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City

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Geography

   The city of Chicago, as seen from the sky
   Enlarge
   The city of Chicago, as seen from the sky

   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. City can also be a synonym
   for " downtown" or a " city centre".

   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. The study of cities is covered extensively in human geography.

Geography

   Map of Haarlem, the Netherlands, of around 1550. The city is completely
   surrounded by a city wall and defensive canal. The square shape is
   inspired by Jerusalem
   Enlarge
   Map of Haarlem, the Netherlands, of around 1550. The city is completely
   surrounded by a city wall and defensive canal. The square shape is
   inspired by Jerusalem

   The geographies of cities, both physical and human, are diverse. Cities
   are often coastal, with harbours for shipping, or situated near rivers
   to give an economic advantage. Water transport on rivers and oceans was
   (and in most cases remains) cheaper and more efficient than road
   transport over long distances.

   Older European cities often have historically intact central areas
   where the streets are jumbled together, seemingly without a structural
   plan. This quality is a legacy of earlier unplanned or organic
   development, and is often perceived by today's tourists to be
   picturesque. In contrast, planned cities founded after the advent of
   the automobile tend to have expansive boulevards impractical to
   navigate on foot.

   Modern city planning has seen many different schemes for how a city
   should look. The most commonly seen pattern is the grid, favoured by
   the Romans, almost a rule in parts of the New World, and used for
   thousands of years in China. Derry was the first ever planned city in
   Ireland, begun in 1613, with the walls being completed 5 years later in
   1618. The central diamond within a walled city with four gates was
   thought to be a good design for defence. The grid pattern chosen was
   widely copied in the colonies of British North America. However, the
   grid has been around for far longer than the British Empire. The
   Ancient Greeks often gave their colonies around the Mediterranean a
   grid plan. One of the best examples is the city of Priene. This city
   even had its different districts, much like modern city planning today.
   Also in Medieval times we see a preference for linear planning. Good
   examples are the cities established in the south of France by various
   rulers and city expansions in old Dutch and Flemish cities.

   Other forms may include a radial structure in which main roads converge
   on a central point, often the effect of successive growth over long
   time with concentric traces of town walls and citadels - recently
   supplemented by ring-roads that take traffic around the edge of a town.
   Many Dutch cities are structured this way: a central square surrounded
   by a concentric canals. Every city expansion would imply a new circle
   (canals + town walls). In cities like Amsterdam and Haarlem, and
   elsewhere, such as in Moscow, this pattern is still clearly visible.

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. The
   first true towns are sometimes considered to be large settlements where
   the inhabitants were no longer simply farmers of the surrounding area,
   but began to take on specialized occupations, and where trade, food
   storage and power was centralized. One characteristic that can be used
   to distinguish a small city from a large town is organized government.
   A town accomplishes common goals through informal agreements between
   neighbors or the leadership of a powerful chief. 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. The governments may be based on heredity, religion,
   military power, work projects (such as canal building), food
   distribution, land-ownership, agriculture, commerce, manufacturing,
   finance, or a combination of those. Societies that live in cities are
   often called civilizations. A city can also be define as an absence of
   physical space between people and firms.

   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. Before this time it was rare
   for settlements to reach significant size, although there were
   exceptions such as Jericho, Çatalhöyük and Mehrgarh. 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.

   It is estimated that ancient Rome had a population of about half a
   million people by the end of the first century. Alexandria's population
   was also close to Rome's population at around the same time (in a
   census dated from 32 CE, Alexandria had 180,000 adult male citizens).
   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.

   During the European Middle Ages, a town was as much a political entity
   as a collection of houses. City residence brought freedom from
   customary rural obligations to lord and community: "Stadtluft macht
   frei" ("City air makes you free") was a saying in Germany. 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 the Holy Roman Empire some cities had no other
   lord than the emperor. In Italy, Medieval Communes had quite a
   statelike power.

   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. Similar phenomena
   existed elsewhere, as in the case of Sakai, which enjoyed a
   considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan.

   Most towns remained far smaller places, so that in 1500 only some two
   dozen places in the world contained more than 100,000 inhabitants: as
   late as 1700 there were fewer than forty, a figure which would rise
   thereafter to 300 in 1900. A small city of the early modern period
   might contain as few as 10,000 inhabitants, a town far fewer still.

   While the city-states, or poleis, of the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea
   languished from the 16th century, Europe's larger capitals benefited
   from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an Atlantic
   economy fuelled by the silver of Peru. 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. In the Great
   Depression of the 1930s cities were hard hit by unemployment,
   especially those with a base in heavy industry. In the U.S urbanization
   rate increased forty to eighty percent during 1900-1990. Today the
   world's population is about half urban, with millions still streaming
   annually into the growing cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
   There has also been a shift to suburbs, perhaps to avoid crime and
   traffic, which are two costs of living in a urban area.

Environmental effects

   Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates. This is
   due to the large clustering of hard surfaces that heat up in sunlight
   and that channel rainwater into underground ducts. As a result, city
   weather is often windier and cloudier than the weather in the
   surrounding countryside. Conversely, because these effects make cities
   warmer (urban heat shield or urban heat islands) than the surrounding
   area, tornadoes tend to go around cities. Additionally, towns can cause
   significant downstream weather effects.

   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).

The difference between towns and cities

   The difference between towns and cities is differently understood in
   different parts of the English speaking world. There is no one standard
   international definition of a city: the term may be used either for a
   town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an
   arbitrary population size; for a town dominating other towns with
   particular regional economic or administrative significance. 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, such as St David's
   in Wales and Wells in England, are quite small, and may not be known as
   cities in common parlance. 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. This include the privilege
   to put up city walls, hold markets, or set up a judicial court.

Australia and New Zealand

   In Australia and New Zealand, city is used to refer both to units of
   local government, and as a synonym for urban area. 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. There are some very
   large towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785
   in 2004) and some very small cities (such as Shafer, Minnesota, with a
   population of 343 in 2000), and the line between town and city, if it
   exists at all, varies from state to state. Cities n the United States
   do have many oddities, like Maza, North Dakota, the smallest city in
   the country, has only 5 inhabitants, but is still incorporated. It does
   not have an active government, and the mayoral hand changes frequently
   (due to the lack of city laws), but it is considered a relatively
   inactive government.

   In many U.S. states, any incorporated town is called a city. Those
   places are also called towns, of course. 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 possesses, 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.

   Some states also make a distinction between villages and other forms of
   municipalities. Even though Americans are aware that "village" means
   something smaller than a town, the word has often been co-opted by
   enterprising developers to make their projects sound welcoming and
   friendly. The results are villages with 20 and 30-story high-rises,
   like Westwood Village in Los Angeles. 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. Town government has a board of selectmen
   for the executive branch, and a town meeting for the legislative
   branch. 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.

   In Virginia, a town is an incorporated municipality which remains a
   part of an adjacent or surrounding county. All incorporated
   municipalities designated as cities are independent of the adjacent or
   surrounding county. 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

   Modern global cities, like New York City, often include large central
   business districts that serve as hubs for economic activity
   Enlarge
   Modern global cities, like New York City, often include large central
   business districts that serve as hubs for economic activity

   A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of
   trade, banking, finance, innovations, and markets. The term "global
   city", as opposed to megacity, was coined by Saskia Sassen in a seminal
   1991 work. 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 and São Paulo. 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 Zürich, which are "Beta World Cities".

   Critics of the notion point to the different realms of power. The term
   global city is heavily influenced by economic factors and, thus, may
   not account for places that are otherwise significant. For example,
   cities like Rome, Istanbul and Mecca are powerful in religious and
   historical terms but would not be considered "global cities".
   Additionally, it has been questioned whether the city itself can be
   regarded as an actor.

   In 1995, Kanter argued that successful cities can be identified by
   three elements. To be successful, a city needs to have good thinkers
   (concepts), good makers (competence) or good traders ( connections).
   The interplay of these three elements, Kanter argued, means that good
   cities are not planned but managed.

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 Australia, for example, the
   term "outer suburban" applied to a person implies a lack of
   sophistication. 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. In the developing world,
   economic modernization brings poor newcomers from the countryside to
   build haphazardly at the edge of current settlement (see favelas).

   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... have begotten a depravity of
   morals, a dependence and corruption, which renders them an undesirable
   accession to a country whose morals are sound." 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. Modern anti-urban attitudes are to be found in America in the
   form of a planning profession that continues to develop land on a
   low-density suburban basis, where access to amenities, work and
   shopping is provided almost exclusively by car rather than on foot.

   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. The idea is that housing, shopping, office space, and
   leisure facilities are all provided within walking distance of each
   other, thus reducing the demand for road-space and also improving the
   efficiency and effectiveness of mass transit.

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