L2: What is a Modern City? Flashcards
Population of largest cities in 430 BC
200 000 people
Population of 25th largest city in 430 BC
45 000 people
Location of Largest Cities - 430 BC
1) Eastern Mediterranean (Greece, Western middle east)
2) Mesopotamia (present day Iraq)
3) North eastern India
4) Eastern China
Fall in narrow 20* to 40*N latitude band
Technology of Early Cities (430 BC)
Mostly in Iron Age (China and India are at the end of the iron age)
Buildings made of wood
Transport = by foot or horse (limited 5 km/h or 15 km/h travel time) on limited roads
Water transport = limited ship technology (rowing, or wind powered sails)
Economic Activity of Early Cities (430 BC)
Purely agricultural, significant hunting and gathering cultures (except for some cities had small scale iron and bronze craft production)
Limited trade
Mostly in subsistence agriculture, w/ exception to urban centers
Cities = primarily religious, admin, trade centers
Geographic Distribution of Modern Cities (Today)
Farther North and South, greater geographic distribution across continents
Modern Technology
Tech = based on electronics, steel construction, energy sources = fossil fuel + nuclear
Timber production is industrializes
Agriculture is industrialized and energy-intensive
Very few areas rely on subsistence agriculture (or hunting/gathering)
Transport = railroads, planes, trucks, mostly rely on petroleum
Extensive rail/road networks, esp in highly urbn
Relatively few people involved in agriculture
Modern Economy
Highly integrated global economy (globalization)
Globalization of industry and services
Service economy»_space; than manufacturing
Movement of capital is of interest (Finance is now a dominant economic sector)
Urban Center of Gravity
The average location of the largest cities weighted by population
Urban Center of Gravity (430 BC - 1500 AD)
Some wester shift (reflects rise of Roman Empire in southern mediterranean)
Back where is stated in 1500 AD
Urban Center of Gravity Trends (1500-1800 AD)
Big northwest jump
Reflects rise of European cities based on mercantile and colonial economies
Period of early European colonization
Seems minor compared to subsequent movement
Urban Center of Gravity (1800 -2000)
More changes than in the previous thousand years
Westward shift 1800-1900 (largest shift)
1900 - 1950: slight shift south
1950 - 2010: Center reverses course and moves south and easternward (accelerated pace)
First and Second Industrial Revolution
1800s
Fundamentally changed cities and global economy
Agriculture + trade –> Industrial Manufacturing
Modern City
“Pure Modern Cities” are arguably “Pure industrial cities”
Location of 25 Largest Cities in 1900
Mostly clustered in Europe
Smaller cluster in Eastern NA (Boston, NY, Philly)
Some modern cities elsewhere
Global Changes over 20th Century
(1) Industrial Manufacturing shifting east after 20th century
(2) Areas underwent industrialization NA and EU already did
(3) Different socio-political dynamics
(4) Global south would not just replicate NA patterns
Mumbai as a Modern City
Originally composed of seven separate islands
Modernization of Mumbai is because of urban development in Europe
Imperialism and British control
Economic Centre of Gravity
Similar to Cities pop trends until 1900
Less southward shift after 1900
Suggests that post-industrialization urbanization is less economically significant
Arguable decoupling of industrialization as an economic activity and urbanization as a settlement power
Economic Centre of Gravity 1 AD
China and India were the world’s largest economies (Post -Iron Age economies)
Economic Centre of Gravity (1 AD - 1950)
European industrialization and America’s rise drew the economic centre of gravity into the Atlantic
Economic centre of Gravity (1950 - 2000)
Japan’s economic boom made it the second-largest economy in the world, pulling the centre north
Economic Centre of Gravity (2000-2025)
As China has regained economic leadership, the centre is now retracing its footsteps towards the East
Decoupling of industrialization as an economic activity and urbanization as a settlement power (why the economic centre is still northern, despite industrialization of the global south)
“New” Cities
New, modern cities are cities shaped by new global economy
Mostly in southern hemisphere (Asia)
Greenfield development (where there is no previous city existing)
Built in response to economic activities
Used in an attempt to spark economic innovations or for geopolitical purposes
Forest City, Malaysia
Takes new city logic to the extreme
Built on land built by dredging the sea bed (creates new dry land where there used to be water
Funded by the Chinese gov as part of geopolitical strategy to expand China’s influence globally and regionally (was for citizens to invest in cities outside the county)
Very similar imagery to Metropolis’ Babylon tower
Georg Simmel
Author of “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903)
What makes living in a city different than living elsewhere?
1) Large and mobile urban populations
2) World of strangers: Far to many people to know personally, but encounter daily
Paul Bairoch
Author of “Urbanism in Developed Countries (1700 -1800)
Summary of Urbanism in Developed Countries 1700-1800
Industrial Revolution –> economic explosion –> radical change in cities
Population shift from rural to urban
Fraction of Modern Population that lives in Cities
More than 2/3 of pop lives in cities
Fraction of City-Dwellers that live in large urban agglomerations (today)
Over 1/2 of city-dwellers live in large urban agglomerations (pop + 500 000)
2 Consequences of Industrial Revolution
1) Population Explosion
2) Advancements in industrial/agricultural production
Global Population at the Beginning of Christian Era
200 -350 million people
Global Population in 1340 AD
400-500 million people
Global Population 1700 AD
700 million people
Global Population 1985
4.8 billion people
Iron Production Changes (1000 - 1700 AD)
Iron Capita may have double (probably overestimation)
Iron Production Changes (1700 - 1980)
Iron per capita increased by over 180 times
Changes in Agriculture Production (1700 - 1980)
Today 1/14 people work in agriculture (in developed wester nations) compared to 11/14 people two centuries ago
Despite smaller % of workforce in agriculture, greater quantity and diversity of outputs
Life Expectancy (Roman Empire to 1700)
28-35 years old
Life Expectancy (1980s)
75 in developed western world
45-50 yrs old in 3rd World
Contrasts in regional development in 18th century Europe
England: 750 000-850 000 pp in cities (1700) –> 2100 000 1800
Continent: period of stagnation and decline in urbanization
Decline in level of urbanization often “suggests that the region had reached a threshold difficult, if not impossible, to surpass w/in the framework of traditional economies” (215)
Russia: Incomplete data, no significant trends
Urbanization % of 19th Century
England:
- 40% –> 68% (1880)
Europe:
- 1800 –> 12%
- 1880 –> 19%
- WW1 –> 42%
Number of People in cities (1300 AD)
8 million pp
Number of people in cities (1700)
13 million pp
Number of people in cities (1800)
19 million
Number of people in cities (1910)
127 million pp
Bernand Lepetit
Study “The Evolution of the Notion of Cities in the Geographical Descriptions of France (1650-1850)” - (
Paper noting the size of urban agglomerations and consequences touching the very nature of urbanization and thus the criteria used to define it as well
20th Century Cyclical Patterns in Urbanization
WW2 and Great depression 1930s - slowed urbanization
Recession in 1974-75, energy crisis - slowed urbanization
Weaker correlation b/w levels of developped (per capita gross national product) and the level of urbanization by the end of the 20th centruy
Why did urbanization slow down in the seventies?
“The impact of changes in the attitudes and behavior of urban populations themselves”
Growth of interest in ecology and concomitantly in rural way of life
“Hyper urbanized societies very likely contain within their own growth the seed of this sort of reaction against the conditions of urban existence” (220)
Absolute limit of Urban Growth
Harmonization of levels of urbanization
“The closer urbanization comes to its absolute limit, the greater the role played in any country by national factors peculiar to it” (220)
Geographic characteristics of countries Political cast (size of country, form of gov, economic policies)
