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A city is a
human settlement In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of ci ...
of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for
housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...
,
transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
,
sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...
,
utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...
,
land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long h ...
, production of goods, and
communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
. Their density facilitates interaction between people,
government organisations State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...
and
businesses Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separat ...
, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving 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 Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
, more than half of the
world population In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the ...
now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability. Present-day cities usually form the core of larger
metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
s and
urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
s—creating numerous commuters traveling towards
city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...
s for employment, entertainment, and education. However, in a world of intensifying
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
, 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 Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
,
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, and
global health Global health is the health of the populations in the worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problem ...
. Because of these major influences on global issues, the international community has prioritized investment in sustainable cities through Sustainable Development Goal 11. Due to the efficiency of transportation and the smaller
land consumption Land consumption as part of human resource consumption is the conversion of land with healthy soil and intact habitats into areas for industrial agriculture, traffic (road building) and especially urban human settlements. More formally, the EE ...
,
dense Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematically ...
cities hold the potential to have a smaller
ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
per inhabitant than more sparsely populated areas. Therefore, compact cities are often referred to as a crucial element of fighting climate change. However, this concentration can also have significant negative consequences, such as forming
urban heat island An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparen ...
s, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources. Other important traits of cities besides population include the capital status and relative continued occupation of the city. For example, country capitals such as
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
,
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
,
Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...
,
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
,
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
,
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
,
Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
,
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
,
Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
, and
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
reflect the identity and apex of their respective nations. Some historic capitals, such as
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
and
Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...
, maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion,
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
,
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
,
Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...
,
Ayodhya Ayodhya (; ) is a city situated on the banks of holy river Saryu in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Ayodhya, also known as Sāketa, Saketa, is an ancient city of India, the birthplace of Rama and ...
,
Haridwar Haridwar (; ) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district. The city is situated on the righ ...
and
Prayagraj Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
each hold significance.


Meaning

A city can be distinguished from other human settlements by its relatively great size, but also by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can also refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, and can be used in a general sense to mean
urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...
rather than
rural territory Selsoviet ( be, сельсавет, r=sieĺsaviet, tr. ''sieĺsaviet''; rus, сельсовет, p=ˈsʲelʲsɐˈvʲɛt, r=selsovet; uk, сільрада, silrada) is a shortened name for a rural council and for the area governed by such a cou ...
.Kevin A. Lynch, "What Is the Form of a City, and How is It Made?"; in Marzluff et al. (2008), p. 678. "The city may be looked on as a story, a pattern of relations between human groups, a production and distribution space, a field of physical force, a set of linked decisions, or an arena of conflict. Values are embedded in these metaphors: historic continuity, stable equilibrium, productive efficiency, capable decision and management, maximum interaction, or the progress of political struggle. Certain actors become the decisive elements of transformation in each view: political leaders, families and ethnic groups, major investors, the technicians of transport, the decision elite, the revolutionary classes." National
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
es use a variety of definitions – invoking factors such as
population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
,
population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...
, number of
dwelling In law, a dwelling (also known as a residence or an abode) is a self-contained unit of accommodation used by one or more households as a home - such as a house, apartment, mobile home, houseboat, vehicle, or other "substantial" structure. The ...
s, economic function, and
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
– to classify populations as urban. Typical working definitions for small-city populations start at around 100,000 people. Common population definitions for an urban area (city or town) range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most
U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
states using a minimum between 1,500 and 5,000 inhabitants. Some jurisdictions set no such minima. In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, city status is awarded by the Crown and then remains permanently. (Historically, the qualifying factor was the presence of a
cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
, resulting in some very small cities such as
Wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...
, with a population 12,000 and
St Davids St Davids or St David's ( cy, Tyddewi, ,  "David's house”) is a city and a community (named St Davids and the Cathedral Close) with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, W ...
, with a population of 1,841 .) 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.Marshall (1989), pp. 14–15. The presence of a literate elite is sometimes included in the definition. A typical city has professional
administrators Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...
, regulations, and some form of
taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal person, legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regiona ...
(food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to support the government workers. (This arrangement contrasts with the more typically horizontal relationships in a
tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...
or
village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
accomplishing common goals through informal agreements between neighbors, or through
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...
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
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
s. The ''degree of urbanization'' is a modern metric to help define what comprises a city: "a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants in contiguous dense grid cells (>1,500 inhabitants per square kilometer)". This metric was "devised over years by the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
,
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
,
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
and others, and endorsed in March 021by the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
... largely for the purpose of international statistical comparison".


Etymology

The word ''city'' and the related ''
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
'' come from the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
root ''
civitas In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (; plural ), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the , or citizens, united by law (). It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities () on th ...
'', originally meaning 'citizenship' or 'community member' and eventually coming to correspond with '' urbs'', meaning 'city' in a more physical sense."city, n.", ''Oxford English Dictionary'', June 2014. The Roman ''civitas'' was closely linked with the Greek ''
polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
''—another common root appearing in English words such as ''
metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...
''. In
toponymic Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a p ...
terminology, names of individual cities and towns are called ''astionyms'' (from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
ἄστυ 'city or town' and ὄνομα 'name').


Geography

Urban geography Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have ...
deals both with cities in their larger context and with their internal structure. Cities are estimated to cover about 3% of the land surface of the Earth.


Site

Town siting has varied through history according to natural, technological, economic, and military contexts. Access to water has long been a major factor in city placement and growth, and despite exceptions enabled by the advent of
rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...
in the nineteenth century, through the present most of the world's urban population lives near the coast or on a river. Urban areas as a rule cannot produce their own food and therefore must develop some relationship with a
hinterland Hinterland is a German word meaning "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar). Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associated ...
which sustains them.Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 155–156. Only in special cases such as
mining town A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historic mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendigo, ...
s 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 market places in optimal mutually reachable locations.


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 A ''temenos'' (Greek: ; plural: , ''temenē''). is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, such as a sanctuary, holy gro ...
or if fortified as a
citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In ...
. These spaces historically reflect and amplify the city's centrality and importance to its wider
sphere of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal al ...
.Latham et al. (2009), p. 18. "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 A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...
or
downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
, sometimes coincident with a
central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...
.


Public space

Cities typically have
public space A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads (including the pavement), public squares, parks, and beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to ...
s where anyone can go. These include privately owned spaces open to the public as well as forms of public land such as
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
and the
commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...
.
Western philosophy Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ' ...
since the time of the Greek
agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic
public sphere The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning th ...
.
Public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...
adorns (or disfigures) public spaces.
Park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
s and other natural sites within cities provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical
built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human ac ...
s.


Internal structure

Urban structure Urban structure is the arrangement of land use in urban areas, in other words, how the land use of a city is set out. Urban planners, economists, and geographers have developed several models that explain where different types of people and busine ...
generally follows one or more basic patterns: geomorphic, radial, concentric, rectilinear, and curvilinear. Physical environment generally constrains the form in which a city is built. If located on a mountainside, urban structure 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. Beyond these "geomorphic" features, cities can develop internal patterns, due to natural growth or to
city planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
. 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
town wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...
s and
citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In ...
s marking older city boundaries. In more recent history, such forms were supplemented by
ring road A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop, bypass or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city, or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist i ...
s moving traffic around the outskirts of a town. Dutch cities such as
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
and
Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
are structured as a central square surrounded by concentric canals marking every expansion. In cities such as
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, this pattern is still clearly visible. A system of rectilinear city streets and land plots, known as the
grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
, has been used for millennia in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The
Indus Valley civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...
built
Mohenjo-Daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Harappa Harappa (; Urdu/ pnb, ) is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The Bronze Age Harappan civilisation, now more often called the Indus Valley Civilisation, is named after the site, which takes its name from a mode ...
and other cities on a grid pattern, using ancient principles described by
Kautilya Chanakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य; IAST: ', ; 375–283 BCE) was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭilya o ...
, and aligned with the
compass points The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
.Smith,
Earliest Cities
", in Gmelch & Zenner (2002).
The ancient Greek city of
Priene Priene ( grc, Πριήνη, Priēnē; tr, Prien) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city of Ionia (and member of the Ionian League) located at the base of an escarpment of Mycale, about north of what was then the course of the Maeander River ...
exemplifies a grid plan with specialized districts used across the Hellenistic Mediterranean.


Urban areas

Urban-type settlement extends far beyond the traditional boundaries of the
city proper A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits. The term ''proper'' is not exclusive to cities; it can describe the geographical area within the boundaries of any given locality. The United Nations defines the term as "the si ...
in a form of development sometimes described critically as
urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...
. 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.
Metropolitan areas A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
include
suburbs A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
and
exurbs An exurb (or alternately: exurban area) is an area outside the typically denser inner suburban area, at the edge of a metropolitan area, which has some economic and commuting connection to the metro area, low housing density, and growth. It sh ...
organized around the needs of
commuters Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...
, and sometimes
edge cities ''Edge city'' is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or ru ...
characterized by a degree of economic and political independence. (In the US these are grouped into
metropolitan statistical areas In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...
for purposes of
demography Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and Population dynamics, dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups ...
and
marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
.) Some cities are now part of a continuous urban landscape called
urban agglomeration An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
,
conurbation A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ca ...
, or
megalopolis A megalopolis () or a supercity, also called a megaregion, is a group of metropolitan areas which are perceived as a continuous urban area through common systems of transport, economy, resources, ecology, and so on. They are integrated enoug ...
(exemplified by the BosWash corridor of the
Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
.)


History

The cities of
Jericho Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...
,
Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...
,
Faiyum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop,  ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...
,
Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
,
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
,
Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...
and
Argos Argos most often refers to: * Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece ** Ancient Argos, the ancient city * Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland Argos or ARGOS may also refer to: Businesses ...
are among those laying claim to the longest continual inhabitation. Cities, characterized by
population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...
,
symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
ic function, and
urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
, have existed for thousands of years. In the conventional view, civilization and the city both followed from the development of agriculture, which enabled production of surplus food, and thus a social
division of labour The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
(with concomitant
social stratification Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). As ...
) and
trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...
. Early cities often featured
granaries A granary is a storehouse or room in a barn for threshed grain or animal feed. Ancient or primitive granaries are most often made of pottery. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals ...
, sometimes within a temple. A minority viewpoint considers that cities may have arisen without agriculture, due to alternative means of subsistence (fishing), to use as communal seasonal shelters,
Fredy Perlman Fredy Perlman (20 August 1934 – 26 July 1985) was an American author, publisher, and activist. His best-known work, ''Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!'', retells the historical rise of state domination through the Hobbesian metaphor o ...
, ''
Against His-Story, Against Leviathan Fredy Perlman (20 August 1934 – 26 July 1985) was an American author, publisher, and activist. His best-known work, ''Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!'', retells the historical rise of state domination through the Hobbesian metaphor of ...
'', 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. Cities played a crucial role in the establishment of political power over an area, and ancient leaders such as
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
founded and created them with zeal.


Ancient times

Jericho Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...
and
Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...
, dated to the
eighth millennium BC Eighth is ordinal form of the number eight. Eighth may refer to: * One eighth, or ⅛, a fraction, one of eight equal parts of a whole * Eighth note (quaver), a musical note played for half the value of a quarter note (crotchet) * Octave, an int ...
, are among the earliest
proto-cities A proto-city is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of urban planning, planning and political system, centralized rule. While the precise classification of many sites considered proto-cities is ...
known to archaeologists. However, the
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
n city of
Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
from the mid fourth millennium BC (ancient Iraq) is considered by some to be the first true City, with its name attributed to the
Uruk period The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after ...
. In the fourth and
third millennium BC The 3rd millennium BC spanned the years 3000 through 2001 BC. This period of time corresponds to the Early to Middle Bronze Age, characterized by the early empires in the Ancient Near East. In Ancient Egypt, the Early Dynastic Period is followe ...
, complex civilizations flourished in the river valleys of
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, and
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
. Excavations in these areas have found the
ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...
of cities geared variously towards trade, politics, or religion. Some had large, dense populations, but others carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion without having large associated populations. Among the early Old World cities,
Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
, 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. The Ancient Egyptian cities known physically by archaeologists are not extensive. They include (known by their Arab names)
El Lahun El Lahun ( ar, اللاهون ''El Lāhūn,'' alt. Illahun, Lahun, or Kahun (the latter being a neologism coined by archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie) is a workmen's village in Faiyum, Egypt. El Lahun is associated with the Pyramid of ...
, a workers' town associated with the pyramid of
Senusret II Khakheperre Senusret II was the fourth pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1897 BC to 1878 BC. His pyramid was constructed at El-Lahun. Senusret II took a great deal of interest in the Faiyum oasis region and began work on an ...
, and the religious city
Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...
built by
Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dy ...
and abandoned. These sites appear planned in a highly regimented and
stratified Stratification may refer to: Mathematics * Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols * Data stratification in statistics Earth sciences * Stable and unstable stratification * Stratification, or st ...
fashion, with a minimalistic grid of rooms for the workers and increasingly more elaborate housing available for higher classes. In Mesopotamia, the civilization of
Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
, followed by
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
and
Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
, gave rise to numerous cities, governed by kings and fostering multiple languages written in
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
. The
Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
n trading empire, flourishing around the turn of the
first millennium BC The 1st millennium BC, also known as the last millennium BC, was the period of time lasting from the years 1000 BC to 1 BC ( 10th to 1st centuries BC; in astronomy: JD – ). It encompasses the Iron Age in the Old World and sees the transiti ...
, encompassed numerous cities extending from Tyre,
Cydon In Greek mythology, the name Cydon (Ancient Greek: Κύδων) may refer to: *Cydon of Crete, eponym of Cydonia. According to one version, he was a son of Tegeates and possibly, Maera, daughter of the Titan Atlas. He was the brother of Leimon, ...
, and
Byblos Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 880 ...
to
Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
and
Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...
. In the following centuries, independent
city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
s of
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, especially
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, developed the ''
polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
'', an association of male landowning
citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
who collectively constituted the city. The
agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
, meaning "gathering place" or "assembly", was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the polis.
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
was the first city that surpassed one million inhabitants. Under the authority of its empire, Rome transformed and founded many cities (''
coloniae A Roman (plural ) was originally a Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It is also the origin of the modern term ''colony''. Characteri ...
''), and with them brought its principles of urban architecture, design, and society. In the ancient Americas, early urban traditions developed in the
Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...
and
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...
. In the Andes, the first urban centers developed in the
Norte Chico civilization Caral-Supe (also known as Caral and Norte Chico) was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished betwee ...
, Chavin and Moche cultures, followed by major cities in the
Huari Huari may refer to: *Huari culture, a historical civilization in Peru *Huari (archaeological site), an archaeological site in Peru *Huari, Peru, a town in Peru * Huari District, a district in the Huari Province, Peru * Huari Province, a province in ...
,
Chimu Chimor (also Kingdom of Chimor or Chimú Empire) was the political grouping of the Chimú culture. The culture arose about 900 AD, succeeding the Moche culture, and was later conquered by the Inca emperor Topa Inca Yupanqui around 1470, fifty y ...
and
Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts",  "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...
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 , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...
. 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 The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that t ...
and spreading to the
Preclassic Maya The Preclassic period in Maya history stretches from the beginning of permanent village life c. 1000 BC until the advent of the Classic Period c. 250 AD, and is subdivided into Early (prior to 1000 BC), Middle (1000–400 BC), and Late (400 BC – ...
, the Zapotec of Oaxaca, and
Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
in central Mexico. Later cultures such as the
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
,
Andean civilization The Andean civilizations were complex societies of many cultures and peoples mainly developed in the river valleys of the coastal deserts of Peru. They stretched from the Andes of southern Colombia southward down the Andes to Chile and northwe ...
,
Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
, Mississippians, and
Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
peoples drew on these earlier urban traditions. Many of their ancient cities continue to be inhabited, including major metropolitan cities such as
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
, in the same location as
Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
; while ancient continuously inhabited Pueblos are near modern urban areas in
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
, such as
Acoma Pueblo Acoma Pueblo (, kjq, Áakʼu) is a Native American pueblo approximately west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. Four communities make up the village of Acoma Pueblo: Sky City (Old Acoma), Acomita, Anzac, and McCartys. These com ...
near the
Albuquerque metropolitan area The Albuquerque Metropolitan Statistical Area, sometimes referred to as Tiguex (named after the Southern Tiwa language, Southern Tiwa), is a metropolitan area in central New Mexico centered on the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque. The ...
and
Taos Pueblo Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos) is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos-speaking (Tiwa) Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. The pueblos are considered to be one of the oldest c ...
near
Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos, Missouri, a city in Cole County, Missouri, United States * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art colo ...
; while others like
Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of t ...
are located nearby ancient
Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...
vian sites such as
Pachacamac Pachacámac ( qu, Pachakamaq) is an archaeological site southeast of Lima, Peru in the Valley of the Lurín River. The site was first settled around A.D. 200 and was named after the "Earth Maker" creator god Pacha Kamaq. The site flourished ...
. Jenné-Jeno, located in present-day Mali and dating to the third century BC, lacked monumental architecture and a distinctive elite social class—but nevertheless had specialized production and relations with a hinterland. Pre-Arabic trade contacts probably existed between Jenné-Jeno and North Africa. Other early urban centers in sub-Saharan Africa, dated to around 500 AD, include Awdaghust, Kumbi-Saleh the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda a center located on a trade route between Egypt and Gao.


Middle Ages

In the remnants of the Roman Empire, cities of late antiquity gained independence but soon lost population and importance. The locus of power in the West shifted to
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
and to the ascendant Islamic civilization with its major cities
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
,
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, and Córdoba. From the 9th through the end of the 12th century,
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
, capital of the
Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, with a population approaching 1 million. The
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
gradually gained control over many cities in the Mediterranean area, including Constantinople in 1453. In the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
, beginning in the 12th century,
free imperial cities In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...
such as
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
,
Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
,
Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
,
Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
, Zurich,
Nijmegen Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
became a privileged elite among towns having won self-governance from their local lord or having been granted self-governanace 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 An Imperial State or Imperial Estate ( la, Status Imperii; german: Reichsstand, plural: ') was a part of the Holy Roman Empire with representation and the right to vote in the Imperial Diet ('). Rulers of these Estates were able to exercise si ...
governing the empire with the emperor through the Imperial Diet. By the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities become powerful states, taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. In Italy
medieval commune Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense (both physical defense and of traditional freedoms) among the citizens of a town or city. These took many forms and varied widely in organization and makeup. C ...
s developed into
city-states A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
including the
Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
and the
Republic of Genoa The Republic of Genoa ( lij, Repúbrica de Zêna ; it, Repubblica di Genova; la, Res Publica Ianuensis) was a medieval and early modern maritime republic from the 11th century to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast. During the Lat ...
. In Northern Europe, cities including
Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...
and
Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...
formed the
Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
for collective defense and commerce. Their power was later challenged and eclipsed by the
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
commercial
cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
of
Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
,
Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality co ...
, and
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case of
Sakai is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its keyhole-shaped burial mounds, or kofun, which date from the fifth century and incl ...
, which enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan. In the first millennium AD, the Khmer capital of
Angkor Angkor ( km, អង្គរ , 'Capital city'), also known as Yasodharapura ( km, យសោធរបុរៈ; sa, यशोधरपुर),Headly, Robert K.; Chhor, Kylin; Lim, Lam Kheng; Kheang, Lim Hak; Chun, Chen. 1977. ''Cambodian-Engl ...
in
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
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 1,000 km2 and possibly supporting up to one million people.


Early modern

In the West, nation-states became the dominant unit of political organization following the
Peace of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia (german: Westfälischer Friede, ) is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought pea ...
in the seventeenth century. Western Europe's larger capitals (London and Paris) benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
trade. However, most towns remained small. 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.


Industrial age

The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
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 London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
became the capital of a
world empire World domination (also called global domination or world conquest or cosmocracy) is a hypothetical power structure, either achieved or aspired to, in which a single political authority holds the power over all or virtually all the inhabitants ...
and cities across the country grew in locations strategic for
manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
. 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. Industrialized cities became deadly places to live, due to health problems resulting from
overcrowding Overcrowding or crowding is the condition where more people are located within a given space than is considered tolerable from a safety and health perspective. Safety and health perspectives depend on current environments and on local cultural n ...
,
occupational hazard An occupational hazard is a hazard experienced in the workplace. This encompasses many types of hazards, including chemical hazards, biological hazards (biohazards), psychosocial hazards, and physical hazards. In the United States, the Nation ...
s of industry, contaminated water and air, poor sanitation, and communicable diseases such as
typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
and
cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
.
Factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
and
slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
s emerged as regular features of the urban landscape.


Post-industrial age

In the second half of the twentieth century,
deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...
(or "
economic restructuring Economic restructuring is used to indicate changes in the constituent parts of an economy in a very general sense. In the western world, it is usually used to refer to the phenomenon of urban areas shifting from a manufacturing to a service sector ...
") in the West led to
poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
,
homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...
, and
urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...
in formerly prosperous cities. America's "Steel Belt" became a "
Rust Belt The Rust Belt is a region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been in decline since, impacting certain regions and ...
" and cities such as
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, Michigan, and
Gary, Indiana Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the ...
began to shrink, contrary to the global trend of massive urban expansion. Such cities have shifted with varying success into the
service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments: * The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer ma ...
and public-private partnerships, with concomitant
gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
, uneven revitalization efforts, 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 The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
and subsequent five-year plans continuing today,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
has undergone concomitant
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
and
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
and to become the world's leading
manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...
. Amidst these economic changes,
high technology High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
and instantaneous
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
enable select cities to become centers of the
knowledge economy The knowledge economy (or the knowledge-based economy) is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific inno ...
. A new
smart city A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect specific data. Information gained from that data is used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in return ...
paradigm, supported by institutions such as the
RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
and IBM, is bringing computerized
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
, data analysis, and
governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...
to bear on cities and city-dwellers. Some companies are building brand new masterplanned cities from scratch on greenfield sites.


Urbanization

Urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
is the process of migration from rural into 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 Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...
and small-scale manufacturing.William H. Frey & Zachary Zimmer, "Defining the City"; in Paddison (2001). With the
agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
and
industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...
revolutions urban population began its unprecedented growth, both through migration and through demographic expansion. In
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.Christopher Watson,
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 population lived in cities. The cultural appeal of cities also plays a role in attracting residents. Urbanization rapidly spread across the 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 The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for the follow-up to major United Nations Summits and Conferences, as well as services to the United Nations Econ ...
, 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
"; ''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 shantytowns (
favela Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
s, poblaciones callampas, etc.).
Batam Batam is the largest city in the province of Riau Islands, Indonesia. The city administrative area covers three main islands of Batam, Rempang, and Galang (collectively called Barelang), as well as several small islands. Batam Island is the cor ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Mogadishu Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port ...
,
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
,
Xiamen Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Niamey Niamey () is the capital and largest city of Niger. Niamey lies on the Niger River, primarily situated on the east bank. Niamey's population was counted as 1,026,848 as of the 2012 census. As of 2017, population projections show the capital di ...
,
Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesmore developed countries of the "
Global North Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...
" remain more urbanized than the
less developed countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
of the "
Global South The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...
"—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 citydwellers (and 300 million fewer countrydwellers) worldwide by 2050, with 90% of urban population expansion occurring in Asia and Africa.
Megacities A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. Precise definitions vary: the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 "World Urbanization Prospects" report counted urban ...
, cities with population in the multi-millions, have proliferated into the dozens, arising especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Economic globalization fuels the growth of these cities, as new torrents of foreign
capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
arrange for rapid industrialization, as well as relocation of major businesses from Europe and North America, attracting
immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
s from near and far. A deep gulf divides rich and poor in these cities, with usually contain a super-wealthy elite living in
gated communities A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. ...
and large masses of people living in substandard housing with inadequate infrastructure and otherwise poor conditions. 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. Urbanization can create rapid demand for
water resources management Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; slightl ...
, as formerly good sources of freshwater become overused and polluted, and the volume of
sewage Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residenc ...
begins to exceed manageable levels.


Government

Local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
of cities takes different forms including prominently the
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
(especially in England, in the United States,
in India IN, In or in may refer to: Places * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Indepen ...
, and in other
British colonies A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Counci ...
; legally, the
municipal corporation A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. The term can also be used to describe municipally owne ...
; ''
municipio ' (, ) and ' () are country subdivisions in Italy and several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. They are often translated as "municipality". In the English language, a municipality often is defined as relating to a single city or t ...
'' in
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
and in Portugal, and, along with ''
municipalidad ''Municipalidad'' () is a Spanish term for municipality used in many Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru , the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. It refers to the governing body ...
'', in most former parts of the
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
and
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
empires) and the ''commune'' ( in France and in Chile; or ''
comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...
'' in Italy). The chief official of the city has the title of
mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
. Whatever their true degree of political authority, the mayor typically acts as the
figurehead In politics, a figurehead is a person who ''de jure'' (in name or by law) appears to hold an important and often supremely powerful title or office, yet ''de facto'' (in reality) exercises little to no actual power. This usually means that they ...
or personification of their city. City governments have authority to make
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
s governing activity within cities, while its
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...
is generally considered
subordinate A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
(in ascending order) to state/provincial,
national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...
, and perhaps
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
. This hierarchy of law is not enforced rigidly in practice—for example in conflicts between municipal regulations and national principles such as
constitutional right A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, or they may ...
s and
property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically ...
.
Nicholas Blomley Nicholas K. Blomley (born 1962) is a British-Canadian legal geographer. He is a Professor and former Chair of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Career In 1989, Blomley joined the faculty of Geography at Simon Fraser University (SFU) as a ...
, "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 ndanger fmissing the reach of municipal law: ' en 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."
Legal conflicts and issues arise more frequently in cities than elsewhere due to the bare fact of their greater density. Modern city governments thoroughly regulate
everyday life Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or normal. Human diurnality means most peop ...
in many dimensions, including
public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
and personal
health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
,
transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...
,
burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
,
resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...
use and extraction,
recreation Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
, and the nature and use of
building A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fun ...
s. Technologies, techniques, and laws governing these areas—developed in cities—have become ubiquitous in many areas. Municipal officials may be appointed from a higher level of government or elected locally.


Municipal services

Cities typically provide
municipal services Municipal services or city services refer to basic services that residents of a city expect to the city government to provide in exchange for the taxes which citizens pay. Basic city services may include sanitation (both sewer and refuse), wate ...
such as
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, through
school system State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
s;
policing The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
, through police departments; and
firefighting Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter. Firefighters typically ...
, through
fire department A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...
s; 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."Robert L. Lineberry, "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, though some services may be operated by a higher level of government, 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 The King assassination riots, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, were a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Many believe them to be the greatest wav ...
of 1968.


Finance

The traditional basis for municipal finance is local
property tax A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheri ...
levied on
real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
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 Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
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 Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
(selling services into the
private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...
),
corporatization Corporatization is the process of transforming and restructuring state assets, government agencies, public organizations, or municipal organizations into corporations. It involves the adoption and application of business management practices and ...
(formation of quasi-private municipally-owned corporations), and
financialization Financialization (or financialisation in British English) is a term sometimes used to describe the development of financial capitalism during the period from 1980 to present, in which debt-to-equity ratios increased and financial services acco ...
(packaging city assets into tradable 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 City limits or city boundaries refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limit can be called the city proper. Town limit/boundary and village limit/boundary apply to towns and villages. Similarly, corporate limi ...
and therefore beyond the reach of taxation. Cities in search of ready cash increasingly resort to the
municipal bond A municipal bond, commonly known as a muni, is a Bond (finance), bond issued by state or local governments, or entities they create such as authorities and special districts. In the United States, interest income received by holders of municipal ...
, essentially a loan with
interest In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct ...
and a repayment date. City governments have also begun to use
tax increment financing Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects in many countries, including the United States. The original intent of a TIF program is ...
, in which a development project is financed by loans based on future tax revenues which it is expected to yield.Rachel Weber, "Selling City Futures: The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy"; ''Economic Geography'' 86(3), 2010; . "TIF is an increasingly popular local redevelopment policy that allows municipalities to designate a 'blighted' area for redevelopment and use the expected increase in property (and occasionally sales) taxes there to pay for initial and ongoing redevelopment expenditures, such as land acquisition, demolition, construction, and project financing. Because developers require cash up-front, cities transform promises of future tax revenues into securities that far-flung buyers and sellers exchange through local markets." Under these circumstances, creditors and consequently city governments place a high importance on city
credit rating A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting. ...
s.


Governance

Governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...
includes government but refers to a wider domain of social control functions implemented by many actors including
non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s. The impact of globalization and the role of
multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
s in local governments worldwide, has 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 Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
. In the neoliberal model of governance, public utilities are
privatized Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
, industry is
deregulated Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...
, and
corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
s 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 Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethicall ...
. The biggest
investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some specie ...
s and
real estate developer Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...
s act as the city's
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
urban planners. The related concept of
good governance Good governance is the process of measuring how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources and guarantee the realization of human rights in a manner essentially free of abuse and corruption and with due regard for th ...
places more emphasis on the state, with the purpose of assessing urban governments for their suitability for
development assistance Development aid is a type of foreign/international/overseas aid given by governments and other agencies to support the economic, environmental, social, and political development of developing countries. Closely-related concepts include: developm ...
.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 the emergent megacities, where international organizations consider existing governments inadequate for their large populations.


Urban planning

Urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
, 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 A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
as ideals for how plans should be formed. Planning tools, beyond the original design of the city itself, include
public capital Public capital is the aggregate body of government-owned assets that are used as a means for productivity.Aschauer, D. A. (1990). Why is infrastructure important? Conference Series roceedings Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Pp. 21-68. Such asset ...
investment in infrastructure and land-use controls such as
zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
. The continuous process of
comprehensive planning Comprehensive planning is an ordered process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The end product is called a comprehensive plan, also known as a general plan, or master plan. This resulting document e ...
involves identifying general objectives as well as collecting data to evaluate progress and inform future decisions. 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 Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
is used by 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. The
history of urban planning The history of urban planning is a technical and political process concerned with the use of land and design of the urban environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas such as transportation and dist ...
dates 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. 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.


Society


Social structure

Urban society is typically
stratified Stratification may refer to: Mathematics * Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols * Data stratification in statistics Earth sciences * Stable and unstable stratification * Stratification, or st ...
. 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 An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
or
lifestyle Lifestyle often refers to: * Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives * ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle * Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality Lifestyle may also refer to: Bu ...
enclaves or, in areas of concentrated poverty,
ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
es. While in the US and elsewhere poverty became associated with the
inner city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...
, in France it has become associated with the ''
banlieue In France, the term banlieue (; ) refers to a suburb of a large city. Banlieues are divided into autonomous administrative entities and do not constitute part of the city proper. For instance, 80% of the inhabitants of the Paris Metropolitan Are ...
s'', areas of urban development which surround the city proper. Meanwhile, across Europe and North America, the racially
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
majority is empirically the most segregated group.
Suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
s in the West, and, increasingly,
gated communities A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. ...
and other forms of "privatopia" around the world, allow local elites to self-segregate into secure and exclusive
neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...
s. Landless urban workers, contrasted with
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
s and known as the
proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
, form a growing stratum of society in the age of urbanization. In
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
doctrine, the proletariat will inevitably
revolt Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...
against the
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
as their ranks swell with disenfranchised and disaffected people lacking all stake in the
status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...
. The global urban proletariat of today, however, generally lacks the status as factory workers which in the nineteenth century provided access to the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
.Mike Davis, "The Urbanization of Empire: Megacities and the Laws of Chaos"; ''Social Text'' 22(4), Winter 2004. "Although studies of the so-called urban informal economy have shown myriad secret liaisons with outsourced multinational production systems, the larger fact is that hundreds of millions of new urbanites must further subdivide the peripheral economic niches of personal service, casual labor, street vending, rag picking, begging, and crime.
This outcast proletariat—perhaps 1.5 billion people today, 2.5 billion by 2030—is the fastest-growing and most novel social class on the planet. By and large, the urban informal working class is not a labor reserve army in the nineteenth-century sense: a backlog of strikebreakers during booms; to be expelled during busts; then reabsorbed again in the next expansion. On the contrary, this is a mass of humanity structurally and biologically redundant to the global accumulation and the corporate matrix.
It is ontologically both similar and dissimilar to the historical agency described in the ''Communist Manifesto''. Like the traditional working classes, it has radical chains in the sense of having little vested interest in the reproduction of private property. But it is not a socialized collectivity of labor and it lacks significant power to disrupt or seize the means of production. It does possess, however, yet unmeasured powers of subverting urban order."


Economics

Historically, cities rely on
rural area In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
s for
intensive farming Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of ag ...
to yield surplus crops, in exchange for which they provide money, political administration, manufactured goods, and culture.
Urban economics Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance. More specifically, it is a bra ...
tends to analyze larger agglomerations, stretching beyond city limits, in order to reach a more complete understanding of the local labor market. As hubs of trade cities have long been home to
retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...
commerce and
consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
through the interface of
shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A Retail#Shopper profiles, typology of shopper types ha ...
. In the 20th century,
department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
s using new techniques of
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
,
public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...
,
decoration Decoration may refer to: * Decorative arts * A house painter and decorator's craft * An act or object intended to increase the beauty of a person, room, etc. * An award that is a token of recognition to the recipient intended for wearing Other ...
, and
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
, transformed urban shopping areas into
fantasy world A fantasy world is a world created for/from fictional media, such as literature, film or games. Typical fantasy worlds involve magic or magical abilities, nonexistent technology and, sometimes, either a historical or futuristic theme. Some wor ...
s encouraging self-expression and escape through
consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
. In general, the density of cities expedites commerce and facilitates
knowledge spillover Knowledge spillover is an exchange of ideas among individuals.Carlino, Gerald A. (2001) Business Review Knowledge Spillovers: Cities' Role in the New Economy.'' Q4 2001. In knowledge management economics, knowledge spillovers are non-rival knowledg ...
s, helping people and firms exchange information and generate new ideas.Kent E. Calder & Mariko de Freytas,
Global Political Cities as Actors in Twenty-First Century International Affairs
; "SAIS Review of International Affairs" 29(1), Winter-Spring 2009; . "Beneath state-to-state dealings, a flurry of activity occurs, with interpersonal networks forming policy communities involving embassies, think tanks, academic institutions, lobbying firms, politicians, congressional staff, research centers, NGOs, and intelligence agencies. This interaction at the level of 'technostructure'—heavily oriented toward information gathering and incremental policy modification—is too complex and voluminous to be monitored by top leadership, yet nevertheless often has important implications for policy."
A thicker labor market allows for better skill matching between firms and individuals. Population density enables also 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 Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
fueled the growth of cities, many now rely on a
tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
or
service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments: * The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer ma ...
. The services in question range from
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
,
hospitality Hospitality is the relationship between a guest and a host, wherein the host receives the guest with some amount of goodwill, including the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Louis de Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de J ...
,
entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
,
housekeeping Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running an organised physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as tidying, cleaning, cooking, routine maintenance, shopping, ...
, and
prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
to
grey-collar Grey-collar refers to the balance of employed people not classified as white- or blue collar. It is occasionally used to describe elderly individuals working beyond the age of retirement, as well as those occupations that incorporate some of the ...
work in
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
, and
administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...
. According to a scientific model of cities by professor
Geoffrey West Geoffrey Brian West (born 15 December 1940) is a British theoretical physicist and former president and distinguished professor of the Santa Fe Institute. He is one of the leading scientists working on a scientific model of cities. Among other ...
, with the doubling of a city's size, salaries per capita will generally increase by 15%.


Culture and communications

Cities are typically hubs for
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
and
the arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
, supporting
universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
,
museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
s,
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
s, and other
cultural institutions A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture/subculture that works for the preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable organizations, but its range of meaning can ...
. They feature impressive displays of
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
ranging from small to enormous and ornate to brutal;
skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
, 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 In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. Cultural capital functions as a social relat ...
, and themselves playing some role in governance. By virtue of their status as centers of culture and literacy, cities can be described as the locus of
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
,
human history Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied throug ...
, and
social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...
. Density makes for effective
mass communication Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...
and transmission of
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...
, through
herald A herald, or a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is commonly applied more broadly to all officers of arms. Heralds were originally messengers sent by monarchs or noblemen to ...
s, printed
proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...
s,
newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
s, 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 ubiquitous or as no longer meaningful. Today, a city's promotion of its cultural activities dovetails with
place branding Place branding (includes place marketing and place promotion) is a term based on the idea that "cities and regions can be branded," whereby branding techniques and other marketing strategies are applied to "the economic, political and cultural dev ...
and
city marketing City marketing (related to city branding) or Place Marketing is the promotion of a city, or a district within it, with the aim of encouraging certain activities to take place there. Place  marketing  "refers  to  the  application  of  mark ...
,
public diplomacy In international relations, public diplomacy or people's diplomacy, broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influen ...
techniques used to inform development strategy; to attract businesses, investors, residents, and tourists; and to create a shared identity and
sense of place The term sense of place has been used in many different ways. It is a multidimensional, complex construct used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some ...
within the metropolitan area.Greg Kerr & Jessica Oliver, "Rethinking Place Identities", in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth (2015). Physical inscriptions, plaques, and
monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...
s on display physically transmit a historical context for urban places. Some cities, such as
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
,
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
, and
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
have indelible religious status and for hundreds of years have attracted
pilgrim A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on Pilgrimage, a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the a ...
s. Patriotic tourists visit
Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
to see the
Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
, or
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to visit the
World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
.
Elvis Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
lovers visit
Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...
to pay their respects at
Graceland Graceland is a mansion on a estate in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, which was once owned by rock and roll icon Elvis Presley. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited Graceland after his death in 1977. Graceland is located at 3764 Elv ...
. Place brands (which include place satisfaction and place loyalty) have great economic value (comparable to the value of commodity
brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
s) because of their influence on the
decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
process of people thinking about doing business in—"purchasing" (the brand of)—a city.
Bread and circuses "Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: ''panem et circenses'') is a metonymic phrase referring to superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE, and is used c ...
among other forms of cultural appeal, attract and entertain
the masses ''The Masses'' was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the United States from 1911 until 1917, when federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was ...
.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. Sports also play a major role in city branding and local
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
formation. Cities go to considerable lengths in competing to host the
Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
, 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).
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."


Warfare

Cities play a crucial strategic role in
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
fare due to their economic, demographic, symbolic, and political centrality. For the same reasons, they are targets in
asymmetric warfare Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is the term given to describe a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional ar ...
. Many cities throughout history were founded under military auspices, a great many have incorporated
fortification A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
s, 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." Powers engaged in
geopolitical Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
conflict have established fortified settlements as part of military strategies, as in the case of
garrison A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...
towns, America's
Strategic Hamlet Program The Strategic Hamlet Program (SHP; vi, Ấp Chiến lược, link=no ) was a plan by the government of South Vietnam in conjunction with the US government and ARPA during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency by pacifying the count ...
during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, and
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
s in Palestine. While occupying the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, the US Army ordered local people concentrated into cities and towns, in order to isolate committed insurgents and battle freely against them in the countryside. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, national governments on occasion declared certain cities
open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (YF ...
, effectively surrendering them to an advancing enemy in order to avoid damage and bloodshed. Urban warfare proved decisive, however, in the
Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
, where Soviet forces repulsed German occupiers, with extreme casualties and destruction. In an era of
low-intensity conflict A low-intensity conflict (LIC) is a military conflict, usually localised, between two or more state or non-state groups which is below the intensity of conventional war. It involves the state's use of military forces applied selectively and with ...
and rapid urbanization, cities have become sites of long-term conflict waged both by foreign occupiers and by local governments against
insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregu ...
. Such warfare, known as
counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
, involves techniques of surveillance and
psychological warfare Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...
as well as
close combat Close combat means a violent physical confrontation between two or more opponents at short range.''MCRP 3-02B: Close Combat'', Washington, D.C.: Department Of The Navy, Headquarters United States Marine Corps, 12 February 1999Matthews, Phil, CQB ...
, functionally extends modern urban
crime prevention Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce and deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice. Studies Criminologists, commissions, and research b ...
, which already uses concepts such as defensible space. Although capture is the more common objective, warfare has in some cases spelt complete destruction for a city. Mesopotamian tablets and
ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...
attest to such destruction, as does the Latin motto ''
Carthago delenda est ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to ("Carthage must be destroyed"), is a Latin oratorical phrase pronounced by Cato the Censor, a politician of the Roman Republic. The phrase originates from deba ...
''. Since the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
and throughout the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
,
nuclear strategists Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nuclear ...
continued to contemplate the use of "
countervalue In military doctrine, countervalue is the targeting of an opponent's assets that are of value but not actually a military threat, such as cities and civilian populations. Counterforce is the targeting of an opponent's military forces and faciliti ...
" targeting: crippling an enemy by annihilating its valuable cities, rather than aiming primarily at its military forces.


Climate change


Infrastructure

Urban
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
involves various physical networks and spaces necessary for transportation, water use, energy, recreation, and public functions.
Joel A. Tarr Joel A. Tarr (born 1934) is an American historian, currently the Richard S. Caliguiri University Professor of History and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research includes environmental science, environmental and urban development and sys ...
, "The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; in Hanson (1984).
Infrastructure carries a high initial cost in
fixed capital In accounting, fixed capital is any kind of real, physical asset that is used repeatedly in the production of a product. In economics, fixed capital is a type of capital good that as a real, physical asset is used as a means of production which i ...
(pipes, wires, plants, vehicles, etc.) but lower
marginal cost In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented, the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it r ...
s and thus positive
economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
.Wellman & Spiller, "Introduction", in Wellman & Spiller (2012). Because of the higher
barriers to entry In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have ...
, these networks have been classified as
natural monopolies A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming adv ...
, meaning that economic logic favors control of each network by a single organization, public or private. Infrastructure in general (if not every infrastructure project) 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
networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
with redundant links and multiple pathways, so that the system as a whole continue 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 Path dependence is a concept in economics and the social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. It can be used to refer to outcomes at a single point in time or to long-run equilibria ...
because new development must build from what exists already.
Megaproject A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management'', "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and ...
s such as the construction of
airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...
s,
power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...
s, and
railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
s require large upfront investments and thus tend to require funding from national government or the private sector. Privatization may also extend to all levels of infrastructure construction and maintenance. Urban infrastructure ideally serves all residents equally but in practice may prove uneven—with, in some cities, clear first-class and second-class alternatives.


Utilities

Public utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...
(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.
Sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...
, necessary for good health in crowded conditions, requires water supply and
waste management Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste, together with monitoring ...
as well as individual
hygiene Hygiene is a series of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refer ...
. Urban
water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
systems include principally a
water supply network A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following: # A drainage basin (see water purification – source ...
and a network ( sewerage system) for
sewage Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residenc ...
and
stormwater Stormwater, also spelled storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil ( infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed la ...
.
Historically History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, either local governments or private companies have administered urban
water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Thes ...
, 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 Veolia Water (formerly Vivendi Water, originally Compagnie Générale des Eaux) is the water division of the French company Veolia Environnement and the world's largest supplier of water services. In 2009, the group posted revenues of €12.5 ...
(formerly
Vivendi Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...
) and
Engie Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...
(formerly
Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...
), said to hold 70% of all water contracts worldwide. Karen Bakker, "Archipelagos and networks: urbanization and water privatization in the South"; ''The Geographical Journal'' 169(4), December 2003; . "The diversity of water supply management systems worldwide—which operate along a continuum between fully public and fully private—bear witness to repeated shifts back and forth between private and public ownership and management of water systems." Modern urban life relies heavily on the
energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...
transmitted through
electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
for the operation of
electric machines In electrical engineering, electric machine is a general term for machines using electromagnetic forces, such as electric motors, electric generators, and others. They are electromechanical energy converters: an electric motor converts electric ...
(from household appliances to industrial machines to now-ubiquitous
electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...
systems used in communications, business, and government) and for
traffic light Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at intersection (road), road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traf ...
s, street lights, and indoor lighting. Cities rely to a lesser extent on hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and natural gas for transportation, heating, and cooking. Telecommunications infrastructure such as telephone lines and coaxial cables also traverse cities, forming dense networks for mass communication, mass and point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point communications.


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. Citydwellers travel foot or by wheel on roads and walkways, or use special rapid transit systems based on tunnel, underground, light rail, overground, and Elevated railway, elevated rail. Cities also rely on long-distance transportation (truck, rail transport, rail, and airplane) for economic connections with other cities and rural areas.Tom Hart, "Transport and the City"; in Paddison (2001). Historically, city streets were the domain of horses and their riders and pedestrians, who only sometimes had sidewalks and transit mall, special walking areas reserved for them. In the West, bicycles or (velocipedes), efficient human-powered machines for short- and medium-distance travel, enjoyed a period of popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century before the rise of automobiles. Soon after, they gained a more lasting foothold in Asian and African cities under European influence. In Western cities, industrializing, expanding, and electrification, electrifying public transit systems and especially streetcars enabled urban expansion as new residential neighborhoods sprung up along transit lines and workers rode to and from work downtown.J. Allen Whitt & Glenn Yago, "Corporate Strategies and the Decline of Transit in U.S. Cities"; ''Urban Affairs Quarterly'' 21(1), September 1985. Since the mid-twentieth century, cities have relied heavily on motor vehicle transportation, with major effects of the car on societies, 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 cars accompanied the expansion of urban economic areas into much larger
metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...
es, subsequently creating ubiquitous traffic issues with accompanying construction of new highways, wider streets, and alternative walkways for pedestrians. However, severe traffic jams still occur regularly in cities around the world, as private car ownership and urbanization continue to increase, overwhelming existing urban street networks. The urban Public transport bus service, bus system, the world's most common form of public transport, uses a network of scheduled bus route, routes to move people through the city, alongside cars, on the roads. Economic function itself also became more decentralized as concentration became impractical and employers relocated to more car-friendly locations (including
edge cities ''Edge city'' is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or ru ...
). 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 pedestrian zones and bike lanes) in American and Asian urban transportation planning, under the influence of such trends as the healthy city, Healthy Cities movement, the drive for
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
, and the idea of a carfree city. Techniques such as road space rationing and road pricing, road use charges have been introduced to limit urban car traffic.


Housing

Housing of residents presents one of the major challenges every city must face. Adequate housing entails not only physical Shelter (building), shelters but also the physical systems necessary to sustain life and economic activity. Owner-occupancy, Home ownership 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.


Ecology

Urban ecosystems, influenced as they are by the density of human buildings and activities, differ considerably from those of their rural surroundings. Anthropogenic
building A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fun ...
s and waste, as well as Agriculture, cultivation in gardens, create physical and chemical environments which have no equivalents in wilderness, in some cases enabling exceptional biodiversity. They provide homes not only for immigrant humans but also for introduced species, immigrant plants, bringing about interactions between species which never previously encountered each other. They introduce frequent disturbance (ecology), disturbances (construction, walking) to plant and animal habitats, creating opportunities for Secondary succession, recolonization and thus favoring ecological succession, young ecosystems with r/K selection theory, 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.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). Typical urban fauna include insects (especially ants), rodents (mouse, mice, rats), and birds, as well as cats and dogs (domestication, domesticated and feral). Large predators are scarce. Cities generate considerable
ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
s, 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. 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) which 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 comparable wilderness. Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates, due to concrete, asphalt, and other artificial surfaces, which heat up in sunlight and channel rainwater into Storm drain, underground ducts. The Geography of New York City#Climate, temperature in New York City exceeds Climate of New York (state), 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). One of the main methods of improving the urban ecology is including in the cities more urban green space: parks, gardens, lawns, and trees. These areas improve the health, the 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 Nature's Scientific Reports journal 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 applied to men and women of all ages, as well as across different ethnicities, socioeconomic status, 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 didn't 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 from 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."


World city system

As the world becomes more closely linked through economics, politics, technology, and culture (a process called
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
), cities have come to play a leading role in transnational affairs, exceeding the limitations of international relations conducted by national governments.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 Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
, and the Greek city-states, through the
Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
and other alliances of cities. Today the information economy based on high-speed internet infrastructure enables instantaneous
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
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.


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 (social and political), power, status, and cosmopolitanism, rather than to its size. Following this view of cities, it is possible to Global city#GaWC study, 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-industrial society, post-industrialism or through inertia which has enabled them to maintain their dominance from the industrial era. 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. 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 (academic), Paul James, for example argues that the term is "reductive and skewed" in its focus on financial systems. Multinational corporations and banks make their headquarters in global cities and conduct much of their business within this context. American firms dominate the international markets for law firm, law and engineering and maintain branches in the biggest foreign global cities. Global cities feature concentrations of extremely wealthy and extremely poor people. Their economies are lubricated by their capacity (limited by the national government's immigration policy, which functionally defines the supply side of the labor market) to recruit low- and high-skilled immigrant workers from poorer areas. More and more cities today draw on this globally available labor force.


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." Cities including Hamburg, Prague,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, The Hague, and City of London maintain their own embassies to Brussels and the European Union, the European Union at Brussels. New urban dwellers are increasingly transmigrants, keeping one foot each (through telecommunications if not travel) in their old and their new homes.


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.Sofie Bouteligier,
Inequality in new global governance arrangements: the North–South divide in transnational municipal networks
"; ''Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research'' 26(3), 2013; . "City networks are not a new phenomenon, but it was the 1990s that saw an explosion of such initiatives, especially in the environmental domain. This is mostly ascribed to (chapter 28 of) Agenda 21, which recognizes the role of local authorities in the promotion of sustainable development and stimulates exchange and cooperation between them."
Herrschel & Newman (2017), p. 82. UCLG took responsibility for creating Agenda 21 for culture, a program for cultural policy, cultural policies 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.
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, World Association of Major Metropolises ("Metropolis"), the United Nations Global Compact#UN Global Compact – Cities Programme, United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA), the Covenant of Mayors and the Compact of Mayors, ICLEI, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and the Transition town, Transition Towns network. Cities with 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.


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. * The Habitat I conference in 1976 adopted the "Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements" which identifies urban management as a fundamental aspect of economic development, development and establishes various principles for maintaining urban habitats. * Citing the Vancouver Declaration, the UN General Assembly in December 1977 authorized the United Nations Commission Human Settlements and the HABITAT Centre for Human Settlements, intended to coordinate UN activities related to housing and settlements.Peter R. Walker, "Human Settlements and Urban Life: A United Nations Perspective"; ''Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless'' 14, 2005; . * The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro resulted in a set of international agreements including Agenda 21 which establishes principles and plans for
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
. * The Habitat II conference in 1996 called for cities to play a leading role in this program, which subsequently advanced the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. * In January 2002 the UN Commission on Human Settlements became an umbrella agency called the United Nations Human Settlements Programme or UN-Habitat, a member of the United Nations Development Group. * The Habitat III conference of 2016 focused on implementing these goals under the banner of a "New Urban Agenda". The four mechanisms envisioned for effecting the New Urban Agenda are (1) national policies promoting integrated sustainable development, (2) stronger urban governance, (3) long-term integrated urban and territorial planning, and (4) effective financing frameworks. Just before this conference, the European Union concurrently approved an "Urban Agenda for the European Union" known as the Pact of Amsterdam.Vanessa Watson, "Locating planning in the New Urban Agenda of the urban sustainable development goal"; ''Planning Theory'' 15(4), 2016; . UN-Habitat coordinates the UN 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 is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
. The
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
, a United Nations List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, 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.Susan Parnell, "Defining a Global Urban Development Agenda"; ''World Development'' 78, 2015; ; pp. 531–532: "Garnered by its interest in the urban poor the Bank, along with other international donors, became an active and influential participant in the Habitat deliberations, confirming both Habitat I and Habitat II's focus on 'development in cities' instead of the role of 'cities in development'." The bank's structural adjustment programs contributed to urbanization in the Third World by creating incentives to move to cities. 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 (money), grant distribution around the issue of urban poverty. (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 Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
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 In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. Cultural capital functions as a social relat ...
,
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
, and historic preservation funding.


Representation in culture

Cities figure prominently in traditional Western culture, appearing in the Bible in both evil and holy forms, symbolized by
Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
and
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. Cain and Nimrod are the first city builders in the Book of Genesis. In Sumerian mythology Gilgamesh built the walls of
Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
. Cities can be perceived in terms of extremes or opposites: at once liberating and oppressive, wealthy and poor, organized and chaotic. 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, the country. Such opposition may result from identification of cities with oppression and the ruling elite. This and other political ideologies strongly influence narratives and themes in discourse about cities. In turn, cities symbolize their home societies. Writers, painters, and filmmakers have produced innumerable works of art concerning the urban experience. Classical and medieval literature includes a genre of ''List of literary descriptions of cities (before 1550), 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 (1927 film), Metropolis'' while visiting Times Square and marveling at the nighttime neon lighting. 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 utopian and dystopian. The prospect of expanding, communicating, and increasingly interdependent world cities has given rise to images such as Nylonkong (New York, London, Hong Kong) 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."


See also

* Lists of cities * List of adjectivals and demonyms for cities * Lost city * Metropolis * Compact city * Megacity * Settlement hierarchy *
Urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
* ''''


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Abrahamson, Mark (2004). ''Global Cities''. Oxford University Press. * Ashworth, G.J. ''War and the City''. London & New York: Routledge, 1991. . * * Bridge, Gary, and Sophie Watson, eds. (2000). ''A Companion to the City''. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000/2003. * Brighenti, Andrea Mubi, ed. (2013). ''Urban Interstices: The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-between.'' Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. . * Carter, Harold (1995). ''The Study of Urban Geography''. Fourth edition. London: Arnold. * Curtis, Simon (2016). ''Global Cities and Global Order''. Oxford University Press. * Jacques Ellul, Ellul, Jacques (1970). ''The Meaning of the City''. Translated by Dennis Pardee. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970. ; French original (written earlier, published later as): :fr:Sans feu ni lieu : Signification biblique de la Grande Ville, Sans feu ni lieu : Signification biblique de la Grande Ville; Paris: Gallimard, 1975. Republished 2003 with * Gupta, Joyetta, Karin Pfeffer, Hebe Verrest, & Mirjam Ros-Tonen, eds. (2015). ''Geographies of Urban Governance: Advanced Theories, Methods and Practices''. Springer, 2015. . * Hahn, Harlan, & Charles Levine (1980). ''Urban Politics: Past, Present, & Future''. New York & London: Longman. * Hanson, Royce (ed.).
Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure
'. Committee on National Urban Policy, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. Washington: National Academy Press, 1984. * Herrschel, Tassilo & Peter Newman (2017). ''Cities as International Actors: Urban and Regional Governance Beyond the Nation State''. Palgrave Macmillan (Springer Nature). * * Grava, Sigurd (2003). ''Urban Transportation Systems: Choices for Communities''. McGraw Hill, e-book. * * Kaplan, David H.; James O. Wheeler; Steven R. Holloway; & Thomas W. Hodler, cartographer (2004). ''Urban Geography''. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. * Kavaratzis, Mihalis, Gary Warnaby, & Gregory J. Ashworth, eds. (2015). ''Rethinking Place Branding: Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions''. Springer. . * Kraas, Frauke, Surinder Aggarwal, Martin Coy, & Günter Mertins, eds. (2014). ''Megacities: Our Global Urban Future''. United Nations "International Year of Planet Earth" book series. Springer. . * Latham, Alan, Derek McCormack, Kim McNamara, & Donald McNeil (2009). ''Key Concepts in Urban Geography''. London: SAGE. . * Leach, William (1993). ''Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture''. New York: Vintage Books (Random House), 1994. . * Levy, John M. (2017). ''Contemporary Urban Planning''. 11th Edition. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis). * Magnusson, Warren. ''Politics of Urbanism: Seeing like a city''. London & New York: Routledge, 2011. . * Marshall, John U. (1989). ''The Structure of Urban Systems''. University of Toronto Press. . * Marzluff, John M., Eric Schulenberger, Wilfried Endlicher, Marina Alberti, Gordon Bradley, Clre Ryan, Craig ZumBrunne, & Ute Simon (2008). ''Urban Ecology: An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature''. New York: Springer Science+Business Media. . * McQuillan, Eugene (1937/1987). ''The Law of Municipal Corporations: Third Edition.'' 1987 revised volume by Charles R.P. Keating, Esq. Wilmette, Illinois: Callaghan & Company. * Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl (1968). ''Matrix of Man: An Illustrated History of Urban Environment.'' New York: Frederick A Praeger. * Lewis Mumford, Mumford, Lewis (1961). ''The City in History, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects''. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. * * * Paddison, Ronan, ed. (2001). ''Handbook of Urban Studies''. London; Thousand Oaks, California; and New Delhi: SAGE Publications. . * * Witold Rybczynski, Rybczynski, W., ''City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World'', (1995) * Smith, Michael E. (2002
''The Earliest Cities. In Urban Life: Readings in Urban Anthropology, edited by George Gmelch and Walter Zenner''
pp. 3–19. 4th ed. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, IL. * Aidan Southall, Southall, Aidan (1998). ''The City in Time and Space''. Cambridge University Press. * Wellman, Kath & Marcus Spiller, eds. (2012). ''Urban Infrastructure: Finance and Management''. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. .


Further reading

* Berger, Alan S.
''The City: Urban Communities and Their Problems''
Dubuque, Iowa : William C. Brown, 1978. * Chandler, T. ''Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census''. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987. * Patrick Geddes, Geddes, Patrick, ''City Development'' (1904) * * Kemp, Roger L. '' Managing America's Cities: A Handbook for Local Government Productivity'', McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina and London, 2007. (). * Kemp, Roger L. ''How American Governments Work: A Handbook of City, County, Regional, State, and Federal Operations'', McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina and London. (). * Kemp, Roger L. "City and Gown Relations: A Handbook of Best Practices," McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina, US, and London, (2013). (). * Monti, Daniel J. Jr., ''The American City: A Social and Cultural History''. Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 391 pp. . * Reader, John (2005) Cities. Vintage, New York. * Robson, W.A., and Regan, D.E., ed., ''Great Cities of the World'', (3d ed., 2 vol., 1972) * Smethurst, Paul (2015). ''The Bicycle – Towards a Global History''. Palgrave Macmillan. . * Thernstrom, S., and Sennett, R., ed., ''Nineteenth-Century Cities'' (1969) * Arnold J. Toynbee, Toynbee, Arnold J. (ed), ''Cities of Destiny'', New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Pan historical/geographical essays, many images. Starts with "Athens", ends with "The Coming World City-Ecumenopolis". * Max Weber, Weber, Max, ''The City (Weber book), The City'', 1921. (tr. 1958)


External links


World Urbanization Prospects
Website of the United Nations Population Division *
Urban population (% of total)
– World Bank website based on UN data.
Degree of urbanization (percentage of urban population in total population) by continent in 2016
– Statista, based on Population Reference Bureau data. * * {{Authority control City, Cities Urban geography Populated places by type Types of populated places