lecture 1

Question 1

What is the definition of a city?

Answer 1

Places where large numbers of people live and work and where hubs of government, commerce and transportation are.

Question 2

what does civitas mean?

Answer 2

citizenship, community member

Question 3

What does urbs mean?

Answer 3

City in the physical sense

Question 4

What does polis mean?

Answer 4

City-states

Question 5

Why do cities make us richer?

Answer 5

wider rage of jobs, highest wages, social mobility, access to facilities

Question 6

Why do cities not make us richer?

Answer 6

Higher unemployment rates, huge income differences, cities are expensive

Question 7

Do cities make us healthier? and why?

Answer 7

Yes, higher life expectancy, better access to health services, lower suicide rates, improvement water quality
No, plague in the past (high death rates), poor water quality, air pollution

Question 8

Do cities make us safer? Why?

Answer 8

No, higher crime rates, more disorder, higher risk of drug abuse
Yes, Decline homicide rates, police forces, support infrastructures, improvement security technologies

Question 9

Do cities make us greener? Why?

Answer 9

Yes, innovation to reduce carbon emission, urban farming
No, largest energy consumers, creating green house gas emissions, facing huge problems of heat, storms and flooding

Question 10

What is the definition of urbanization?

Answer 10

Population shift from rural to urban areas

Question 11

Why did cities attract people before 1800?

Answer 11

1. economic reason (water supply, transport routes, trade and work)
2. Protection (military protection, abuse of lords and kings, property rights and criminal law)
3. Facilities (markets, poor relief, law and administration)

Question 12

What are three important differences between cities in Europe and cities in other parts of the world?

Answer 12

1. High level of urbanization
2. Relatively small cities in Europe, mega cities outside Europe
3. Urban Autonomy

Question 13

What is the key-factor of the huge growth from the end of the 18th century in cities? and why?

Answer 13

rural-urban migration, because of industralization

Question 14

Where do cities depend on?

Answer 14

Countryside, governments, urban network

Question 15

Where did the autonomy of western cities before 1800 led to?

Answer 15

1. Free citizen: middle classes
2. Open institutions: guild and courts
3. Dynamic populations

Question 16

what did lewis mumford say?

Answer 16

“The city is a theatre of social action” > a form of social drama
• Urban building (houses, markets, churches, city halls, etc.) are expressions of power and relations
• Not only during rituals, but in every day life

Question 17

what did edward glaeser say?

Answer 17

Cities are great places:
• Engines of innovation
• Bring people and ideas together
And the best places to stay:
• People earn more
•More facilities
• Less crime
• Less disease and pollution

Question 18

what was the name of edward glaesers book?

Answer 18

triumph of the city

Question 19

what were the first cities in the world and when?

Answer 19

Mesopotamia, Mediterranean Europe, North India and China
4200-3000 BCE

Question 20

China before 1800

Answer 20

Administration and services (imperial: in service of the state)
Hanghzou c. 1200: 1 million inhabitants

Question 21

Ottoman empire before 1800

Answer 21

International trade and commercialization
Istanbul c. 1550: 600,000 inhabitants

Question 22

Western Europe before 1800

Answer 22

International trade and commercialization
London 1500: 50,000
Amsterdam 1570: 30,000

Question 23

what did max weber say about european city?

Answer 23

European city is crucial for explaining difference between Western Europe and the rest of the world.