Preindustrial cities

Examples of Preindustrial cities in the following topics:

• Preindustrial Cities

  • Preindustrial cities had important political and economic functions and evolved to become well-defined political units.
  • London is an example of a city that was well established in the preindustrial era as a political and economic center.
  • While ancient cities may have arisen organically as trading centers, preindustrial cities evolved to become well defined political units, like today's states.
  • Not all cities grew to become major urban centers.
  • Examine the growth of preindustrial cities as political units, as well as how trade routes allowed certain cities to expand and grow

• Neighborhood

  • In some preindustrial urban traditions, basic municipal functions such as protection, social regulation of births and marriages, cleaning, and upkeep are handled informally by neighborhoods and not by urban governments; this pattern is well documented for historical Islamic cities.
  • Neighborhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialization or differentiation.
  • Ethnic enclaves were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today.
  • This was a continual process for preindustrial cities in which migrants tended to move in with relatives and acquaintances from their rural past.
  • This image is of Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

• Preindustrial Societies: The Birth of Inequality

• The Earliest Cities

  • Mesopotamian cities included Eridu, Uruk, and Ur.
  • Early cities also arose in the Indus Valley and ancient China.
  • Some ancient cities grew to be powerful capital cities and centers of commerce and industry, situated at the centers of growing ancient empires.
  • Why did cities form in the first place?
  • Cities may have held other advantages, too.

• The Rise of the City

  • Roughly 40 percent of Americans lived in cities, and the number was climbing.
  • These large city populations caused crime rates to rise, and disease to spread rapidly.
  • Skyscrapers were being built in the cities and the idea of mass transit had begun to take root.
  • Suburbs were beginning to form as upper class families began to move out of the overcrowded cities.
  • New large cities, such as Denver, Chicago, and Cleveland, developed inland along new transportation routes.

• Shrinking Cities and Counter-Urbanization

  • In developed countries, people are able to move out of cities while maintaining many of the advantages of city life because improved communications and means of transportation.
  • White flight during the post-war period contributed to urban decay, a process whereby a city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude.
  • Thus, suburbs were built—smaller cities located on the edges of a larger city, which often include residential neighborhoods for those working in the area.
  • Around 1990, another trend emerged, called exurbanization: upper class city dwellers moved out of the city, beyond the suburbs, to live in high-end housing in the countryside.
  • Baltimore, Maryland is an example of a shrinking American city.

• The Environmental Impact of Cities

  • These new large cities were not coastal port cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, but laid inland along new transportation routes (like Denver, Chicago, and Cleveland).
  • Soon people began to flock from rural, farm areas to large cities.
  • Not only did urbanization cause cities to grow in population, it also caused cities to grow in building size.
  • City living was for the lower class; the upper class had enough money to get away from all of the pollution and the city stench.
  • For example, in the city of Chicago, you will find a lot of the nicer homes away from the city, and more towards the suburbs.

• Industrial Cities

  • During the industrial era, cities grew rapidly and became centers of population growth and production.
  • During the industrial era, cities grew rapidly and became centers of population and production.
  • In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities.
  • Rapid growth brought urban problems, and industrial-era cities were rife with dangers to health and safety.
  • The greatest killer in the cities was tuberculosis (TB).

• Urban Planning in the Greek High Classical Period

  • Hippodamus of Miletus is considered the "father" of rational city planning, and the city of Priene is a prime example of his grid planned cities.
  • His plans of Greek cities were characterized by order and regularity in contrast to the intricacy and confusion common to cities of that period.
  • In the middle of the city were many public buildings.
  • The agora was the central component of the city.
  • Instead, the rational plan of Priene allowed for access to multiple sites of the city and easy navigation through the city.

• New State Spaces

  • One of the most prominent theories in this field is that of global cities.
  • A global city is a city that is central to the global economic system, such as New York or London.
  • The most complex and central cities are known as global cities.
  • Not only are global cities important economically, but they are also politically unique.
  • In some ways, global cities are more intimately connected to the global economic system and to other global cities than they are to surrounding regions or national settings.