Revue des Études Anciennes 101(3). Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and throughout the Cold War, Nuclear strategy continued to contemplate the use of "countervalue" targeting: crippling an enemy by annihilating its valuable cities, rather than counterforce.Dallas Boyd, " Revealed Preference and the Minimum Requirements of Nuclear Deterrence "; Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2016.
Infrastructure in general plays a vital role in a city's capacity for economic activity and expansion, underpinning the very survival of the city's inhabitants, as well as technological, commercial, industrial, and social activities. Structurally, many infrastructure systems take the form of network theory with redundant links and multiple pathways, so that the system as a whole continues to operate even if parts of it fail.Kath Wellman & Frederik Pretorius, "Urban Infrastructure: Productivity, Project Evaluation, and Finance"; in Wellman & Spiller (2012). The particulars of a city's infrastructure systems have historical path dependence because new development must build from what exists already.
such as the construction of , , and require large upfront investments and thus tend to require funding from the national government or the private sector. Privatization may also extend to all levels of infrastructure construction and maintenance.Kath Wellman & Frederik Pretorius, "Urban Infrastructure: Productivity, Project Evaluation, and Finance"; in Wellman & Spiller (2012), pp. 73–74. "The NCP established a legislative regime at Federal and State levels to facilitate third-party access to provision and operation of infrastructure facilities, including electricity and telecommunications networks, gas and water pipelines, railroad terminals and networks, airports, and ports. Following these reforms, few countries embarked on a larger scale initiative than Australia to privatize delivery and management of public infrastructure at all levels of government."
Urban infrastructure ideally serves all residents equally but in practice may prove uneven—with, in some cities, clear first-class and second-class alternatives.Robert L. Lineberry, "Mandating Urban Equality: The Distribution of Municipal Public Services"; in Hahn & Levine (1980). See: Hawkins v. Town of Shaw (1971).: "By the 1960s, however, this 'integrated ideal' was being challenged, public infrastructure entering into crisis. There is now a new orthodoxy in many branches of urban planning: 'The logic is now for planners to fight for the best possible networked infrastructures for their specialized district, in partnership with (often privatised and internationalised network) operators, rather than seeking to orchestrate how networks roll out through the city as a whole" (Graham and Marvin, 2001: 113).
Sanitation, necessary for good health in crowded conditions, requires water supply and waste management as well as individual hygiene. Urban water systems include principally a water supply network and a network (Sewerage) for sewage and stormwater. Historically, either local governments or private companies have administered urban water supply, with a tendency toward government water supply in the 20th century and a tendency toward private operation at the turn of the twenty-first. The market for private water services is dominated by two French companies, Veolia Water (formerly Vivendi) and Engie (formerly Suez), said to hold 70% of all water contracts worldwide.
Modern urban life relies heavily on the energy transmitted through electricity for the operation of electric machines (from household Home appliance to industrial machines to now-ubiquitous electronics systems used in communications, business, and government) and for , , and indoor lighting. Cities rely to a lesser extent on such as gasoline and natural gas for transportation, heating, and cooking. Telecommunications infrastructure such as and also traverse cities, forming dense networks for mass and point-to-point communications.
City streets historically were the domain of and their riders and , who only sometimes had and transit mall reserved for them.Grava (2003), pp. 15–18. In the West, or (), efficient human-powered machines for short- and medium-distance travel,Grava (2003), enjoyed a period of popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century before the rise of automobiles.Smethurst pp. 67–71. Soon after, they gained a more lasting foothold in Asian and African cities under European influence.Smethurst pp. 105–171. In Western cities, industrializing, electrification, and expanding public transit systems, especially , enabled urban expansion as new residential neighborhoods sprang up along transit lines and workers rode to and from work downtown.
Since the mid-20th century, cities have relied heavily on motor vehicle transportation, with major implications for their layout, environment, and aesthetics.Iain Borden, "Automobile Interstices: Driving and the In-Between Spaces of the City"; in Brighenti (2013). (This transformation occurred most dramatically in the US—where corporate and governmental policies favored automobile transport systems—and to a lesser extent in Europe.) The rise of personal accompanied the expansion of urban economic areas into much larger , subsequently creating ubiquitous traffic issues with the accompanying construction of new , wider streets, and alternative for pedestrians.Moshe Safdie with Wendy Kohn, The City After the Automobile; BasicBooks (HarperCollins), 1997; ; pp. 3–6.Grava (2003), pp. 128–132, 152–157. However, severe traffic jams still occur regularly in cities around the world, as private car ownership and urbanization continue to increase, overwhelming existing urban .
The urban bus system, the world's most common form of public transport, uses a network of scheduled bus route to move people through the city, alongside cars, on the roads.Grava (2003), 301–305. "There are a great many places where buses are the only public service mode offered; to the best of the author's knowledge, no city that has transit operates without a bus component. Leaving aside private cars, all indicators—passengers carried, vehicle kilometers accumulated, size of fleet, accidents recorded, pollution caused, workers employed, or whatever else—show the dominance of buses among all transit modes, in this country as well as anywhere else around the world. ... At the global scale, there are probably 8000 to 10,000 communities and cities that provide organized bus transit. The larger places have other modes as well, but the bulk of these cities offers buses as their sole public means of mobility." The economic function itself also became more decentralized as concentration became impractical and employers relocated to more car-friendly locations (including edge city). Some cities have introduced bus rapid transit systems which include exclusive bus lanes and other methods for prioritizing bus traffic over private cars. Many big American cities still operate conventional public transit by rail, as exemplified by the ever-popular New York City Subway system. Rapid transit is widely used in Europe and has increased in Latin America and Asia.
Walking and cycling ("non-motorized transport") enjoy increasing favor (more and ) in American and Asian urban transportation planning, under the influence of such trends as the healthy city movement, the drive for sustainable development, and the idea of a carfree city. Techniques such as road space rationing and road pricing have been introduced to limit urban car traffic.
Owner-occupancy represents status and a modicum of economic security, compared to renting which may consume much of the income of low-wage urban workers. Homelessness, or lack of housing, is a challenge currently faced by millions of people in countries rich and poor.Ray Forrest & Peter Williams, "Housing in the Twentieth Century"; in Paddison (2001). Because cities generally have higher population densities than rural areas, city dwellers are more likely to reside in and less likely to live in a single-family home.
Typical urban fauna includes (especially ), (mouse, ), and , as well as and (domestication and feral). Large are scarce. However, in North America, large predators such as coyotes and other large animals like white-tailed deer persist.
Cities generate considerable ecological footprints, locally and at longer distances, due to concentrated populations and technological activities. From one perspective, cities are not ecologically sustainable due to their resource needs. From another, proper management may be able to ameliorate a city's ill effects.Roberto Camagni, Roberta Capello, & Peter Nijkamp, "Managing Sustainable Urban Environments"; in Paddison (2001). Air pollution arises from various forms of combustion, including fireplaces, wood or coal-burning stoves, other heating systems, and internal combustion engines. Industrialized cities, and today third-world megacities, are notorious for veils of smog (industrial haze) that envelop them, posing a chronic threat to the health of their millions of inhabitants.Peter Adey, "Coming up for Air: Comfort, Conflict and the Air of the Megacity"; in Brighenti (2013), p. 103. Urban soil contains higher concentrations of heavy metals (especially lead, copper, and nickel) and has lower pH than soil in the comparable wilderness.
Modern cities are known for creating their own , due to concrete, Asphalt concrete, and other artificial surfaces, which heat up in sunlight and channel into Storm drain. The temperature in New York City exceeds nearby rural temperatures by an average of 2–3 °C and at times 5–10 °C differences have been recorded. This effect varies nonlinearly with population changes (independently of the city's physical size). Aerial particulates increase rainfall by 5–10%. Thus, urban areas experience unique climates, with earlier flowering and later leaf dropping than in nearby countries.
Poor and working-class people face disproportionate exposure to environmental risks (known as environmental racism when intersecting also with racial segregation). For example, within the urban microclimate, less-vegetated poor neighborhoods bear more of the heat (but have fewer means of coping with it).Sharon L. Harlan, Anthony J. Brazel, G. Darrel Jenerette, Nancy S. Jones, Larissa Larsen, Lela Prashad, & William L. Stefanov, "In the Shade of Affluence: The Inequitable Distribution of the Urban Heat Island"; in Robert C. Wilkinson & William R. Freudenburg, eds., Equity and the Environment (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 15); Oxford: JAI Press (Elsevier); .
One of the main methods of improving the urban ecology is including in the cities more urban green spaces: parks, gardens, lawns, and trees. These areas improve the health and well-being of the human, animal, and plant populations of the cities. Well-maintained urban trees can provide many social, ecological, and physical benefits to the residents of the city.
A study published in Scientific Reports in 2019 found that people who spent at least two hours per week in nature were 23 percent more likely to be satisfied with their life and were 59 percent more likely to be in good health than those who had zero exposure. The study used data from almost 20,000 people in the UK. Benefits increased for up to 300 minutes of exposure. The benefits are applied to men and women of all ages, as well as across different ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and even those with long-term illnesses and disabilities. People who did not get at least two hours – even if they surpassed an hour per week – did not get the benefits. The study is the latest addition to a compelling body of evidence for the health benefits of nature. Many doctors already give nature prescriptions to their patients. The study did not count time spent in a person's own yard or garden as time in nature, but the majority of nature visits in the study took place within two miles of home. "Even visiting local urban green spaces seems to be a good thing," Dr. White said in a press release. "Two hours a week is hopefully a realistic target for many people, especially given that it can be spread over an entire week to get the benefit."
Critics of the notion point to the different realms of power and interchange. The term "global city" is heavily influenced by economic factors and, thus, may not account for places that are otherwise significant. Paul James, for example argues that the term is "reductive and skewed" in its focus on financial systems.
Multinational corporations and make their headquarters in global cities and conduct much of their business within this context.Kaplan (2004), 99–106. American firms dominate the international markets for law firm and engineering and maintain branches in the biggest foreign global cities.Kaplan (2004), pp. 91–95. "The United States is also dominant in providing high-quality, global engineering-design services, accounting for approximately 50 percent of the world's total exports. The disproportionate presence of these U.S.-headquartered firms is attributable to the U.S. role in overseas automobile production, the electronics and petroleum industries, and various kinds of construction, including work on the country's numerous overseas air and navy military bases."
Large cities have a great divide between populations of both ends of the financial spectrum.Kaplan (2004), pp. 90–92. Regulations on immigration promote the exploitation of low- and high-skilled immigrant workers from poor areas.
New urban dwellers are increasingly transmigrants, keeping one foot each (through telecommunications if not travel) in their old and their new homes.
Networks have become especially prevalent in the arena of environmentalism and specifically climate change following the adoption of Agenda 21. Environmental city networks include the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA), the Covenant of Mayors and the Compact of Mayors,Now the Global Covenant of Mayors; see: ICLEI, and the Transition town.
Cities hold world political status as meeting places for advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, lobbyists, educational institutions, intelligence agencies, military contractors, information technology firms, and other groups with a stake in world policymaking. They are consequently also sites for symbolic protest.
South Africa has one of the highest rates of protests in the world. Pretoria, a city in South Africa, had a rally where five thousand people took part in order to advocate for increasing wages to afford living costs.
UN-Habitat coordinates the U.N. urban agenda, working with the UN Environmental Programme, the UN Development Programme, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank.
The World Bank, a U.N. specialized agency, has been a primary force in promoting the Habitat conferences, and since the first Habitat conference has used their declarations as a framework for issuing loans for urban infrastructure. The bank's structural adjustment programs contributed to urbanization in the Third World by creating incentives to move to cities.Akin Mabogunje, "A New Paradigm for Urban Development"; Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1991. "Irrespective of the economic outcome, the regime of structural adjustment being adopted in most developing countries today is likely to spur urbanization. If structural adjustment actually succeeds in turning around economic performance, the enhanced gross domestic product is bound to attract more migrants to the cities; if it fails, the deepening misery—especially in the rural areas—is certain to push more migrants to the city."John Briggs and Ian E.A. Yeboah, " Structural adjustment and the contemporary sub-Saharan African city "; Area 33(1), 2001. The World Bank and UN-Habitat in 1999 jointly established the Cities Alliance (based at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.) to guide policymaking, knowledge sharing, and grant distribution around the issue of urban poverty.Claire Wanjiru Ngare, " Supporting Learning Cities: A Case Study of the Cities Alliance "; master's thesis accepted at the University of Ottawa, April 2012. (UN-Habitat plays an advisory role in evaluating the quality of a locality's governance.) The Bank's policies have tended to focus on bolstering real estate markets through credit and technical assistance.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has increasingly focused on cities as key sites for influencing cultural governance. It has developed various city networks including the International Coalition of Cities against Racism and the Creative Cities Network. UNESCO's capacity to select World Heritage Sites gives the organization significant influence over cultural capital, tourism, and historic preservation funding.
Cities can be perceived in terms of extremes or opposites: at once liberating and oppressive, wealthy and poor, organized and chaotic.Bridge, Gary; Watson, Sophie. "City Imaginaries", in Bridge & Watson, eds. (2000). The name anti-urbanism refers to various types of ideological opposition to cities, whether because of their culture or their political relationship with Rural area. Such opposition may result from identification of cities with oppression and the ruling elite.Herrschel & Newman (2017), pp. 7–8. "Growing inequalities as a result of neo-liberal globalism, such as between the successful cities and the less successful, struggling, often peripheral, cities and regions, produce rising political discontent, such as we are now facing across Europe and in the United States as populist accusations of self-serving metropolitan elitism." This and other political ideologies strongly influence narratives and themes in discourse about cities. In turn, cities symbolize their home societies.J.E. Cirlot, "City"; A Dictionary of Symbols, 2nd ed., translated from Spanish to English by Jack Read; New York: Philosophical Library, 1971; pp. 48–49 ( online).
Writers, painters, and filmmakers have produced innumerable works of art concerning the urban experience. Classical and medieval literature includes a genre of descriptiones which treat of city features and history. Modern authors such as Charles Dickens and James Joyce are famous for evocative descriptions of their home cities. Fritz Lang conceived the idea for his influential 1927 film Metropolis while visiting Times Square and marveling at the nighttime neon lighting.Leach (1993), p. 345. "The German film director Fritz Lang was inspired to 'make a film' about 'the sensations' he felt when he first saw Times Square in 1923; a place 'lit as if in full daylight by neon lights and topping them oversized luminous advertisements moving, turning, flashing on and off ... something completely new and nearly fairly-tale-like for a European ... a luxurious cloth hung from a dark sky to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize.' The film Lang made turned out to be The Metropolis, an unremittingly dark vision of a modern industrial city." Other early cinematic representations of cities in the twentieth century generally depicted them as technologically efficient spaces with smoothly functioning systems of automobile transport. By the 1960s, however, traffic congestion began to appear in such films as The Fast Lady (1962) and Playtime (1967).
Literature, film, and other forms of popular culture have supplied visions of future cities both and . The prospect of expanding, communicating, and increasingly interdependent world cities has given rise to images such as Nylonkong (New York, London, Hong Kong)Curtis (2016), pp. vii–x, 1. and visions of a single world-encompassing ecumenopolis.Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, Ecumenopolis: Tomorrow's City ; Britannica Book of the Year, 1968. Chapter V: Ecumenopolis, the Real City of Man. "Ecumenopolis, which mankind will have built 150 years from now, can be the real city of man because, for the first time in history, man will have one city rather than many cities belonging to different national, racial, religious, or local groups, each ready to protect its own members but also ready to fight those from other cities, large and small, interconnected into a system of cities. Ecumenopolis, the unique city of man, will form a continuous, differentiated, but also unified texture consisting of many cells, the human communities."
Center
The vast majority of cities have a central area containing buildings with special economic, political, and religious significance. Archaeologists refer to this area by the Greek term temenos or if fortified as a citadel.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 34–35. "In the center of the city, an elite compound or temenos was situated. Study of the very earliest cities show this compound to be largely composed of a temple and supporting structures. The temple rose some 40 feet above the ground and would have presented a formidable profile to those far away. The temple contained the priestly class, scribes, and record keepers, as well as granaries, schools, crafts—almost all non-agricultural aspects of society." These spaces historically reflect and amplify the city's centrality and importance to its wider city region.: "From the simplest forms of exchange, when peasant farmers literally brought their produce from the fields into the densest point of interaction—giving us market towns—the significance of central places to surrounding territories began to be asserted. As cities grew in complexity, the major civic institutions, from seats of government to religious buildings, would also come to dominate these points of convergence. Large central squares or open spaces reflected the importance of collective gatherings in city life, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Zócalo in Mexico City, the Piazza Navonae in Rome and Trafalgar Square in London." Today cities have a city center or downtown, sometimes coincident with a central business district.
Public space
Cities typically have where anyone can go. These include privately owned spaces open to the public as well as forms of public land such as public domain and the common land. Western philosophy since the time of the Greek agora has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic public sphere. Public art adorns (or disfigures) public spaces. and other natural sites within cities provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical built environments. Urban green spaces are another component of public space that provides the benefit of mitigating the urban heat island effect, especially in cities that are in warmer climates. These spaces prevent carbon imbalances, extreme habitat losses, electricity and water consumption, and human health risks.
Internal structure
Urban structure generally follows one or more basic patterns: geomorphic, radial, concentric, rectilinear, and curvilinear. The physical environment generally constrains the form in which a city is built. If located on a mountainside, urban structures may rely on terraces and winding roads. It may be adapted to its means of subsistence (e.g. agriculture or fishing). And it may be set up for optimal defense given the surrounding landscape.Moholy-Nagy (1968), 21–33. Beyond these "geomorphic" features, cities can develop internal patterns, due to natural growth or to urban planning.
Urban areas
The urban-type settlement extends far beyond the traditional boundaries of the city properCarter (1995), p. 15. "In the underbound city the administratively defined area is smaller than the physical extent of settlement. In the overbound city the administrative area is greater than the physical extent. The 'truebound' city is one where the administrative bound is nearly coincidental with the physical extent." in a form of development sometimes described critically as urban sprawl. Decentralization and dispersal of city functions (commercial, industrial, residential, cultural, political) has transformed the very meaning of the term and has challenged geographers seeking to classify territories according to an urban-rural binary.
History
The emergence of cities from proto-city, such as Çatalhöyük, is a non-linear development that demonstrates the varied experiences of early urbanization. The cities of Jericho, Aleppo, Byblos, Faiyum, Yerevan, Athens, Matera, Damascus, and Argos are among those laying claim to the longest continual inhabitation.
Jennifer R. Pournelle (2007). 9781938770975, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, and Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 9781938770975 to use as communal seasonal shelters,Fredy Perlman, Against His-Story, Against Leviathan, Detroit: Black & Red, 1983; p. 16. to their value as bases for defensive and offensive military organization,Ashworth (1991), pp. 12–13. or to their inherent economic function.; see also GaWC Research Bulletins 359 and 360 . Cities played a crucial role in the establishment of political power over an area, and ancient leaders such as Alexander the Great founded and created them with zeal.McQuillan (1937/1987), §1.03. "The ancients fostered the spread of urban culture; their efforts were constant to bring their people within the complete influence of municipal life. The desire to create cities was the most striking characteristic of the people of antiquity, and ancient rulers and statesmen vied with one another in satisfying that desire."
Ancient times
Tell es-Sultan and Çatalhöyük, dated to the eighth millennium BC, are among the earliest proto-cities known to archaeologists.Southall (1998), p. 23. However, the city of Uruk from the mid-fourth millennium BC (ancient Iraq) is considered by most archaeologists to be the first true city, innovating many characteristics for cities to follow, with its name attributed to the Uruk period.
(2025). 9781134259861, Routledge. ISBN 9781134259861 China, and Egypt. Excavations in these areas have found the ruins of cities geared variously towards trade, politics, or religion. Some had large, Urban density, but others carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion without having large associated populations.
(1996). 9781884964022, Routledge. ISBN 9781884964022 Rome was the first city that surpassed one million inhabitants. Under the authority of Roman Empire, Rome transformed and founded many cities (Colonia), and with them brought its principles of urban architecture, design, and society.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 41–42. "Rome created an elaborate urban system. Roman colonies were organized as a means of securing Roman territory. The first thing that Romans did when they conquered new territories was to establish cities."
Middle Ages
The dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West was connected with profound changes in urban fabric of western Europe. In places where Roman administration quickly weakened urbanism went through a profound crisis, even if it continued to remain an important symbolic factor. In regions like Italy or Spain cities diminished in size but nevertheless continued to play a key role in both the economy and government. Late antique cities in the East were also undergoing intense transformations, with increased political participation of the crowds and demographic fluctuations. Christian communities and their doctrinal differences increasingly shaped the urban fabric. The locus of power shifted to Constantinople and to the ascendant Islamic civilization with its major cities Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba.Kaplan et al. (2004), p. 43. "Capitals like Córdoba and Cairo had populations of about 500,000; Baghdad probably had a population of more than 1 million. This urban heritage would continue despite the conquests of the Seljuk Turks and the later Crusades. China, the longest standing civilization, was in the midst of a golden age as the Tang dynasty gave way—after a short period of fragmentation—to the Song dynasty. This dynasty ruled two of the most impressive cities on the planet, Xian and Hangzhou. / In contrast, poor Western Europe had not recovered from the sacking of Rome and the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire. For more than five centuries a steady process of deurbanization—whereby the population living in cities and the number of cities declined precipitously—had converted a prosperous landscape into a scary wilderness, overrun with bandits, warlords, and rude settlements." From the 9th through the end of the 12th century, Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, with a population approaching 1 million. The Ottoman Empire gradually gained control over many cities in the Mediterranean area, including Constantinople in 1453.
(2025). 9781861892195, Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861892195 Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case of Sakai, which enjoyed considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan.
Early modern
In the West, nation-states became the dominant unit of political organization following the Peace of Westphalia in the seventeenth century.Curtis (2016), pp. 5–6. "In the modern international system, cities were subjugated and internalized by the state, and, with industrialization, became the great growth engines of national economies."Nicholas Blomley, "What Sort of a Legal Space is a City?" in Brighenti (2013), pp. 1–20. "Municipalities, within this frame, are understood as nested within the jurisdictional space of the provinces. Indeed, rather than freestanding legal sites, they are imagined as products (or 'creatures') of the provinces who may bring them into being or dissolve them as they choose. As with the provinces their powers are of a delegated form: they may only exercise jurisdiction over areas that have been expressly identified by enabling legislation. Municipal law may not conflict with provincial law, and may only be exercised within its defined territory. ...
Yet we are in danger of missing the reach of municipal law: 'even in highly constitutionalized regimes, it has remained possible for municipalities to micro-manage space, time, and activities through police regulations that infringe both on constitutional rights and private property in often extreme ways' (Vaverde 2009: 150). While liberalism fears the encroachments of the state, it seems less worried about those of the municipality. Thus if a national government proposed a statute forbidding public gatherings or sporting events, a revolution would occur. Yet municipalities routinely enact sweeping by-laws directed at open ended (and ill-defined) offences such as loitering and obstruction, requiring permits for protests or requiring residents and homeowners to remove snow from the city's sidewalks." Western Europe's larger capitals (London and Paris) benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an Atlantic Ocean trade. However, most towns remained small.
Industrial age
The growth of the 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. England led the way as London became the capital of a British Empire and cities across the country grew in locations strategic for manufacturing.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 53–54. "England was clearly at the center of these changes. London became the first truly global city by placing itself within the new global economy. English colonialism in North America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and later Africa and China helped to further fatten the wallets of many of its merchants. These colonies would later provide many of the raw materials for industrial production. England's hinterland was no longer confined to a portion of the world; it effectively became a global hinterland." In the United States from 1860 to 1910, the introduction of railroads reduced transportation costs, and large manufacturing centers began to emerge, fueling migration from rural to city areas.
Post-industrial age
In the second half of the 20th century, deindustrialization (or "economic restructuring") in the West led to poverty, homelessness, and urban decay in formerly prosperous cities. America's "Steel Belt" became a "Rust Belt" and cities such as Detroit, Michigan, and Gary, Indiana began to Shrinking cities, contrary to the global trend of massive urban expansion.Steven High, Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969–1984; University of Toronto Press, 2003; . "It is now clear that the deindustrialization thesis is part myth and part fact. Robert Z. Lawrence, for example, uses aggregate economic data to show that manufacturing employment in the United States did not decline but actually increased from 16.8 million in 1960, to 20.1 million in 1973, and 20.3 million in 1980. However, manufacturing employment was in relative decline. Barry Bluestone noted that manufacturing represented a decreasing proportion of the U.S. labour force, from 26.2 per cent in 1973 to 22.1 per cent in 1980. Studies in Canada have likewise shown that manufacturing employment was only in relative decline during these years. Yet mills and factories did close, and towns and cities lost their industries. John Cumbler submitted that 'depressions do not manifest themselves only at moments of national economic collapse' such as in the 1930s, but 'also recur in scattered sites across the nation in regions, in industries, and in communities. Such cities have shifted with varying success into the service economy and public-private partnerships, with concomitant gentrification, uneven urban renewal, and selective cultural development.Kaplan (2004), pp. 160–165. "Entrepreneurial leadership became manifest through growth coalitions made up of builders, realtors, developers, the media, government actors such as mayors, and dominant corporations. For example, in St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto, and Ralston Purina played prominent roles. The leadership involved cooperation between public and private interests. The results were efforts at downtown revitalization; inner-city gentrification; the transformation of the CBD to advanced service employment; entertainment, museums, and cultural venues; the construction of sports stadiums and sport complexes; and waterfront development." Under the Great Leap Forward and subsequent five-year plans continuing today, China has undergone concomitant urbanization and industrialization and become the world's leading manufacturing.James Xiaohe Zhang, "Rapid urbanization in China and its impact on the world economy"; 16th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, "New Challenges for Global Trade in a Rapidly Changing World", Shanhai Institute of Foreign Trade, 12–14 June 2013.Ian Johnson, " China's Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities "; The New York Times, 15 June 2013.
Urbanization
Urbanization is the process of migration from rural to urban areas, driven by various political, economic, and cultural factors. Until the 18th century, an equilibrium existed between the rural agricultural population and towns featuring markets and small-scale manufacturing. The Urbanization and Political Development of the World System:A comparative quantitative analysis. History & Mathematics 2 (2006): 115–153 .William H. Frey & Zachary Zimmer, "Defining the City"; in Paddison (2001). With the agricultural and industrial revolutions, urban population began its unprecedented growth, both through migration and demographic expansion. In England, the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.Watson, Christopher. " Trends in urbanization ", Proceedings of the First International Conference on Urban Pests , ed. K.B. Wildey and William H. Robinson, 1993. In 1900, 15% of the world's population lived in cities. (2025). 9780821375730, Commission on Growth and Development. ISBN 9780821375730 The cultural appeal of cities also plays a role in attracting residents.
Government
Local government of cities takes different forms including prominently the municipality (especially in England, in the United States, India, and former crown colonies; legally, the municipal corporation; municipio in Spain and Portugal, and, along with municipalidad, in most former parts of the Spanish Empire and Portuguese empires) and the commune (in France and Chile; or comune in Italy).
Municipal services
Cities typically provide municipal services such as education, through ; police, through police departments; and firefighting, through ; as well as the city's basic infrastructure. These are provided more or less routinely, in a more or less equal fashion.Bryan D. Jones, Saadia R. Greenbeg, Clifford Kaufman, & Joseph Drew, "Service Delivery Rules and the Distribution of Local Government Services: Three Detroit Bureaucracies"; in Hahn & Levine (1980). "Local government bureaucracies more or less explicitly accept the goal of implementing rational criteria for the delivery of services to citizens, even though compromises may have to be made in the establishment of these criteria. These production oriented criteria often give rise to "service deliver rules", regularized procedures for the delivery of services, which are attempts to codify the productivity goals of urban service bureaucracies. These rules have distinct, definable distributional consequences which often go unrecognized. That is, the decisions of governments to adopt rational service delivery rules can (and usually do) differentially benefit citizens."Lineberry, Robert L. "Mandating Urban Equality: The Distribution of Municipal Public Services"; in Hahn & Levine (1980). See: Hawkins v. Town of Shaw (1971). Responsibility for administration usually falls on the city government, but some services may be operated by a higher level of government,George Nilson, " Baltimore police under state control for good reason ", Baltimore Sun 28 February 2017. while others may be privately run. Armies may assume responsibility for policing cities in states of domestic turmoil such as America's King assassination riots of 1968.
Finance
The traditional basis for municipal finance is local property tax levied on real estate within the city. Local government can also collect revenue for services, or by leasing land that it owns. However, financing municipal services, as well as urban renewal and other development projects, is a perennial problem, which cities address through appeals to higher governments, arrangements with the private sector, and techniques such as privatization (selling services into the private sector), corporatization (formation of quasi-private municipally owned corporations), and financialization (packaging city assets into tradeable financial public contracts and other related rights). This situation has become acute in deindustrialized cities and in cases where businesses and wealthier citizens have moved outside of city limits and therefore beyond the reach of taxation.McQuillan (1937/1987), §§1.65–1.66.David Walker, "The New System of Intergovernmental Relations: Fiscal Relief and More Governmental Intrusions"; in Hahn & Levine (1980). Cities in search of ready cash increasingly resort to the municipal bond, essentially a loan with interest and a repayment date. City governments have also begun to use tax increment financing, in which a development project is financed by loans based on future tax revenues which it is expected to yield. Under these circumstances, creditors and consequently city governments place a high importance on city .
Governance
Governance includes government but refers to a wider domain of social control functions implemented by many actors including non-governmental organizations.Gupta et al. (2015), pp. 4, 29. "We thereby understand urban governance as the multiple ways through which city governments, businesses and residents interact in managing their urban space and life, nested within the context of other government levels and actors who are managing their space, resulting in a variety of urban governance configurations (Peyroux et al. 2014)." The impact of globalization and the role of multinational corporations in local governments worldwide have led to a shift in perspective on urban governance, away from the "urban regime theory" in which a coalition of local interests functionally govern, toward a theory of outside economic control, widely associated in academics with the philosophy of neoliberalism. In the neoliberal model of governance, public utilities are privatization, the industry is deregulation, and gain the status of governing actors—as indicated by the power they wield in public-private partnerships and over business improvement districts, and in the expectation of self-regulation through corporate social responsibility. The biggest and real estate developers act as the city's de facto urban planners.Gupta, Verrest, and Jaffe, "Theorizing Governance", in Gupta et al. (2015), pp. 30–31.
Urban planning
Urban planning, the application of forethought to city design, involves optimizing land use, transportation, utilities, and other basic systems in order to achieve certain objectives. Urban planners and scholars have proposed overlapping theories as ideals of how plans should be formed. Planning tools, beyond the original design of the city itself, include public capital investment in infrastructure and land-use controls such as zoning. The continuous process of comprehensive planning involves identifying general objectives as well as collecting data to evaluate progress and inform future decisions.Levy (2017), pp. 193–235.
Society
Social structure
Urban sociology is typically stratified. Spatially, cities are formally or informally segregated along ethnic, economic, and racial lines. People living relatively close together may live, work, and play in separate areas, and associate with different people, forming ethnic enclave or lifestyle enclaves or, in areas of concentrated poverty, . While in the US and elsewhere poverty became associated with the inner city, in France it has become associated with the , areas of urban development that surround the city proper. Meanwhile, across Europe and North America, the racially white people majority is empirically the most segregated group. in the West, and, increasingly, Gated community and other forms of "privatopia" around the world, allow local elites to self-segregate into secure and exclusive .
Economics
Historically, cities rely on for intensive farming to crop yield, in exchange for which they provide money, political administration, manufactured goods, and culture. Urban economics tends to analyze larger agglomerations, stretching beyond city limits, in order to reach a more complete understanding of the local labor market.Marshall (1989), pp. 5–6.
Culture and communications
Cities are typically hubs for education and the arts, supporting university, , , and other cultural institutions.Marshall (1989), pp. 14–15. They feature impressive displays of architecture ranging from small to enormous and ornate to brutal; , providing thousands of offices or homes within a small footprint, and visible from miles away, have become iconic urban features. Cultural elites tend to live in cities, bound together by shared cultural capital, and themselves play some role in governance. By virtue of their status as centers of culture and literacy, cities can be described as the locus of civilization, human history, and social change.McQuillan (1937/1987), §§1.04–1.05. "Almost by definition, cities have always provided the setting for great events and have been the focal points for social change and human development. All great cultures have been city-born. World history is basically the history of city dwellers."
(2025). 9780773521193, McGill-Queen's Univ. Press. ISBN 9780773521193
No other city marketing opportunity achieves this global exposure. At the same time, provided it is carefully managed at the local level, it also gives a tremendous opportunity to heighten and mobilize the commitment of citizens to their own city. The competitive nature of sport and its unrivalled capacity to be enjoyed as a mass cultural activity gives it many advantages from the marketing point of view (S.V. Ward, 1998, pp. 231–232). In a more subtle way it also becomes a metaphor for the notion of cities having to compete in a global marketplace, a way of reconciling citizens and local institutions to the wider economic realities of the world." Paris, a city known for its cultural history, was the site of the most recent Olympics in the summer of 2024.
Warfare
Cities play a crucial strategic role in warfare due to their economic, demographic, symbolic, and political centrality. For the same reasons, they are targets in asymmetric warfare. Many cities throughout history were founded under military auspices, a great many have incorporated , and military principles continue to influence urban design. Indeed, war may have served as the social rationale and economic basis for the very earliest cities.Mumford (1961), pp. 39–46. "As the physical means increased, this one-sided power mythology, sterile, indeed hostile to life, pushed its way into every corner of the urban scene and found, in the new institution of organized war, its completest expression. ... Thus both the physical form and the institutional life of the city, from the very beginning to the urban implosion, were shaped in no small measure by the irrational and magical purposes of war. From this source sprang the elaborate system of fortifications, with walls, ramparts, towers, canals, ditches, that continued to characterize the chief historic cities, apart from certain special cases—as during the Pax Romana—down to the eighteenth century. ... War brought concentration of social leadership and political power in the hands of a weapons-bearing minority, abetted by a priesthood exercising sacred powers and possessing secret but valuable scientific and magical knowledge."
Climate change
Infrastructure
Urban infrastructure involves various physical networks and spaces necessary for transportation, water use, energy, recreation, and public functions.Joel A. Tarr, "The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; in Hanson (1984). Infrastructure carries a high initial cost in fixed capital but lower and thus positive economies of scale.Wellman & Spiller, "Introduction", in Wellman & Spiller (2012). Because of the higher barriers to entry, these networks have been classified as natural monopoly, meaning that economic logic favors control of each network by a single organization, public or private.
In the context of development theory, these 'secessionary' infrastructures physically by-pass sectors of cities unable to afford the necessary cabling, pipe-laying, or streetscaping that underpins service provision. Cities such as Manila, Lagos or Mumbai are thus increasingly characterized by a two-speed mode of urbanization.
Utilities
Public utility (literally, useful things with general availability) include basic and essential infrastructure networks, chiefly concerned with the supply of water, electricity, and telecommunications capability to the populace."public, adj. and n.", Oxford English Dictionary, September 2007.
Transportation
Because cities rely on specialization and an economic system based on wage labour, their inhabitants must have the ability to regularly travel between home, work, commerce, and entertainment.Grava (2003), pp. 1–2. City dwellers travel by foot or by wheel on and , or use special rapid transit systems based on tunnel, light rail, and Elevated railway rail. Cities also rely on long-distance transportation (truck, rail transport, and airplane) for economic connections with other cities and rural areas.Tom Hart, "Transport and the City"; in Paddison (2001).
Housing
Housing of residents presents one of the major challenges every city must face. Adequate housing entails not only physical shelters but also the physical systems necessary to sustain life and economic activity.McQuillin (1937/1987), §1.74. "It cannot be too strongly emphasized that no city begins to be well-planned until it has solved its housing problem. The problems of living and working are of primary importance. These include sanitation, sufficient sewers, clean, well-lighted streets, rehabilitation of slum areas, and health protection through provision for pure water and wholesome food."
Ecology
Urban , influenced as they are by the density of human buildings and activities, differ considerably from those of their rural surroundings. Anthropogenic and waste, as well as Agriculture in , create physical and chemical environments which have no equivalents in the wilderness, in some cases enabling exceptional biodiversity. They provide homes not only for immigrant humans but also for immigrant plants, bringing about interactions between species that never previously encountered each other. They introduce frequent disturbances (construction, walking) to plant and animal , creating opportunities for recolonization and thus favoring young ecosystems with r-selected species dominant. On the whole, urban ecosystems are less complex and productive than others, due to the diminished absolute amount of biological interactions.Herbert Sukopp, "On the Early History of Urban Ecology in Europe"; in Marzluff et al. (2008).S.T.A. Pickett, M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, C.H. Nilon, R.V. Pouyat, W.C. Zipperer, & R. Costanza, "Urban Ecological Systems: Linking Terrestrial Ecological, Physical, and Socioeconomic Components of Metropolitan Areas"; in Marzluff et al. (2008).Ingo Kowarik, "On the Role of Alien Species in Urban Flora and Vegetation"; in Marzluff et al. (2008).
World city system
As the world becomes more closely linked through economics, politics, technology, and culture (a process called globalization), cities have come to play a leading role in transnational affairs, exceeding the limitations of international relations conducted by national governments.Abrahamson (2004), pp. 2–4. "The linkages among cities cutting across nations became a global network. It is important to note here that the key nodes in the international system are (global) cities, not nations. ... Once the linkages among cities became a global network, nations became dependent upon their major cities for connections to the rest of the world."Gupta et al. (2015), 5–11. "Current globalization, characterized by hyper capitalism and technological revolutions, is understood as the growing intensity of economic, demographic, social, political, cultural and environmental interactions worldwide, leading to increasing interdependence and homogenization of ideologies, production and consumption patterns and lifestyles (Pieterse 1994; Sassen 1998). ... Decentralization processes have increased city-level capacities of city authorities to develop and implement local social and developmental policies. Cities as homes of the rich, and of powerful businesses, banks, stock markets, UN agencies and NGOs, are the location from which global to local decision-making occurs (e.g. New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, São Paulo)." This phenomenon, resurgent today, can be traced back to the Silk Road, Phoenicia, and the Greek city-states, through the Hanseatic League and other alliances of cities.Herrschel & Newman (2017), pp. 9–10. "The merchants of the Hanseatic League, for instance, enjoyed substantial trading privileges as a result of inter-city diplomacy and collective agreements within the networks (Lloyd 2002), as well as with larger powers, such as states. That way, the League could negotiate 'extra-territorial' legal spaces with special privileges, such as the 'German Steelyard' in the port of London (Schofield 2012). This special status was granted and guaranteed by the English king as part of an agreement between the state and a foreign city association."Curtis (2016), p. 5. Today the information economy based on high-speed internet infrastructure enables instantaneous telecommunication around the world, effectively eliminating the distance between cities for the purposes of the international markets and other high-level elements of the world economy, as well as personal communications and mass media.Kaplan (2004), pp. 115–133.
Global city
A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of trade, banking, finance, innovation, and markets. Saskia Sassen used the term "global city" in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo to refer to a city's power, status, and cosmopolitanism, rather than to its size.Sassen, Saskia (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press. 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 Global cities form the capstone of the global hierarchy, exerting command and control through their economic and political influence. Global cities may have reached their status due to early transition to post-industrialismAbrahamson (2004), p. 4. "The formerly major industrial cities that were most able quickly and thoroughly to transform themselves into the new postindustrial mode became the leading global cities—the centers of the new global system." or through inertia which has enabled them to maintain their dominance from the industrial era.Kaplan et al. (2004), p. 88. This type of ranking exemplifies an emerging discourse in which cities, considered variations on the same ideal type, must compete with each other globally to achieve prosperity.
(2025). 9780745327990, Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745327990 During employment, migrant workers may be subject to unfair working conditions, including working overtime, low wages, and lack of safety in workplaces.
Transnational activity
Cities increasingly participate in world political activities independently of their enclosing nation-states. Early examples of this phenomenon are the sister city relationship and the promotion of multi-level governance within the European Union as a technique for European integration.Herrschel & Newman (2017), pp. 3–4. "Instead, the picture is becoming more detailed and differentiated, with a growing number of sub-national entities, cities, city-regions and regions, becoming more visible in their own right, either individually, or collectively as networks, by, more or less tentatively, stepping out of the territorial canvas and hierarchical institutional hegemony of the state. Prominent and well-known cities, and those regions with a strong sense of identity and often a quest for more autonomy, have been the most enthusiastic, as they began to be represented beyond state borders by high-profile city mayors and some regional leaders with political courage and agency. ... This, then, became part of the much bigger political project of the European Union (EU), which has offered a particularly supportive environment for international engagement by—and among—subnational governments as part of its inherent integrationist agenda."Charlie Jeffery, " Sub-National Authorities and European Integration: Moving Beyond the Nation-State? ", presented at the Fifth Biennial International Conference of the European Community Studies Association, 29 May–1 June 1997, Seattle, US.Jing Pan, " The Role of Local Government in Shaping and Influencing International Policy Frameworks ", PhD thesis accepted at De Montfort University, April 2014. Cities including Hamburg, Prague, Amsterdam, The Hague, and City of London maintain their own embassies to the European Union at Brussels.Herrschel & Newman (2017), p. "In Europe, the EU provides incentives and institutional frameworks for multiple new forms of city and regional networking and lobbying, including at the international EU level. But a growing number of cities and regions also seek to 'go it alone' by establishing their own representations in Brussels, either individually or in shared accommodation, as the base for European lobbying."Carola Hein, " Cities (and regions) within a city: subnational representations and the creation of European imaginaries in Brussels "; International Journal of the Urban Sciences 19(1), 2015. See also websites of individual city embassies cited therein, including Hanse Office (Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein) and City of London " City Office in Brussels "; and CoR's cor.europa.eu/en/regions/Documents/regional-offices.xls in Brussels.
Global governance
Cities participate in global governance by various means including membership in global networks which transmit norms and regulations. At the general, global level, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) is a significant umbrella organization for cities; regionally and nationally, Eurocities, Asian Network of Major Cities 21, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities the National League of Cities, and the United States Conference of Mayors play similar roles.Herrschel & Newman (2017), p. 82. UCLG took responsibility for creating Agenda 21 for culture, a program for cultural policy promoting sustainable development, and has organized various conferences and reports for its furtherance.Nancy Duxbury & Sharon Jeannotte, " Global Cultural Governance Policy "; Chapter 21 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning and Culture; London: Ashgate, 2013.
United Nations System
The United Nations System has been involved in a series of events and declarations dealing with the development of cities during this period of rapid urbanization.
Representation in culture
Cities figure prominently in traditional Western culture, appearing in the Bible in both evil and holy forms, symbolized by Babylon and Jerusalem.Ellul (1970). Cain and Nimrod are the first city builders in the Book of Genesis. In Sumerian mythology Gilgamesh built the walls of Uruk.
Gallery
See also
Notes
Bibliography
(2009). 9781412930413, SAGE Publications Limited. ISBN 9781412930413
(2025). 9781861892195, Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861892195
Further reading
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> World Urbanization Prospects, Website of the United Nations Population Division (archived 10 July 2017)
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