city - Geography, History of cities, Environmental effects, Global cities, Inner city
A settlement larger than a town or village, the definition of which varies according to national conventions. In Britain the term is used of cathedral towns (eg Ely) and certain other towns upon which the title has been conferred by royal authority (eg Birmingham, 1889); in the USA it is used of those urban centres which have a particular local government structure.
A city is an urban area that is differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. In most parts of the world, cities are generally substantial and nearly always have an urban core, but in the United States many incorporated areas which have a very modest population, or a suburban or even mostly rural character, are designated as cities.
A city usually consists of residential, industrial and business areas together with administrative functions which may relate to a wider geographical area. A large share of a city's area is primarily taken up by housing, which is then supported by infrastructure such as roads, streets and often public transport routes such as a rapid transit system. Lakes and rivers may be the only undeveloped areas within the city.
Geography
The geographies of cities, both physical and human, are diverse.
Older European cities often have historically intact central areas where the streets are jumbled together, seemingly without a structural plan.
Modern city planning has seen many different schemes for how a city should look. This city even had its different districts, much like modern city planning today. Good examples are the cities established in the south of France by various rulers and city expansions in old Dutch and Flemish cities. Every city expansion would imply a new circle (canals + town walls).
History of cities
Towns and cities have a long history, although opinions vary on whether any particular ancient settlement can be considered to be a city. One characteristic that can be used to distinguish a small city from a large town is organized government. A city has professional administrators, regulations, and some form of taxation (food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to feed the government workers.
By this definition, the first cities we know of were located in Mesopotamia, such as Eridu, Uruk, and Ur, and in Egypt along the Nile, the Indus Valley Civilization and China. Among the early cities, Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley Civilization was the largest, with an estimated population of 41,250 , as well as the most developed in many ways, as it was the first to use urban planning, municipal governments, grid plans, drainage, flush toilets, urban sanitation systems, and sewage systems.
The growth of the world population, the growth of ancient empires, and the growth in commerce and manufacturing led to ever greater capital cities and centres of commerce and industry, with Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia of the Hellenistic civilization, Pataliputra (now Patna) in India, Chang'an (now Xi'an) in China, Carthage, ancient Rome, its eastern successor Constantinople (later Istanbul), and successive Chinese, Indian and Muslim capitals approaching or exceeding the half-million population level. Similar administrative, commercial, industrial and ceremonial centres emerged in other areas, most notably Baghdad, which later became the first city to exceed a population of one million by the 8th century. In Continental Europe cities with a legislature of their own weren't unheard of, the laws for towns as a rule other than for the countryside, the lord of a town often being another than for surrounding land.
In exceptional cases like Venice, Genoa or Lübeck, cities themselves became powerful states, sometimes taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. A small city of the early modern period might contain as few as 10,000 inhabitants, a town far fewer still. By the late 18th century, London had become the largest city in the world with a population of over a million, while Paris rivalled the well-developed regionally-traditional capital cities of Baghdad, Beijing, Istanbul and Kyoto.
The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive urbanization and the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas. Today the world's population is about half urban, with millions still streaming annually into the growing cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Environmental effects
Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates. Conversely, because these effects make cities warmer (urban heat shield or urban heat islands) than the surrounding area, tornadoes tend to go around cities.
Garbage and sewage are two major problems for cities, as is air pollution coming from internal combustion engines (see public transport). The impact of cities on places elsewhere, be it hinterlands or places far away, is considered in the notion of city footprinting (ecological footprint). There is no one standard international definition of a city: the term may be used either for a town possessing city status; Although city can refer to an agglomeration including suburban and satellite areas, the term is not usually applied to a conurbation (cluster) of distinct urban places, nor for a wider metropolitan area including more than one city, each acting as a focus for parts of the area.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, a city is a town which has been known as a city since time immemorial, or which has received city status by letters patent — which is normally granted on the basis of size, importance or royal connection (traditional pointers have been whether the town has a cathedral or a university). Some cathedral cities, for example St David's in Wales, are quite small, and may not be known as cities in common parlance. (See City status in the United Kingdom.) Preston became England's newest city in the year 2002 to mark the Queen's jubilee, as did Newport in Wales, Stirling in Scotland, and Lisburn and Newry in Northern Ireland.
A similar system existed in the medieval Low Countries where a landlord would grant settlements certain privileges (city rights) that settlements without city rights didn't have. For instance the City of South Perth is part of the urban area known as Perth, commonly described as a city. On the other hand, Gisborne is known as the first city to see the sun, despite being administered by a district council, not a city council.
United States
In most U.S. states, a city is designated by the election of a mayor and city council, while a town is governed by a town manager, select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. Very large towns exist (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004), and the line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state.
In many U.S. states, any incorporated town is called a city. If a distinction is being made between towns and cities, exactly what that distinction is often depends on the context—it will differ depending on whether the issue is the legal authority it posesses, the availability of shopping and entertainment, and the scope of the group of places under consideration. Intensifiers such as "small town" and "big city" are also common, though the flip side of each is rarely used. Another well-known example of an urban village is New York City's famed Greenwich Village, which started as a quiet country settlement but was absorbed by the growing city.
In all the New England states, city status is conferred by the form of government, not population. New England cities, on the other hand, have a mayor for the executive, and a legislature referred to as either the city council or the board of aldermen. The largest incorporated municipalities are all cities, although some smaller cities have a lower population than some towns. For example, the smallest city of Norton has a population of 3,904 and the largest town of Blacksburg has a population of 39,573.
Global cities
Main Article:Global City
A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of trade, banking, finance, innovations, and markets. Whereas "megacity" refers to any city of enormous size, a global city is one of enormous power or influence. Global cities, according to Sassen, have more in common with each other than with other cities in their host nations. Examples of such cities include London, New York City, Paris, Tokyo. The notion of global cities is rooted in the concentration of power and capabilities within all cities. The city is seen as a container where skills and resources are concentrated: the better able a city is to concentrate its skills and resources, the more successful and powerful the city. This makes the city itself more powerful in terms that it can influence what is happening around the world. Following this view of cities, it is possible to rank the world's cities hierarchically . Other global cities include Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Milan, Chicago and Singapore which are all classed as "Alpha World Cities" and San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto and Zurich, which are "Beta World Cities". For example, cities like Rome, Istanbul and Mecca are powerful in religious and historical terms but would not be considered "global cities".
In 1995, Kanter argued that successful cities can be identified by three elements.
Inner city
Main article: Inner city
In the United States, United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, the term "inner city" is sometimes used with the connotation of being an area, perhaps a ghetto, where people are less wealthy and where there is more crime. These connotations are less common in other Western countries, as deprived areas are located in varying parts of other Western cities. In fact, with the gentrification of some formerly run-down central city areas the reverse connotation can apply. In Paris, the inner city is the richest part of the metropolitan area, where housing is the most expensive, and where elites and high-income individuals dwell.
The United States, in particular, has a culture of anti-urbanism that some say dates back as far as Thomas Jefferson who wrote that "The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body." On the businessmen who brought manufacturing industry into cities and hence increased the population density necessary to supply the workforce, he wrote "the manufactures of the great cities... The American City Beautiful architecture movement of the late 1800s was a reaction to perceived urban decay and sought to provide stately civic buildings and boulevards to inspire civic pride in the motley residents of the urban core.
However, there is a growing movement in North America called "New Urbanism" that calls for a return to traditional city planning methods where mixed-use zoning allows people to walk from one type of land-use to another.
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