City - wikipedia City For other uses, see City ( disambiguation ). The waterfront of Alexandria, a modern city with at least 23 centuries of history. A satellite view of East Asia at night shows urbanization as illumination. Here the Taiheiyō Belt, which includes Tokyo, demonstrates how megalopolises can be identified by nighttime lighting. This 1908 map of Piraeus, the port of Athens, shows the city 's grid plan, credited by Aristotle to Hippodamus of Miletus. A city is a large human settlement. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process. Historically city - dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but today, following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, half of the world population is said to live in cities. This has profound consequences for global sustainability. Present - day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas - creating numerous commuters traveling towards city centers for employment, entertainment, and edification. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are in different degree also connected globally beyond these regions. The most populated city proper is Shanghai while the largest metropolitan areas also include the Greater Tokyo Area and Jabodetabek ( Jakarta ). The cities of Faiyum, Damascus, and Varanasi are among those laying claim to longest continual inhabitation. Contents 1 Meaning 2 Geography 2.1 Site 2.2 Center 2.3 Public space 2.4 Internal structure 2.5 Urban areas 3 History 3.1 Ancient times 3.2 Middle Ages 3.3 Early modern 3.4 Industrial age 3.5 Post-industrial age 4 Urbanization 5 Government 5.1 Municipal services 5.2 Finance 5.3 Governance 5.4 Urban planning 6 Society 6.1 Social structure 6.2 Economics 6.3 Culture and communications 6.4 Warfare 7 Infrastructure 7.1 Utilities 7.2 Transportation 7.3 Housing 8 Ecology 9 World city system 9.1 Global city 9.2 Transnational activity 9.3 Global governance 9.4 United Nations System 10 Representation in culture 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 External links Meaning Palitana represents the city 's symbolic function in the extreme, devoted as it is to Jain temples. A city is distinguished from other human settlements by its relatively great size, but also by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can also refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, and can be used in a general sense to mean urban rather than rural territory. A variety of definitions, invoking population, population density, number of dwellings, economic function, and infrastructure, are used in national censuses to classify populations as urban. Common population definitions for a city range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most states using a minimum between 1,500 and 5000 inhabitants. However, some jurisdictions set no such minimums. In others, such as in the United Kingdom, city status is awarded on local criteria. According to the `` functional definition '' a city is not distinguished by size alone, but also by the role it plays within a larger political context. Cities serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas. The presence of a literate elite is sometimes included in the definition. A typical 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. ( This arrangement contrasts with the more typically horizontal relationships in a tribe or village accomplishing common goals through informal agreements between neighbors, or through leadership of a chief. ) 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 these. Societies that live in cities are often called civilizations. The word city and the related civilization come, via Old French, from the Latin root civitas, originally meaning citizenship or community member and eventually coming to correspond with urbs, meaning city in a more physical sense. The Roman civitas was closely linked with the Greek `` polis '' -- another common root appearing in English words such as metropolis. Geography Hillside housing and graveyard in Kabul. Panoramic view of Tirana, Albania from Mount Dajt in 2004. Downtown Pittsburgh sits at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, which become the Ohio. Kinshasa ends and fields begin. The L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C., inspired by the design of Versailles, combines a utilitarian grid pattern with diagonal avenues and a symbolic focus on monumental architecture. This aerial view of the Gush Dan metropolitan area in Israel shows the geometrically planned city of Tel Aviv proper ( upper left ) as well as Givatayim to the east and some of Bat Yam to the south. Tel Aviv 's population is 433,000 ; the total population of its metropolitan area is 3,785,000. Urban geography deals both with cities in their larger context and with their internal structure. Site Town siting has varied through history according to natural, technological, economic, and military contexts. Access to water has long been a major factor in city placement and growth, and despite exceptions enabled by the advent of rail transport in the nineteenth century, through the present most of the world 's urban population lives near the coast or on a river. Urban areas as a rule can not produce their own food and therefore must develop some relationship with a hinterland which sustains them. Only in special cases such as mining towns which play a vital role in long - distance trade, are cities disconnected from the countryside which feeds them. Thus, centrality within a productive region influences siting, as economic forces would in theory favor the creation of market places in optimal mutually reachable locations. Center Main article : City centre The vast majority of cities have a central area containing buildings with special economic, political, and religious significance. Archaeologists refer to this area by the Greek term temenos or if fortified as a citadel. These spaces historically reflect and amplify the city 's centrality and importance to its wider sphere of influence. Today cities have a city center or downtown, sometimes coincident with a central business district. Public space Cities typically have public spaces where anyone can go. These include privately owned spaces open to the public as well as forms of public land such as public domain and the commons. Western philosophy since the time of the Greek agora has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic public sphere. Public art adorns ( or disfigures ) public spaces. Parks and other natural sites within cities provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical built environments. Internal structure Urban structure generally follows one or more basic patterns : geomorphic, radial, concentric, rectilinear, and curvilinear. Physical environment generally constrains the form in which a city is built. If located on a mountainside, it may rely on terraces and winding roads. It may be adapted to its means of subsistence ( e.g. agriculture or fishing ). And it may be set up for optimal defense given the surrounding landscape. Beyond these `` geomorphic '' features, cities can develop internal patterns, due to natural growth or to city planning. In a radial structure, main roads converge on a central point. This form could evolve from successive growth over a long time, with concentric traces of town walls and citadels marking older city boundaries. In more recent history, such forms were supplemented by ring roads moving traffic around the outskirts of a town. Dutch cities such as Amsterdam and Haarlem are structured as a central square surrounded by concentric canals marking every expansion. In cities such as and also Moscow, this pattern is still clearly visible. A system of rectilinear city streets and land plots, known as the grid plan, has been used for millennia in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The Indus Valley Civilisation built Mohenjo - Daro, Harappa and other cities on a grid pattern, using ancient principles described by Kautilya, and aligned with the compass points. The ancient Greek city of Priene exemplifies a grid plan with specialized districts used across the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Urban areas Urban - type settlement extends far beyond the traditional boundaries of the city proper in a form of development sometimes described critically as urban sprawl. Decentralization and dispersal of city functions ( commercial, industrial, residential, cultural, political ) has transformed the very meaning of the term and has challenged geographers seeking to classify territories according to an urban - rural binary. Metropolitan areas include suburbs and exurbs organized around the needs of commuters, and sometimes edge cities characterized by a degree of economic and political independence. ( In the USA these are grouped into metropolitan statistical areas for purposes of demography and marketing. ) Some cities are now part of a continuous urban landscape called urban agglomeration, conurbation, or megalopolis ( exemplified by the BosWash corridor of the Northeastern United States. ) History Main article : History of the city Further information : Urban history, Historical urban community sizes, and List of largest cities throughout history An arch from the ancient Sumerian city Ur, which flourished in the third millennium BC, can be seen at present - day Tell el - Mukayyar in Iraq Mohenjo - daro, a city of the Indus Valley Civilization, which was rebuilt six or more times, using bricks of standard size, and adhering to the same grid layout -- also in the third millennium BC. This aerial view of what was once downtown Teotihuacan shows the Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon, and the processional avenue serving as the spine of the city 's street system. Cities, characterized by population density, symbolic function, and urban planning, have existed for thousands of years. In the conventional view, civilization and the city both followed from the development of agriculture, which enabled production of surplus food, and thus a social division of labour ( with concomitant social stratification ) and trade. Early cities often featured granaries, sometimes within a temple. A minority viewpoint considers that cities may have arisen without agriculture, due to alternate means of subsistence ( fishing ), to use as communal seasonal shelters, to their value as bases for defensive and offensive military organization, or to their inherent economic function. Cities played a crucial role in the establishment of political power over an area, and ancient leaders such as Alexander the Great founded and created them with zeal. Ancient times Further information : Cities of the Ancient Near East, Polis, City - state, and Late Antiquity § Cities Jericho and Çatalhöyük, dated to the eighth millennium BC, are among the earliest cities known to archaeologists. In the fourth and third millennium BC, complex civilizations flourished in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, India, China, and Egypt. Excavations in these areas have found the ruins of cities geared variously towards trade, politics, or religion. Some had large, dense populations, but others carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion without having large associated populations. Among the early Old World cities, Mohenjo - daro of the Indus Valley Civilization in present - day Pakistan, existing from about 2600 BC, was one of the largest, with a population of 50,000 or more and a sophisticated sanitation system. China 's planned cities were constructed according to sacred principles to act as celestial microcosms. The Ancient Egyptian cities known physically by archaeologists are not extensive. They include ( known by their Arab names ) El Lahun, a workers ' town associated with the pyramid of Senusret II, and the religious city Amarna built by Akhenaten and abandoned. These sites appear planned in a highly regimented and stratified fashion, with a minimalistic grid of rooms for the workers and increasingly more elaborate housing available for higher classes. In Mesopotamia, the civilization of Sumer, followed by Assyria and Babylon, gave rise to numerous cities, governed by kings and fostering multiple languages written in cuneiform. The Phoenician trading empire, flourishing around the turn of the first millennium BC, encompassed numerous cities extending from Tyre, Cydon, and Byblos to Carthage and Cádiz. In the following centuries, independent city - states of Greece developed the polis, an association of male landowning citizens who collectively constituted the city. The agora, meaning `` gathering place '' or `` assembly '', was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the polis. Rome 's rise to power brought its population to one million. Under the authority of its empire, Rome transformed and founded many cities ( coloniae ), and with them brought its principles of urban architecture, design, and society. In the ancient Americas, early urban traditions developed in the Andes and Mesoamerica. In the Andes, the first urban centers developed in the Norte Chico civilization, Chavin and Moche cultures, followed by major cities in the Huari, Chimu and Inca cultures. The Norte Chico civilization included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north - central coastal Peru. It is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, flourishing between the 30th century BC and the 18th century BC. Mesoamerica saw the rise of early urbanism in several cultural regions, beginning with the Olmec and spreading to the Preclassic Maya, the Zapotec of Oaxaca, and Teotihuacan in central Mexico. Later cultures such as the Aztec drew on these earlier urban traditions. Jenné - Jeno, located in present - day Mali and dating to the third century BC, lacked monumental architecture and a distinctive elite social class -- but nevertheless had specialized production and relations with a hinterland. Pre-Arabic trade contacts probably existed between Jenné - Jeno and North Africa. Other early urban centers in sub-Saharan Africa, dated to around 500 AD, include Awdaghust, Kumbi - Saleh the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda a center located on a trade route between Egypt and Gao. In the first millennium AD, Angkor in the Khmer Empire grew into one of the most extensive cities in the world and may have supported up to one million people. Middle ages The Ming Dynasty of China oversaw the creation of the Forbidden City and the expansion of Beijing to become the largest city in the world. This map of Haarlem, the Netherlands, created around 1550, shows the city completely surrounded by a city wall and defensive canal, with its square shape inspired by Jerusalem. In the remnants of the Roman Empire, cities of late antiquity gained independence but soon lost population and importance. The locus of power in the West shifted to Constantinople and to the ascendant Islamic civilization with its major cities Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba. From the 9th through the end of the 12th century, Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, with a population approaching 1 million. The Ottoman Empire gradually gained control over many cities in the Mediterranean area, including Constantinople in 1453. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, some cities become powerful states, taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. In Italy medieval communes developed into city - states including the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa. In Northern Europe, cities including Lübeck and Bruges formed the Hanseatic League for collective defense and commerce. Their power was later challenged and eclipsed by the Dutch commercial cities of Ghent, Ypres, and Amsterdam. Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the case of Sakai, which enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan. Early modern In the West, nation - states became the dominant unit of political organization following the Peace of Westphalia in the seventeenth century. Western Europe 's larger capitals ( London and Paris ) benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an Atlantic trade. However, most towns remained small. During the Spanish colonization of the Americas the old Roman city concept was extensively used. Cities were founded in the middle of the newly conquered territories, and were bound to several laws regarding administration, finances and urbanism. Industrial age 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. 19th - century London as capital of the world, crowded and thick with its own variety of smog. England led the way as London became the capital of a world empire and cities across the country grew in locations strategic for manufacturing. In the United States from 1860 to 1910, the introduction of railroads reduced transportation costs, and large manufacturing centers began to emerge, fueling migration from rural to city areas. Industrialized cities became deadly places to live, due to health problems resulting from overcrowding, occupational hazards of industry, contaminated water and air, poor sanitation, and communicable diseases such as typhoid and cholera. Factories and slums emerged as regular features of the urban landscape. Postindustrial age In the second half of the twentieth century, deindustrialization ( or `` economic restructuring '' ) in the West led to poverty, homelessness, and urban decay in formerly prosperous cities. America 's `` Steel Belt '' became a `` Rust Belt '' and cities such as Detroit, Michigan, and Gary, Indiana began to shrink, contrary to the global trend of massive urban expansion. Such cities have shifted with varying success into the service economy and public - private partnerships, with concomitant gentrification, uneven revitalization efforts, and selective cultural development. Under the Great Leap Forward and subsequent five - year plans continuing today, the People 's Republic of China has undergone concomitant urbanization and industrialization and to become the world 's leading manufacturer. Amidst these economic changes, high technology and instantaneous telecommunication enable select cities to become centers of the knowledge economy. A new smart city paradigm, supported by institutions such as the RAND Corporation and IBM, is bringing computerized surveillance, data analysis, and governance to bear on cities and city - dwellers. Some companies are building brand new masterplanned cities from scratch on greenfield sites. Urbanization Main article : Urbanization Clothes hang neatly and visibly in these Jakarta dwellings on the water near a dump. Urbanization is the process of migration from rural into urban areas, driven by various political, economic, and cultural factors. Until the 18th century, an equilibrium existed between the rural agricultural population and towns featuring markets and small - scale manufacturing. With the agricultural and industrial revolutions urban population began its unprecedented growth, both through migration and through demographic expansion. In England the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17 % in 1801 to 72 % in 1891. In 1900, 15 % of the world population lived in cities. The cultural appeal of cities also plays a role in attracting residents. Urbanization rapidly spread across the Europe and the Americas and since the 1950s has taken hold in Asia and Africa as well. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, reported in 2014 that for the first time more than half of the world population lives in cities. Graph showing urbanization from 1950 projected to 2050. Latin America is the most urban continent, with four fifths of its population living in cities, including one fifth of the population said to live in shantytowns ( favelas, villas miserias, etc. ). Batam, Indonesia, Mogadishu, Somalia, Xiamen, China and Niamey, Niger, are considered among the world 's fastest - growing cities, with annual growth rates of 5 -- 8 %. In general, the more developed countries of the `` Global North '' remain more urbanized than the less developed countries of the `` Global South '' -- but the difference continues to shrink because urbanization is happening faster in the latter group. Asia is home to by far the greatest absolute number of city - dwellers : over two billion and counting. The UN predicts an additional 2.5 billion citydwellers ( and 300 million fewer countrydwellers ) worldwide by 2050, with 90 % of urban population expansion occurring in Asia and Africa. Megacities, cities with population in the multi-millions, have proliferated into the dozens, arising especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Economic globalization fuels the growth of these cities, as new torrents of foreign capital arrange for rapid industrialization, as well as relocation of major businesses from Europe and North America, attracting immigrants from near and far. A deep gulf divides rich and poor in these cities, with usually contain a super-wealthy elite living in gated communities and large masses of people living in substandard housing with inadequate infrastructure and otherwise poor conditions. Cities around the world have expanded physically as they grow in population, with increases in their surface extent, with the creation of high - rise buildings for residential and commercial use, and with development underground. Urbanization can create rapid demand for water resources management, as formerly good sources of freshwater become overused and polluted, and the volume of sewage begins to exceed manageable levels. Government Further information : Local government The city council of Tehran meets in September 2015. Local government of cities takes different forms including prominently the municipality ( especially in England, in the United States, in India, and in other British colonies ; legally, the municipal corporation ; municipio in Spain and in Portugal, and, along with municipalidad, in most former parts of the Spanish and Portuguese empires ) and the commune ( in France and in Chile ; or comune in Italy ). The chief official of the city has the title of mayor. Whatever their true degree of political authority, the mayor typically acts as the figurehead or personification of their city. The city hall in George Town, Malaysia, today serves as the seat of the City Council of Penang Island. City governments have authority to make laws governing activity within cities, while its jurisdiction is generally considered subordinate ( in ascending order ) to state / provincial, national, and perhaps international law. This hierarchy of law is not enforced rigidly in practice -- for example in conflicts between municipal regulations and national principles such as constitutional rights and property rights. Legal conflicts and issues arise more frequently in cities than elsewhere due to the bare fact of their greater density. Modern city governments thoroughly regulate everyday life in many dimensions, including public and personal health, transport, burial, resource use and extraction, recreation, and the nature and use of buildings. Technologies, techniques, and laws governing these areas -- developed in cities -- have become ubiquitous in many areas. Municipal officials may be appointed from a higher level of government or elected locally. Municipal services The Dublin Fire Brigade pictured in April 1970, quenching a severe fire at a hardware store. Cities typically provide municipal services such as education, through school systems ; policing, through police departments ; and firefighting, through fire departments ; as well as the city 's basic infrastructure. These are provided more or less routinely, in a more or less equal fashion. Responsibility for administration usually falls on the city government, though some services may be operated by a higher level of government, while others may be privately run. Armies may assume responsibility for policing cities in states of domestic turmoil such as America 's King assassination riots of 1968. Finance The traditional basis for municipal finance is local property tax levied on real estate within the city. Local government can also collect revenue for services, or by leasing land that it owns. However, financing municipal services, as well as urban renewal and other development projects, is a perennial problem, which cities address through appeals to higher governments, arrangements with the private sector, and techniques such as privatization ( selling services to into the private sector ), corporatization ( formation of quasi-private municipally - owned corporations ), and financialization ( packaging city assets into tradable financial instruments and derivatives ). This situation has become acute in deindustrialized cities and in cases where businesses and wealthier citizens have moved outside of city limits and therefore beyond the reach of taxation. Cities in search of ready cash increasingly resort to the municipal bond, essentially a loan with interest and a repayment date. City governments have also begun to use tax increment financing, in which a development project is financed by loans based on future tax revenues which it is expected to yield. Under these circumstances, creditors and consequently city governments place a high importance on city credit ratings. Governance Governance includes government but refers to a wider domain of social control functions implemented by many actors including nongovernmental organizations. The impact of globalization and the role of multinational corporations in local governments worldwide, has led to a shift in perspective on urban governance, away from the `` urban regime theory '' in which a coalition of local interests functionally govern, toward a theory of outside economic control, widely associated in academics with the philosophy of neoliberalism. In the neoliberal model of governance, public utilities are privatized, industry is deregulated, and corporations gain the status of governing actors -- as indicated by the power they wield in public - private partnerships and over business improvement districts, and in the expectation of self - regulation through corporate social responsibility. The biggest investors and real estate developers act as the city 's de facto urban planners. The related concept of good governance places more emphasis on the state, with the purpose of assessing urban governments for their suitability for development assistance. The concepts of governance and good governance are especially invoked in the emergent megacities, where international organizations consider existing governments inadequate for their large populations. Urban planning La Plata, Argentina, based on a perfect square with 5196 - meter sides, was designed in the 1880s as the new capital of Buenos Aires Province. Main articles : Urban planning and Urban design Urban planning, the application of forethought to city design, involves optimizing land use, transportation, utilities, and other basic systems, in order to achieve certain objectives. Urban planners and scholars have proposed overlapping theories as ideals for how plans should be formed. Planning tools, beyond the original design of the city itself, include public capital investment in infrastructure and land - use controls such as zoning. The continuous process of comprehensive planning involves identifying general objectives as well as collecting data to evaluate progress and inform future decisions. Government, as the ultimate wielder of force is legally the final authority on planning but in practice the process involves both public and private elements. The legal principle of eminent domain is used by government to divest citizens of their property in cases where its use is required for a project. Planning often involves tradeoffs -- decisions in which some stand to gain and some to lose -- and thus is closely connected to the prevailing political situation. The history of urban planning dates to some of the earliest known cities, especially in the Indus Valley and Mesoamerican civilizations, which built their cities on grids and apparently zoned different areas for different purposes. The effects of planning, ubiquitous in today 's world, can be seen most clearly in the layout of planned communities, fully designed prior to construction, often with consideration for interlocking physical, economic, and cultural systems. Society Social structure Urban society is typically stratified. Spatially, cities are formally or informally segregated along ethnic, economic and racial lines. People living relatively close together may live, work, and play, in separate areas, and associate with different people, forming ethnic or lifestyle enclaves or, in areas of concentrated poverty, ghettoes. While in the USA and elsewhere poverty became associated with the inner city, in France it has become associated with the banlieues, areas of urban development which surround the city proper. Meanwhile, across Europe and North America, the racially white majority is empirically the most segregated group. Suburbs in the west, and, increasingly, gated communities and other forms of `` privatopia '' around the world, allow local elites to self - segregate into secure and exclusive neighborhoods. Landless urban workers, contrasted with peasants and known as the proletariat, form a growing stratum of society in the age of urbanization. In Marxist doctrine, the proletariat will inevitably revolt against the bourgeoisie as their ranks swell with disenfranchised and disaffected people lacking all stake in the status quo. The global urban proletariat of today, however, generally lacks the status as factory workers which in the nineteenth century provided access to the means of production. Economics Historically, cities rely on rural areas for intensive farming to yield surplus crops, in exchange for which they provide money, political administration, manufactured goods, and culture. Urban economics tends to analyze larger agglomerations, stretching beyond city limits, in order to reach a more complete understanding of the local labor market. People shopping for food at a marketplace in Taipei City. As hubs of trade cities have long been home to retail commerce and consumption through the interface of shopping. In the 20th century, department stores using new techniques of advertising, public relations, decoration, and design, transformed urban shopping areas into fantasy worlds encouraging self - expression and escape through consumerism. In general, the density of cities expedites commerce and facilitates knowledge spillovers, helping people and firms exchange information and generate new ideas. A thicker labor market allows for better skill matching between firms and individuals. Population density enables also sharing of common infrastructure and production facilities, however in very dense cities, increased crowding and waiting times may lead to some negative effects. Although manufacturing fueled the growth of cities, many now rely on a tertiary or service economy. The services in question range from tourism, hospitality, entertainment, housekeeping and prostitution to grey - collar work in law, finance, and administration. Culture and communications Cities are typically hubs for education and the arts, supporting universities, museums, temples, and other cultural institutions. They feature impressive displays of architecture ranging from small to enormous and ornate to brutal ; skyscrapers, providing thousands of offices or homes within a small footprint, and visible from miles away, have become iconic urban features. Cultural elites tend to live in cities, bound together by shared cultural capital, and themselves playing some role in governance. By virtue of their status as centers of culture and literacy, cities can be described as the locus of civilization, world history, and social change. Density makes for effective mass communication and transmission of news, through heralds, printed proclamations, newspapers, and digital media. These communication networks, though still using cities as hubs, penetrate extensively into all populated areas. In the age of rapid communication and transportation, commentators have described urban culture as nearly ubiquitous or as no longer meaningful. At the same time hallmarks of rural life may appear in the midst of the city, as in the case of urban agriculture. Today, a city 's promotion of its cultural activities dovetails with place branding and city marketing, public diplomacy techniques used to inform development strategy ; to attract businesses, investors, residents, and tourists ; and to create a shared identity and sense of place within the metropolitan area. Physical inscriptions, plaques, and monuments on display physically transmit a historical context for urban places. Some cities, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, and Rome have indelible religious status and for hundreds of years have attracted pilgrims. Patriotic tourists visit Agra to see the Taj Mahal, or New York City to visit the World Trade Center. Elvis lovers visit Memphis to pay their respects at Graceland. Place brands ( which include place satisfaction and place loyalty ) have great economic value ( comparable to the value of commodity brands ) because of their influence on the decision - making process of people thinking about doing business in -- `` purchasing '' ( the brand of ) -- a city. Bread and circuses among other forms of cultural appeal, attract and entertain the masses. Sports also play a major role in city branding and local identity formation. Cities go to considerable lengths in competing to host the Olympic Games, which bring global attention and tourism. Warfare Atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, devastated the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Cities play a crucial strategic role in warfare due to their economic, demographic, symbolic, and political centrality. For the same reasons, they are targets in asymmetric warfare. Many cities throughout history were founded under military auspices, a great many have incorporated fortifications, and military principles continue to influence urban design. Indeed, war may have served as the social rationale and economic basis for the very earliest cities. Powers engaged in geopolitical conflict have established fortified settlements as part of military strategies, as in the case of garrison towns, America 's Strategic Hamlet Program during the Vietnam War, and Israeli settlements in Palestine. While occupying the Philippines, the US Army ordered local people concentrated into cities and towns, in order to isolate committed insurgents and battle freely against them in the countryside. During World War II, national governments on occasion declared certain cities open, effectively surrendering them to an advancing enemy in order to avoid damage and bloodshed. Urban warfare proved decisive, however, in the Battle of Stalingrad, where Soviet forces repulsed German occupiers, with extreme casualties and destruction. In an era of low - intensity conflict and rapid urbanization, cities have become sites of long - term conflict waged both by foreign occupiers and by local governments against insurgency. Such warfare, known as counterinsurgency, involves techniques of surveillance and psychological warfare as well as close combat, functionally extends modern urban crime prevention, which already uses concepts such as defensible space. Although capture is the more common objective, warfare has in some cases spelt complete destruction for a city. Mesopotamian tablets and ruins attest to such destruction, as does the Latin motto Carthago delenda est. Since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and throughout the Cold War, nuclear strategists continued to contemplate the use of `` countervalue '' targeting : crippling an enemy by annihilating its valuable cities, rather than aiming primarily at its military forces. Infrastructure Urban infrastructure involves various physical networks and spaces necessary for transportation, water use, energy, recreation, and public functions. Infrastructure carries a high initial cost in fixed capital ( pipes, wires, plants, vehicles, etc. ) but lower marginal costs and thus positive economies of scale. Because of the higher barriers to entry, these networks have been classified as natural monopolies, meaning that economic logic favors control of each network by a single organization, public or private. Infrastructure in general ( if not every infrastructure project ) plays a vital role in a city 's capacity for economic activity and expansion, underpinning the very survival of the city 's inhabitants, as well as technological, commercial, industrial, and social activities. Structurally, many infrastructure systems take the form of networks with redundant links and multiple pathways, so that the system as a whole continue to operate even if parts of it fail. The particulars of a city 's infrastructure systems have historical path dependence because new development must build from what exists already. Megaprojects such as the construction of airports, power plants, and railways require large upfront investments and thus tend to require funding from national government or the private sector. Privatization may also extend to all levels of infrastructure construction and maintenance. Urban infrastructure ideally serves all residents equally but in practice may prove uneven -- with, in some cities, clear first - class and second - class alternatives. Utilities Public utilities ( literally, useful things with general availability ) include basic and essential infrastructure networks, chiefly concerned with the supply of water, electricity, and telecommunications capability to the populace. Sanitation, necessary for good health in crowded conditions, requires water supply and waste management as well as individual hygiene. Urban water systems include principally a water supply network and a network for wastewater including sewage and stormwater. Historically, either local governments or private companies have administered urban water supply, with a tendency toward government water supply in the 20th century and a tendency toward private operation at the turn of the twenty - first. The market for private water services is dominated by two French companies, Veolia Water ( formerly Vivendi ) and Engie ( formerly Suez ), said to hold 70 % of all water contracts worldwide. Modern urban life relies heavily on the energy transmitted through electricity for the operation of electric machines ( from household appliances to industrial machines to now - ubiquitous electronic systems used in communications, business, and government ) and for traffic lights, streetlights and indoor lighting. Cities rely to a lesser extent on hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and natural gas for transportation, heating, and cooking. Telecommunications infrastructure such as telephone lines and coaxial cables also traverse cities, forming dense networks for mass and point - to - point communications. Transportation See also : Public transport Because cities rely on specialization and an economic system based on wage labour, their inhabitants must have the ability to regularly travel between home, work, commerce, and entertainment. Citydwellers travel foot or by wheel on roads and walkways, or use special rapid transit systems based on underground, overground, and elevated rail. Cities also rely on long - distance transportation ( truck, rail, and airplane ) for economic connections with other cities and rural areas. Train stopped at the Dnipro stop of the Kiev Metro. Historically, city streets were the domain of horses and their riders and pedestrians, who only sometimes had sidewalks and special walking areas reserved for them. In the west, bicycles or ( velocipedes ), efficient human - powered machines for short - and medium - distance travel, enjoyed a period of popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century before the rise of automobiles. Soon after, they gained a more lasting foothold in Asian and African cities under European influence. In western cities, industrializing, expanding, and electrifying at this time, public transit systems and especially streetcars enabled urban expansion as new residential neighborhoods sprung up along transit lines and workers rode to and from work downtown. Since the mid-twentieth century, cities have relied heavily on motor vehicle transportation, with major implications for their layout, environment, and aesthetics. ( This transformation occurred most dramatically in the USA -- where corporate and governmental policies favored automobile transport systems -- and to a lesser extent in Europe. ) The rise of personal cars accompanied the expansion of urban economic areas into much larger metropolises, subsequently creating ubiquitous traffic issues with accompanying construction of new highways, wider streets, and alternative walkways for pedestrians. People walk, drive, and cycle through a street in Cairo. However, severe traffic jams still occur regularly in cities around the world, as private car ownership and urbanization continue to increase, overwhelming existing urban street networks. The urban bus system, the world 's most common form of public transport, uses a network of scheduled routes to move people through the city, alongside cars, on the roads. Economic function itself also became more decentralized as concentration became impractical and employers relocated to more car - friendly locations ( including edge cities ). Some cities have introduced bus rapid transit systems which include exclusive bus lanes and other methods for prioritizing bus traffic over private cars. Many big American cities still operate conventional public transit by rail, as exemplified by the ever - popular New York City Subway system. Rapid transit is widely used in Europe and has increased in Latin America and Asia. Walking and cycling ( `` non-motorized transport '' ) enjoy increasing favor ( more pedestrian zones and bike lanes ) in American and Asian urban transportation planning, under the influence of such trends as the Healthy Cities movement, the drive for sustainable development, and the idea of a carfree city. Techniques such as road space rationing and road use charges have been introduced to limit urban car traffic. Housing Housing of residents presents one of the major challenges every city must face. Adequate housing entails not only physical shelters but also the physical systems necessary to sustain life and economic activity. Home ownership represents status and a modicum of economic security, compared to renting which may consume much of the income of low - wage urban workers. Homelessness, or lack of housing, is a challenged currently faced by millions of people in countries rich and poor. Ecology This urban scene in Paramaribo features a few plants growing amidst solid waste and rubble behind some houses. Main article : Urban ecology Urban ecosystems, influenced as they are by the density of human buildings and activities differ considerably from those of their rural surroundings. Anthropogenic buildings and waste, as well as cultivation in gardens, create physical and chemical environments which have no equivalents in wilderness, in some cases enabling exceptional biodiversity. They provide homes not only for immigrant humans but also for immigrant plants, bringing about interactions between species which never previously encountered each other. They introduce frequent disturbances ( construction, walking ) to plant and animal habitats, creating opportunities for recolonization and thus favoring young ecosystems with r - selected species dominant. On the whole, urban ecosystems are less complex and productive than others, due to the diminished absolute amount of biological interactions. Typical urban fauna include insects ( especially ants ), rodents ( mice, rats ), and birds, as well as cats and dogs ( domesticated and feral ). Large predators are scarce. Profile of an urban heat island. Cities generate considerable ecological footprints, locally and at longer distances, due to concentrated populations and technological activities. From one perspective, cities are not ecologically sustainable due to their resource needs. From another, proper management may be able to ameliorate a city 's ill effects. Air pollution arises from various forms of combustion, including fireplaces, wood or coal - burning stoves, other heating systems, and internal combustion engines. Industrialized cities, and today third - world megacities, are notorious for veils of smog ( industrial haze ) which envelop them, posing a chronic threat to the health of their millions of inhabitants. Urban soil contains higher concentrations of heavy metals ( especially lead, copper, and nickel ) and has lower pH than soil in comparable wilderness. Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates, due to concrete, asphalt, and other artificial surfaces, which heat up in sunlight and channel rainwater into underground ducts. The temperature in New York City exceeds nearby rural temperatures by an average of 2 -- 3 ° C and at times 5 -- 10 ° C differences have been recorded. This effect varies nonlinearly with population changes ( independently of the city 's physical size ). Aerial particulates increase rainfall by 5 -- 10 %. Thus, urban areas experience unique climates, with earlier flowering and later leaf dropping than in nearby country. Poor and working - class people face disproportionate exposure to environmental risks ( known as environmental racism when intersecting also with racial segregation ). For example, within the urban microclimate, less - vegetated poor neighborhoods bear more of the heat ( but have fewer means of coping with it ). World city system As the world becomes more closely linked through economics, politics, technology, and culture ( a process called globalization ), cities have come to play a leading role in transnational affairs, exceeding the limitations of international relations conducted by national governments. This phenomenon, resurgent today, can be traced back to the Silk Road, Phoenicia, and the Greek city - states, through the Hanseatic League and other alliances of cities. Today the information economy based on high - speed internet infrastructure enables instantaneous telecommunication around the world, effectively eliminating the distance between cities for the purposes of stock markets and other high - level elements of the world economy, as well as personal communications and mass media. Global city Stock exchanges, characteristic features of the top global cities, are interconnected hubs for capital. Here, a delegation from Australia is shown visiting the London Stock Exchange. A global city, also known as a world city, is a prominent centre of trade, banking, finance, innovation, and markets. Saskia Sassen used the term `` global city '' in 1991 to refer to a city 's power, status, and cosmopolitanism, rather than to its size. Following this view of cities, it is possible to rank the world 's cities hierarchically. London, New York City, Paris, and Tokyo form the capstone of the global hierarchy, exerting command and control through their economic and political influence. Global cities may have reached their status due to early transition to post-industrialism or through inertia which has enabled them to maintain their dominance from the industrial era. This type of ranking exemplifies an emerging discourse in which cities, considered variations on the same ideal type, must compete with each other globally to achieve prosperity. Critics of the notion point to the different realms of power and interchange. The term `` global city '' is heavily influenced by economic factors and, thus, may not account for places that are otherwise significant. Paul James, for example argues that the term is `` reductive and skewed '' in its focus on financial systems. Multinational corporations and banks make their headquarters in global cities and conduct much of their business within this context. American firms dominate the international markets for law and engineering and maintain branches in the biggest foreign global cities. Global cities feature concentrations of extremely wealthy and extremely poor people. Their economies are lubricated by their capacity ( limited by the national government 's immigration policy, which functionally defines the supply side of the labor market ) to recruit low - and high - skilled immigrant workers from poorer areas. More and more cities today draw on this globally available labor force. Modern global cities, like New York City, often include large central business districts that serve as hubs for economic activity. Transnational activity Cities increasingly participate in world political activities independently of their enclosing nation - states. Early examples of this phenomenon are the sister city relationship and the promotion of multi-level governance within the European Union as a technique for European integration. Cities including Hamburg, Prague, Amsterdam, The Hague, and City of London maintain their own embassies to the European Union at Brussels. New urban dwellers may increasingly not simply as immigrants but as transmigrants, keeping one foot each ( through telecommunications if not travel ) in their old and their new homes. Global governance Cities participate in global governance by various means including membership in global networks which transmit norms and regulations. At the general, global level, United Cities and Local Governments ( UCLG ) is a significant umbrella organization for cities ; regionally and nationally, Eurocities, Asian Network of Major Cities 21, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities the National League of Cities, and the United States Conference of Mayors play similar roles. UCLG took responsibility for creating Agenda 21 for culture, a program for cultural policies promoting sustainable development, and has organized various conferences and reports for its furtherance. Networks have become especially prevalent in the arena of environmentalism and specifically climate change following the adoption of Agenda 21. Environmental city networks include the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, World Association of Major Metropolises ( `` Metropolis '' ), the United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance ( CNCA ), the Covenant of Mayors and the Compact of Mayors, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and the Transition Towns network. Cities with world political status as meeting places for advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, lobbyists, educational institutions, intelligence agencies, military contractors, information technology firms, and other groups with a stake in world policymaking. They are consequently also sites for symbolic protest. United Nations system The United Nations System has been involved in a series of events and declarations dealing with the development of cities during this period of rapid urbanization. The Habitat I conference in 1976 adopted the `` Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements '' which identifies urban management as a fundamental aspect of development and establishes various principles for maintaining urban habitats. Citing the Vancouver Declaration, the UN General Assembly in December 1977 authorized the United Nations Commission Human Settlements and the HABITAT Centre for Human Settlements, intended to coordinate UN activities related to housing and settlements. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro resulted in a set of international agreements including Agenda 21 which establishes principles and plans for sustainable development. World Assembly of Mayors at Habitat III conference in Quito. The Habitat II conference in 1996 called for cities to play a leading role in this program, which subsequently advanced the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. In January 2002 the UN Commission on Human Settlements became an umbrella agency called the United Nations Human Settlements Programme or UN-Habitat, a member of the United Nations Development Group. The Habitat III conference of 2016 focused on implementing these goals under the banner of a `` New Urban Agenda ''. The four mechanisms envisio 14ned for effecting the New Urban Agenda are ( 1 ) national policies promoting integrated sustainable development, ( 2 ) stronger urban governance, ( 3 ) long - term integrated urban and territorial planning, and ( 4 ) effective financing frameworks. Just before this conference, the European Union concurrently approved an `` Urban Agenda for the European Union '' known as the Pact of Amsterdam. UN-Habitat coordinates the UN urban agenda, working with the UN Environmental Programme, the UN Development Programme, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC. The World Bank, a United Nations specialized agency, has been a primary force in promoting the Habitat conferences, and since the first Habitat conference has used their declarations as a framework for issuing loans for urban infrastructure. The bank 's structural adjustment programs contributed to urbanization in the Third World by creating incentives to move to cities. The World Bank and UN-Habitat in 1999 jointly established the Cities Alliance ( based at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. ) to guide policymaking, knowledge sharing, and grant distribution around the issue of urban poverty. ( UN-Habitat plays an advisory role in evaluating the quality of a locality 's governance. ) The Bank 's policies have tended to focus on bolstering real estate markets through credit and technical assistance. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO has increasingly focused on cities as key sites for influencing cultural governance. It has developed various city networks including the International Coalition of Cities against Racism and the Creative Cities Network. UNESCO 's capacity to select World Heritage Sites and maintain them through Public / social / private partnerships gives the organization significant influence over cultural capital, tourism, and historic preservation funding. Representation in culture John Martin 's The Fall of Babylon ( 1831 ), depicting chaos as the Persian army occupies Babylon, also symbolizes the ruin of decadent civilization in modern times. Lightning striking the Babylonian ziggurat ( also representing the Tower of Babel ) indicates God 's judgment against the city. Cities figure prominently in traditional Western mythology, appearing in the Bible in both evil and holy forms, symbolized by Babylon and Jerusalem. Cain and Nimrod are the first city builders in the Book of Genesis. In Sumerian mythology Gilgamesh built the walls of Uruk. Cities can be perceived in terms of extremes or opposites : at once liberating and oppressive, wealthy and poor, organized and chaotic. The name anti-urbanism refers to various types of ideological opposition to cities, whether because of their culture or their political relationship with the country. Such opposition may result from identification of cities with oppression and the ruling elite. This and other political ideologies strongly influence narratives and themes in discourse about cities. In turn, cities symbolize their home societies. Writers, painters, and filmmakers have produced innumerable works of art concerning the urban experience. Classical and medieval literature includes a genre of descriptiones which treat of city features and history. Modern authors such as Charles Dickens and James Joyce are famous for evocative descriptions of their home cities. Fritz Lang conceived the idea for his influential 1927 film Metropolis while visiting Times Square and marveling at the nighttime neon lighting. Other early cinematic representations of cities in the twentieth century generally depicted them as technologically efficient spaces with smoothly functioning systems of automobile transport. By the 1960s, however, traffic congestion began to appear in such films as The Fast Lady ( 1962 ) and Playtime ( 1967 ). Literature, film, and other forms of popular culture have supplied visions of future cities both utopian and dystopian. The prospect of expanding, communicating, and increasingly interdependent world cities has given rise to images such as Nylonkong ( NY, London, Hong Kong ) and visions of a single world - encompassing ecumenopolis. See also Bibliography of suburbs Ekistics Ghost town List of adjectivals and demonyms for cities Lists of cities Lost city Nation Principles of intelligent urbanism Primate city Urban sociology Free city ( antiquity ) Notes Jump up ^ Intellectuals such as H.G. Wells, Patrick Geddes and Kingsley Davis foretold the coming of a mostly urban world throughout the twentieth century. The United Nations has long anticipated a half - urban world, earlier predicting the year 2000 as the turning point and in 2007 writing that it would occur in 2008. Other researchers had also estimated that the halfway point was reached in 2007. Although the trend is undeniable, the precision of this statistic is dubious, due to reliance on national censuses and to the ambiguities of defining an area as urban. Jump up ^ In practice, utility companies and agencies do secure monopolies over local service provision. Critics within the economics field have contested the inevitability of this outcome. Jump up ^ Water resources in rapidly urbanizing areas are not merely privatized as they are in western countries ; since the systems do n't exist to begin with, private contracts also entail water industrialization and enclosure. Also, there is a countervailing trend : 100 cities have re-municipalized their water supply since the 1990s. Jump up ^ One important global political city, described at one time as a world capital, is Washington, D.C. and its metropolitan area ( including Tysons Corner and Reston in the Dulles Technology Corridor and the various federal agencies found along the Baltimore - Washington Parkway ). Beyond the prominent institutions of U.S. government on the national mall, this area contains 177 embassies, The Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, the World Bank headquarters, myriad think tanks and lobbying groups, and corporate headquarters for Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Capital One, Verisign, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Gannett Company etc. References Jump up ^ Blanca Arellano & Josep Roca, `` Megalopolis : An Assay for the Identification of the World Urban Mega-structures '' ; 55th Congress of the European Regional Science Association : `` World Renaissance : Changing roles for people and places '', 25 -- 28 August 2015, Lisbon. Jump up ^ Aristotle, Politics 2.1267 b Jump up ^ Jackson, Kenneth T. ( 1985 ), Crabgrass Frontier : The Suburbanization of the United States, New York : Oxford University Press, ISBN 0 - 19 - 504983 - 7, p. 73 - 76 Jump up ^ Goodall, B. ( 1987 ) The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography. London : Penguin. Jump up ^ Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds ( 1996 ) The Social Science Encyclopedia. 2nd edition. London : Routledge. Jump up ^ James, Paul ; with Magee, Liam ; Scerri, Andy ; Steger, Manfred B. ( 2015 ). Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice : Circles of Sustainability. London : Routledge... Jump up ^ The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2007, Jennifer Blanke, World Economic Forum Jump up ^ Demographia World Urban Areas 13th Annual Edition, April 2017. Jump up ^ Nick Compton, `` What is the oldest city in the world ? '', The Guardian, 16 February 2015. Jump up ^ Ring, Trudy ( 2014 ). Middle East and Africa : International Dictionary of Historic Places. p. 204. Jump up ^ Jhimli Mukherjee Pandeyl, `` Varanasi is as old as Indus valley civilization, finds IIT - KGP study '', Times of India 25 February 2016. Jump up ^ Moholy - Nagy ( 1968 ), p. 45. ^ Jump up to : `` city, n. '', Oxford English Dictionary, June 2014. ^ Jump up to : Kevin A. Lynch, `` What Is the Form of a City, and How is It Made ? '' ; in Marzluff et al. ( 2008 ), p. 678. `` The city may be looked on as a story, a pattern of relations between human groups, a production and distribution space, a field of physical force, a set of linked decisions, or an arena of conflict. Values are embedded in these metaphors : historic continuity, stable equilibrium, productive efficiency, capable decision and management, maximum interaction, or the progress of political struggle. Certain actors become the decisive elements of transformation in each view : political leaders, families and ethnic groups, major investors, the technicians of transport, the decision elite, the revolutionary classes. '' Jump up ^ `` Table 6 '' in United Nations Demographic Yearbook ( 2015 ), the 1988 version of which is quoted in Carter ( 1995 ), pp. 10 -- 12. ^ Jump up to : Graeme Hugo, Anthony Champion, & Alfredo Lattes, `` Toward a New Conceptualization of Settlements for Demography '', Population and Development Review 29 ( 2 ), June 2003. Jump up ^ `` How NC Municipalities Work - North Carolina League of Municipalities ''. www.nclm.org. line feed character in title = at position 27 ( help ) ^ Jump up to : Smith, `` Earliest Cities '', in Gmelch & Zenner ( 2002 ). ^ Jump up to : Marshall ( 1989 ), pp. 14 -- 15. Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 23 -- 24. Jump up ^ Yi Jianping, `` ' Civilization ' and ' State ' : An Etymological Perspective '' ; Social Sciences in China 33 ( 2 ), 2012 ; doi : 10.1080 / 02529203.2012. 677292. Jump up ^ Moholy - Nagy ( 1986 ), pp. 146 -- 148. Jump up ^ Volker M. Welter, `` The 1925 Master Plan for Tel - Aviv by Patrick Geddes '' ; Israel Studies 14 ( 3 ), Fall 2009. Jump up ^ Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, `` Locations, Population and Density per Sq. km., by metropolitan area and selected localities, 2015. '' Jump up ^ Carter ( 1995 ), p. 5 -- 7. `` (... ) the two main themes of study introduced at the outset : the town as a distributed feature and the town as a feature with internal structure, or in other words, the town in area and the town as area. '' Jump up ^ Marshall ( 1989 ), pp. 11 -- 14. ^ Jump up to : Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 155 -- 156. ^ Jump up to : Marshall ( 1989 ), p. 15. `` The mutual interdependence of town and country has one consequence so obvious that it is easily overlooked : at the global scale, cities are generally confined to areas capable of supporting a permanent agricultural population. Moreover, within any area possessing a broadly uniform level of agricultural productivity, there is a rough but definite association between the density of the rural population and the average spacing of cities above any chosen minimum size. '' ^ Jump up to : Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 18. `` From the simplest forms of exchange, when peasant farmers literally brought their produce from the fields into the densest point of interaction -- giving us market towns -- the significance of central places to surrounding territories began to be asserted. As cities grew in complexity, the major civic institutions, from seats of government to religious buildings, would also come to dominate these points of convergence. Large central squares or open spaces reflected the importance of collective gatherings in city life, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Zócalo in Mexico City, the Piazza Navona in Rome and Trafalgar Square in London. Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 34 -- 35. `` In the center of the city, an elite compound or temenos was situated. Study of the very earliest cities show this compound to be largely composed of a temple and supporting structures. The temple rose some 40 feet above the ground and would have presented a formidable profile to those far away. The temple contained the priestly class, scribes, and record keepers, as well as granaries, schools, crafts -- almost all non-agricultural aspects of society. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 177 -- 179. Jump up ^ Don Mitchell, `` The End of Public Space ? People 's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy '' ; Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85 ( 1 ), March 1995. Jump up ^ Moholy - Nagy ( 1968 ), 21 -- 33. Jump up ^ Mohan Pant and Shjui Fumo, `` The Grid and Modular Measures in The Town Planning of Mohenjodaro and Kathmandu Valley : A Study on Modular Measures in Block and Plot Divisions in the Planning of Mohenjodaro and Sirkap ( Pakistan ), and Thimi ( Kathmandu Valley ) '' ; Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 59, May 2005. Jump up ^ Michel Danino, `` New Insights into Harappan Town - Planning, Proportions and Units, with Special Reference to Dholavira '', `` Man and Environment 33 ( 1 ), 2008. Jump up ^ Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley : New Perspectives ; ABC - CLIO, 2008 ; ISBN 978 - 1 - 57607 - 907 - 2 ; pp. 231, 346. Jump up ^ Carter ( 1995 ), p. 15. `` In the underbound city the administratively defined area is smaller than the physical extent of settlement. In the overbound city the administrative area is greater than the physical extent. The ' truebound ' city is one where the administrative bound is nearly coincidental with the physical extent. '' Jump up ^ Paul James ; Meg Holden ; Mary Lewin ; Lyndsay Neilson ; Christine Oakley ; Art Truter ; David Wilmoth ( 2013 ). `` Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth ''. In Harald Mieg ; Klaus Töpfer. Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development. Routledge. Jump up ^ Chaunglin Fang & Danlin Yu, `` Urban agglomeration : An evolving concept of an emerging phenomenon '' ; Landscape and Urban Planning 162, 2017. Jump up ^ ( Bairoch 1988, pp. 3 -- 4 ) Jump up ^ ( Pacione 2001, p. 16 ) Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), p. 26. `` Early cities also reflected these preconditions in that they served as places where agricultural surpluses were stored and distributed. Cities functioned economically as centers of extraction and redistribution from countryside to granaries to the urban population. One of the main functions of this central authority was to extract, store, and redistribute the grain. It is no accident that granaries -- storage areas for grain -- were often found within the temples of early cities. '' Jump up ^ Jennifer R. Pournelle, `` KLM to CORONA : A Bird 's Eye View of Cultural Ecology and Early Mesopotamian Urbanization '' ; in Settlement and Society : Essays Dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams ed. Elizabeth C. Stone ; Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, and Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2007. ^ Jump up to : Fredy Perlman, Against His - Story, Against Leviathan, Detroit : Black & Red, 1983 ; p. 16. ^ Jump up to : Mumford ( 1961 ), pp. 39 -- 46. `` As the physical means increased, this one - sided power mythology, sterile, indeed hostile to life, pushed its way into every corner of the urban scene and found, in the new institution of organized war, its completest expression. (... ) Thus both the physical form and the institutional life of the city, from the very beginning to the urban implosion, were shaped in no small measure by the irrational and magical purposes of war. From this source sprang the elaborate system of fortifications, with walls, ramparts, towers, canals, ditches, that continued to characterize the chief historic cities, apart from certain special cases -- as during the Pax Romana -- down to the eighteenth century. (... ) War brought concentration of social leadership and political power in the hands of a weapons - bearing minority, abetted by a priesthood exercising sacred powers and possessing secret but valuable scientific and magical knowledge. '' ^ Jump up to : Ashworth ( 1991 ), pp. 12 -- 13. Jump up ^ ( Jacobs 1969, p. 23 ) Jump up ^ P.J. Taylor, `` Extraordinary Cities I : Early ' City - ness ' and the Invention of Agriculture '' ; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36 ( 3 ), 2012 ; doi : 10.1111 / j. 1468 - 2427.2011. 01101. x ; see also GaWC Research Bulletins 359 and 360. Jump up ^ Michael E. Smith, Jason Ur, & Gary M. Feinman, `` Jane Jacobs ' ' Cities First ' Model and Archaeological Reality '', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38, 2014 ; doi : 10.1111 / 1468 - 2427.12138. Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.03. `` The ancients fostered the spread of urban culture ; their efforts were constant to bring their people within the complete influence of municipal life. The desire to create cities was the most striking characteristic of the people of antiquity, and ancient rulers and statesmen vied with one another in satisfying that desire. '' Jump up ^ Southall ( 1998 ), p. 23. Jump up ^ Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark ( 1998 ) Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press, Karachi and New York. Jump up ^ Southall ( 1998 ), pp. 38 -- 43. Jump up ^ Moholy - Nagy ( 1968 ), pp. 158 -- 161. Jump up ^ Robert McCormick Adams Jr., Heartland of Cities : Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates ; University of Chicago Press, 1981 ; ISBN 0 - 226 - 00544 - 5 ; p. 2. `` Southern Mesopotamia was a land of cities. It became one precociously, before the end of the fourth millennium B.C. Urban traditions remained strong and virtually continuous through the vicissitudes of conquest, internal upheaval accompanied by widespread economic breakdown, and massive linguistic and population replacement. The symbolic and material content of civilization obviously changed, but its cultural ambience remained tied to cities. '' Jump up ^ Pocock, J.G.A. ( 1998 ). The Citizenship Debates. Chapter 2 -- The Ideal of Citizenship since Classical Times ( originally published in Queen 's Quarterly 99, no. 1 ). Minneapolis, MN : The University of Minnesota. p. 31. ISBN 0 - 8166 - 2880 - 7. Jump up ^ Ring, Salkin, Boda, Trudy, Robert, Sharon ( January 1, 1996 ). International Dictionary of Historic Places : Southern Europe. Routledge. p. 66. ISBN 978 - 1 - 884964 - 02 - 2. CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list ( link ) Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 41 -- 42. `` Rome created an elaborate urban system. Roman colonies were organized as a means of securing Roman territory. The first thing that Romans did when they conquered new territories was to establish cities. '' Jump up ^ Shady Solís, Ruth Martha ( 1997 ). La ciudad sagrada de Caral - Supe en los albores de la civilización en el Perú ( in Spanish ). Lima : UNMSM, Fondo Editorial. Retrieved 2007 - 03 - 03. Jump up ^ McIntosh, Roderic J., McIntosh, Susan Keech. `` Early Urban Configurations on the Middle Niger : Clustered Cities and Landscapes of Power, '' Chapter 5. Jump up ^ Magnavita, Sonja ( 2013 ). `` Initial Encounters : Seeking traces of ancient trade connections between West Africa and the wider world ''. Afriques. Retrieved December 13, 2013. Jump up ^ History of African Cities South of the Sahara Archived 2008 - 01 - 24 at the Wayback Machine. By Catherine Coquery - Vidrovitch. 2005. ISBN 1 - 55876 - 303 - 1 Jump up ^ Evans et al., A comprehensive archaeological map of the world 's largest preindustrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, August 23, 2007. Jump up ^ `` Map reveals ancient urban sprawl '', BBC News, 14 August 2007. Jump up ^ Metropolis : Angkor, the world 's first mega-city, The Independent, August 15, 2007 Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), p. 43. `` Capitals like Córdoba and Cairo had populations of about 500,000 ; Baghdad probably had a population of more than 1 million. This urban heritage would continue despite the conquests of the Seljuk Turks and the later Crusades. China, the longest standing civilization, was in the midst of a golden age as the Tang dynasty gave way -- after a short period of fragmentation -- to the Song dynasty. This dynasty ruled two of the most impressive cities on the planet, Xian and Hangzhou. / In contrast, poor Western Europe had not recovered from the sacking of Rome and the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire. For more than five centuries a steady process of deurbanization -- whereby the population living in cities and the number of cities declined precipitously -- had converted a prosperous landscape into a scary wilderness, overrun with bandits, warlords, and rude settlements. '' Jump up ^ Cameron, Averil ( 2009 ). The Byzantines. John Wiley and Sons. p. 47. ISBN 978 - 1 - 4051 - 9833 - 2. Retrieved 24 January 2015. Jump up ^ Laiou, Angeliki E. ( 2002 ). `` Writing the Economic History of Byzantium ''. In Angeliki E. Laiou. The Economic History of Byzantium ( Volume 1 ). Washington, DC : Dumbarton Oaks. pp. 130 -- 131. Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 47 -- 50. Jump up ^ Curtis ( 2016 ), pp. 5 -- 6. `` In the modern international system, cities were subjugated and internalized by the state, and, with industrialization, became the great growth engines of national economies. '' ^ Jump up to : Nicholas Blomley, `` What Sort of a Legal Space is a City ? '' in Brighenti ( 2013 ), pp. 1 -- 20. Municipalities, within this frame, are understood as nested within the jurisdictional space of the provinces. Indeed, rather than freestanding legal sites, they are imagined as products ( or ' creatures ' ) of the provinces who may bring them into being or dissolve them as they choose. As with the provinces their powers are of a delegated form : they may only exercise jurisdiction over areas that have been expressly identified by enabling legislation. Municipal law may not conflict with provincial law, and may only be exercised within its defined territory. (... ) Yet we are ( in ) danger ( of ) missing the reach of municipal law : ' ( e ) ven in highly constitutionalized regimes, it has remained possible for municipalities to micro-manage space, time, and activities through police regulations that infringe both on constitutional rights and private property in often extreme ways ' ( Vaverde 2009 : 150 ). While liberalism fears the encroachments of the state, it seems less worried about those of the municipality. Thus if a national government proposed a statute forbidding public gatherings or sporting events, a revolution would occur. Yet municipalities routinely enact sweeping by - laws directed at open ended ( and ill - defined ) offences such as loitering and obstruction, requiring permits for protests or requiring residents and homeowners to remove snow from the city 's sidewalks. Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 53 -- 54. `` England was clearly at the center of these changes. London became the first truly global city by placing itself within the new global economy. English colonialism in North America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and later Africa and China helped to further fatten the wallets of many of its merchants. These colonies would later provide many of the raw materials for industrial production. England 's hinterland was no longer confined to a portion of the world ; it effectively became a global hinterland. '' Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), pp. 54 -- 55. Jump up ^ Steven High, Industrial Sunset : The Making of North America 's Rust Belt, 1969 - 1984 ; University of Toronto Press, 2003 ; ISBN 0 - 8020 - 8528 - 8. `` It is now clear that the deindustrialization thesis is part myth and part fact. Robert Z. Lawrence, for example, uses aggregate economic data to show that manufacturing employment in the United States did not decline but actually increased from 16.8 million in 1960, to 20.1 million in 1973, and 20.3 million in 1980. However, manufacturing employment was in relative decline. Barry Bluestone noted that manufacturing represented a decreasing proportion of the U.S. labour force, from 26.2 per cent in 1973 to 22.1 per cent in 1980. Studies in Canada have likewise shown that manufacturing employment was only in relative decline during these years. Yet mills and factories did close, and towns and cities lost their industries. John Cumbler submitted that ' depressions do not manifest themselves only at moments of national economic collapse ' such as in the 1930s, but ' also recur in scattered sites across the nation in regions, in industries, and in communities. ' '' ^ Jump up to : Kaplan ( 2004 ), p. 160 -- 165. `` Entrepreneurial leadership became manifest through growth coalitions made up of builders, realtors, developers, the media, government actors such as mayors, and dominant corporations. For example, in St. Louis, Anheuser - Busch, Monsanto, and Ralston Purina played prominent roles. The leadership involved cooperation between public and private interests. The results were efforts at downtown revitalization ; inner - city gentrification ; the transformation of the CBD to advanced service employment ; entetainment, museums, and cultural venues ; the construction of sports stadiums and sport complexes ; and waterfront development. '' Jump up ^ James Xiaohe Zhang, `` Rapid urbanization in China and its impact on the world economy '' ; 16th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, `` New Challenges for Global Trade in a Rapidly Changing World '', Shanhai Institute of Foreign Trade, June 12 -- 14, 2013. Jump up ^ Ian Johnson, `` China 's Great Uprooting : Moving 250 Million Into Cities '' ; New York Times, 15 June 2013. Jump up ^ Castells, M. ( ed ) ( 2004 ). The network society : a cross-cultural perspective. London : Edward Elgar. ( ebook ) Jump up ^ Flew, T. ( 2008 ). New media : an introduction, 3rd edn, South Melbourne : Oxford University Press Jump up ^ Harford, T. ( 2008 ) The Logic of Life. London : Little, Brown. Jump up ^ Taylor Shelton, Matthew Zook, & Alan Wiig, `` The ' actually existing smart city ' '', Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society 8, 2015 ; doi : 10.1093 / cjres / rsu026. Jump up ^ The Urbanization and Political Development of the World System : A comparative quantitative analysis. History & Mathematics 2 ( 2006 ) : 115 - 153. ^ Jump up to : William H. Frey & Zachary Zimmer, `` Defining the City '' ; in Paddison ( 2001 ). Jump up ^ Christopher Watson, `` Trends in urbanisation '', Proceedings of the First International Conference on Urban Pests, ed. K.B. Wildey and William H. Robinson, 1993. Jump up ^ Annez, Patricia Clarke ; Buckley, Robert M. `` Urbanization and Growth : Setting the Context '' ( PDF ). In Spence, Michael ; Annez, Patricia Clarke ; Buckley, Robert M. Urbanization and Growth. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8213 - 7573 - 0. ^ Jump up to : Moholy - Nagy ( 1968 ), pp. 136 -- 137. Why do anonymous people -- the poor, the underprivileged, the unconnected -- frequently prefer life under miserable conditions in tenements to the healthy order and tranquility of small towns or the sanitary subdivisions of semirural developments ? The imperial planners and architects knew the answer, which is as valid today as it was 2,000 years ago. Big cities were created as power images of a competitive society, conscious of its achievement potential. Those who came to live in them did so in order to participate and compete on any attainable level. Their aim was to share in public life, and they were willing to pay for this share with personal discomfort. ' Bread and games ' was a cry for opportunity and entertainment still ranking foremost among urban objectives. ^ Jump up to : Somini Sengupta, `` U.N. Finds Most People Now Live in Cities '' ; New York Times, 10 July 2014. Referring to : United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division ; World Urbanization Prospects : 2014 Revision ; New York : United Nations, 2014. ^ Jump up to : Neil Brenner & Christian Schmid, `` The ' Urban Age ' in Question '' ; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38 ( 3 ), 2013 ; doi : 10.1111 / 1468 - 2427.12115. Jump up ^ McQuillin ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.55. Jump up ^ `` Patterns of Urban and Rural Population Growth '', Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, Population Studies No. 68 ; New York, United Nations, 1980 ; p. 15. `` If the projections prove to be accurate, the next century will begin just after the world population achieves an urban majority ; in 2000, the world is projected to be 51.3 per cent urban. '' Jump up ^ Edouart Glissant ( Editor - in - Chief ), UNESCO `` Courier '' ( `` The Urban Explosion '' ), March 1985. Jump up ^ `` World Urbanization Prospects : The 2007 Revision '' ( PDF ). Jump up ^ Mike Hanlon, `` World Population Becomes More Urban Than Rural '' ; New Atlas, 28 May 2007. Jump up ^ `` United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division ( 2014 ). World Urbanization Prospects : The 2014 Revision, CD - ROM Edition ''. Jump up ^ Paulo A. Paranagua, `` Latin America struggles to cope with record urban growth '' ( archive ), The Guardian, 11 September 2012. Referring to UN-Habitat, The State of Latin American and Caribbean Cities 2012 : Towards a new urban transition ; Nairobi : United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2012. Jump up ^ Helen Massy - Beresford, `` Where is the fastest growing city in the world ? '' ; The Guardian, 18 November 2015. Jump up ^ Mark Anderson & Achilleas Galatsidas, `` Urban population boom poses massive challenges for Africa and Asia '' The Guardian ( Development data : Datablog ), 10 July 2014. Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), p. 15. `` Global cities need to be distinguished from megacities, defined here as cities with more than 8 million people. (... ) Only New York and London qualified as megacities 50 years ago. By 1990, just over 10 years ago, 20 megacities existed, 15 of which were in less economically developed regions of the world. In 2000, the number of megacities had increased to 26, again all except 6 are located in the less developed world regions. '' Jump up ^ Frauke Kraas & Günter Mertins, `` Megacities and Global Change '' ; in Kraas et al. ( 2014 ), p. 2. `` While seven megacities ( with more than five million inhabitants ) existed in 1950 and 24 in 1990, by 2010 there were 55 and by 2025 there will be -- according to estimations -- 87 megacities ( UN 2012 ; Fig. 1 ). '' Jump up ^ Frauke Kraas & Günter Mertins, `` Megacities and Global Change '' ; in Kraas et al. ( 2014 ), pp. 2 -- 3. Above all, globalisation processes were and are the motors that drive these enormous changes and are also the driving forces, together with transformation and liberalisation policies, behind the economic developments of the last ca. 25 years ( in China, especially the so - called socialism with Chinese characteristics that started under Deng Xiaoping in 1978 / 1979, in India essentially during the course of the economic reform policies of the so - called New Economic Policy as of 1991 ; Cartier 2001 ; Nissel 1999 ). Especially in megacities, these reforms led to enormous influx of foreign direct investments, to intensive industrialization processes through international relocation of production locations and depending upon the location, partially to considerable expansion of the services sector with increasing demand for office space as well as to a reorientation of national support policies -- with a not to be mistaken influence of transnationally acting conglomerates but also considerable transfer payments from overseas communities. In turn, these processes are flanked and intensified through, at times, massive migration movements of national and international migrants into the megacities ( Baur et al. 2006 ). Jump up ^ Shipra Narang Suri & Günther Taube, `` Governance in Megacities : Experiences, Challenges and Implications for International Cooperation '' ; in Kraas et al. ( 2014 ), p. 196. Jump up ^ Stephen Graham & Lucy Hewitt, `` Getting off the ground : On the politics of urban verticality ; Progress in Human Geography 37 ( 1 ), 2012 ; doi : 1177 / 0309132512443147. Jump up ^ Eduardo F.J. de Mulder, Jacques Besner, & Brian Marker, `` Underground Cities '' ; in Kraas et al. ( 2014 ), pp. 26 -- 29. ^ Jump up to : Karen Bakker, `` Archipelagos and networks : urbanization and water privatization in the South '' ; The Geographical Journal 169 ( 4 ), December 2003 ; doi : 10.1111 / j. 0016 - 7398.2003. 00097. x. `` The diversity of water supply management systems worldwide -- which operate along a continuum between fully public and fully private -- bear witness to repeated shifts back and forth between private and public ownership and management of water systems. '' Jump up ^ Joan C. Williams, `` The Invention of the Municipal Corporation : A Case Study in Legal Change '' ; American University Law Review 34, 1985 ; pp. 369 -- 438. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 146. `` The figurehead of city leadership is, of course, the mayor. As ' first citizen ', mayors are often associated with political parties, yet many of the most successful mayors are often those whoare able to speak ' for ' their city. Rudy Giuliani, for example, while pursuing a neo-liberal political agenda, was often seen as being outside the mainstream of the national Republican party. Furthermore, mayors are often crucial in articulating the interests of their cities to external agents, be they national governments or major public and private investors. '' Jump up ^ Penang Island was incorporated as a single municipality in 1976 and gained city status in 2015. See : Royce Tan, `` Penang island gets city status '', The Star, 18 December 2014. Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.63. `` The problem of achieving equitable balance between the two freedoms is infinitely greater in urban, metropolitan and megalopolitan situations than in sparsely settled districts and rural areas. / In the latter, sheer intervening space acts as a buffer between the privacy and well - being of one resident and the potential encroachments thereon by his neighbors in the form of noise, air or water pollution, absence of sanitation, or whatever. In a congested urban situation, the individual is powerless to protect himself from the `` free '' ( i.e., inconsiderate or invasionary ) acts of others without himself being guilty of a form of encroachment. '' Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.08. Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.33. Jump up ^ Bryan D. Jones, Saadia R. Greenbeg, Clifford Kaufman, & Joseph Drew, `` Service Delivery Rules and the Distribution of Local Government Services : Three Detroit Bureaucracies '' ; in Hahn & Levine ( 1980 ). `` Local government bureaucracies more or less explicitly accept the goal of implementing rational criteria for the delivery of services to citizens, even though compromises may have to be made in the establishment of these criteria. These production oriented criteria often give rise to `` service deliver rules '', regularized procedures for the delivery of services, which are attempts to codify the productivity goals of urban service bureaucracies. These rules have distinct, definable distributional consequences which often go unrecognized. That is, the decisions of governments to adopt rational service delivery rules can ( and usually do ) differentially benefit citizens. '' ^ Jump up to : Robert L. Lineberry, `` Mandating Urban Equality : The Distribution of Municipal Public Services '' ; in Hahn & Levine ( 1980 ). See : Hawkins v. Town of Shaw ( 1971 ). Jump up ^ George Nilson, `` Baltimore police under state control for good reason '', Baltimore Sun 28 February 2017. Jump up ^ Robert Jay Dilger, Randolph R. Moffett, & Linda Stuyk, `` Privatization of Municipal Services in America 's Largest Cities '', Public Administration Review 57 ( 1 ), 1997 ; doi : 10.2307 / 976688. ^ Jump up to : Kenneth Gwilliam, `` Cities on the move -- Ten years after '', Research in Transportation Economics 40, 2013 ; doi : 10.1016 / j. retrec. 2012.06. 032. Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § § 1.65 -- 1.66. Jump up ^ David Walker, `` The New System of Intergovernmental Relations : Fiscal Relief and More Governmental Intrusions '' ; in Hahn & Levine ( 1980 ). Jump up ^ Bart Voorn, Marieke L. van Genugten, & Sandra van Thiel, `` The efficiency and effectiveness of municipally owned corporations : a systematic review '', Local Government Studies, 2017. ^ Jump up to : Rachel Weber, `` Selling City Futures : The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy '' ; Economic Geography 86 ( 3 ), 2010 ; doi : 10.1111 / j. 1944 - 8287.2010. 01077. x. `` TIF is an increasingly popular local redevelopment policy that allows municipalities to designate a ' blighted ' area for redevelopment and use the expected increase in property ( and occasionally sales ) taxes there to pay for initial and ongoing redevelopment expenditures, such as land acquisition, demolition, construction, and project financing. Because developers require cash up - front, cities transform promises of future tax revenues into securities that far - flung buyers and sellers exchange through local markets. '' Jump up ^ Rachel Weber, `` Extracting Value from the City : Neoliberalism and Urban Redevelopment '', Antipode, July 2002 ; doi : 10.1111 / 1467 - 8330.00253. Jump up ^ Josh Pacewicz, `` Tax increment financing, economic development professionals and the financialization of urban politics '' ; Socio - Economic Review 11, 2013 ; doi : 10.1093 / ser / mws019. `` A city 's credit rating not only influences its ability to sell bonds, but has become a general signal of fiscal health. Detroit 's partial recovery in the early 1990s, for example, was reversed when Moody 's downgraded the rating of the city 's general obligation bonds, precipitating new rounds of capital flight ( Hackworth, 2007 ). The need to maintain a high credit rating constrains municipal actors by making it difficult to finance discretionary projects in traditional ways. '' Jump up ^ Gupta et al. ( 2015 ), pp. 4, 29. `` We thereby understand urban governance as the multiple ways through which city governments, businesses and residents interact in managing their urban space and life, nested within the context of other government levels and actors who are managing their space, resulting in a variety of urban governance configurations ( Peyroux et al. 2014 ). '' Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 142 -- 143. Jump up ^ Gupta, Verrest, and Jaffe, `` Theorizing Governance '', in Gupta et al. ( 2015 ), pp. 30 -- 31. ^ Jump up to : Gupta, Verrest, and Jaffe, `` Theorizing Governance '', in Gupta et al. ( 2015 ), pp. 31 -- 33. `` The concept of good governance itself was developed in the 1980s, primarily to guide donors in development aid ( Doonbos 2001 : 93 ). It has been used both as a condition for aid and a development goal in its own right. Key terms in definitions of good governance include participation, accountability, transparency, equity, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, and rule of law ( e.g. Ginther and de Waart 1995 ; UNDP 1997 ; Woods 1999 ; Weiss 2000 ). (... ) At the urban level, this normative model has been articulated through the idea of good urban governance, promoted by agencies such as UN Habitat. The Colombian city of Bogotá has sometimes been presented as a model city, given its rapid improvements in fiscal responsibility, provision of public services and infrastructure, public behavior, honesty of the administration, and civic pride. '' Jump up ^ Shipra Narang Suri & Günther Taube, `` Governance in Megacities : Experiences, Challenges and Implications for International Cooperation '' ; in Kraas et al. ( 2014 ), pp. 197 -- 198. Jump up ^ Alain Garnier, `` La Plata : la visionnaire trahie '' ; Architecture & Comportment 4 ( 1 ), 1988, pp. 59 -- 79. Jump up ^ Levy ( 2017 ), pp. 193 -- 235. ^ Jump up to : McQuillin ( 1937 / 1987 ), § § 1.75 -- 179. `` Zoning, a relatively recent development in the administration of local governmental units, concerns itself with the control of the use of land and structures, the size of buildings, and the use - intensity of building sites. Zoning being an exercise of the police power, it must be justified by such considerations as the protection of public health and safety, the preservation of taxable property values, and the enhancement of community welfare. (... ) Municipal powers to implement and effectuate city plans are usually ample. Among these is the power of eminent domain, which has been used effectively in connection with slum clearance and the rehabilitation of blighted areas. Also available to cities in their implementation of planning objectives are municipal powers of zoning, subdivision control and the regulation of building, housing and sanitation principles. '' Jump up ^ Levy ( 2017 ), p. 10. `` Planning is a highly political activity. It is immersed in politics and inseparable from the law. (... ) Planning decisions often involve large sums of money, both public and private. Even when little public expenditure is involved, planning decisions can deliver large benefits to some and large losses at others. '' Jump up ^ Jorge Hardoy, Urban Planning in Pre-Columbian America ; New York : George Braziller, 1968. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 131 -- 140. Jump up ^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party ( online ), February 1848 ; translated from German to English by Samuel Moore. `` But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number ; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. '' ^ Jump up to : Mike Davis, `` The Urbanization of Empire : Megacities and the Laws of Chaos '' ; Social Text 22 ( 4 ), Winter 2004. Although studies of the so - called urban informal economy have shown myriad secret liaisons with outsourced multinational production systems, the larger fact is that hundreds of millions of new urbanites must further subdivide the peripheral economic niches of personal service, casual labor, street vending, rag picking, begging, and crime. This outcast proletariat -- perhaps 1.5 billion people today, 2.5 billion by 2030 -- is the fastest - growing and most novel social class on the planet. By and large, the urban informal working class is not a labor reserve army in the nineteenth - century sense : a backlog of strikebreakers during booms ; to be expelled during busts ; then reabsorbed again in the next expansion. On the contrary, this is a mass of humanity structurally and biologically redundant to the global accumulation and the corporate matrix. It is ontologically both similar and dissimilar to the historical agency described in the Communist Manifesto. Like the traditional working classes, it has radical chains in the sense of having little vested interest in the reproduction of private property. But it is not a socialized collectivity of labor and it lacks significant power to disrupt or seize the means of production. It does possess, however, yet unmeasured powers of subverting urban order. Jump up ^ Marshall ( 1989 ), pp. 5 -- 6. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 160 -- 164. `` Indeed, the design of the buildings often revolves around the consumable fantasy experience, seen most markedly in the likes of Universal CityWalk, Disneyland and Las Vegas. Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable ( 1997 ) names architectural structures built specifically as entertainment spaces as ' Architainment '. These places are, of course, places to make money, but they are also stages of performance for an interactive consumer. Jump up ^ Leach ( 1993 ), pp. 173 -- 176 and passim. Jump up ^ `` Knowledge Spillovers '' ( PDF ). Retrieved 2010 - 05 - 16. ^ Jump up to : Kent E. Calder & Mariko de Freytas, `` Global Political Cities as Actors in Twenty - First Century International Affairs ; `` SAIS Review of International Affairs '' 29 ( 1 ), Winter - Spring 2009 ; doi : 10.1353 / sais. 0.0036. `` Beneath state - to - state dealings, a flurry of activity occurs, with interpersonal networks forming policy communities involving embassies, think tanks, academic institutions, lobbying firms, politicians, congressional staff, research centers, NGOs, and intelligence agencies. This interaction at the level of ' technostructure ' -- heavily oriented toward information gathering and incremental policy modification -- is too complex and voluminous to be monitored by top leadership, yet nevertheless often has important implications for policy. '' Jump up ^ Borowiecki, Karol J. ( 2015 ). `` Agglomeration Economies in Classical Music ''. Papers in Regional Science. 94 ( 3 ) : 443 -- 68. Jump up ^ Saskia Sassen, `` Global Cities and Survival Circuits '' ; in Global Woman : Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy ed. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild ; New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2002. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ) 84 -- 85. Jump up ^ Jane Zheng, `` Toward a new concept of the ' cultural elite state ' : Cultural capital and the urban sculpture planning authority in elite coalition in Shanghai '' ; Journal of Urban Affairs 39 ( 4 ), 2017 ; doi : 10.1080 / 07352166.2016. 1255531. Jump up ^ McQuillan ( 1937 / 1987 ), § § 1.04 -- 1.05. `` Almost by definition, cities have always provided the setting for great events and have been the focal points for social change and human development. All great cultures have been city - born. World history is basically the history of city dwellers. '' Jump up ^ Robert Redfield & Milton B. Singer, `` The Cultural Role of Cities '' ; Economic Development and Cultural Change 3 ( 1 ), October 1954. Jump up ^ Magnusson ( 2011 ), p. 21. `` These statistics probably underestimate the degree to which the world has been urbanized, since they obscure the fact that rural areas have become so much more urban as a result of modern transportation and communication. A farmer in Europe or California who checks the markets every morning on the computer, negotiates with product brokers in distant cities, buys food at a supermarket, watches television every night, and takes vacations half a continent away is not exactly living a traditional rural life. In most respects such a farmer is an urbanite living in the countryside, albeit an urbanite who has many good reasons for perceiving himself or herself as a rural person. '' Jump up ^ Mumford ( 1961 ), p. 563 -- 567. `` Many of the original functions of the city, once natural monopolies, demanding the physical presence of all participants, have now been transposed into forms capable of swift transportation, mechanical manifolding, electronic transmission, worldwide distribution. '' Jump up ^ Donald Theall, The Virtual Marshall McLuhan ; McGill - Queen 's University Press, 2001 ; ISBN 0 - 7735 - 2119 - 4 ; p. 11. Quoting Marshall McLuhan : `` The CITY no longer exists, except as a cultural ghost (... ) The INSTANTANEOUS global coverage of radio - tv makes the city form meaningless, functionless. '' Jump up ^ Ashworth, Kavaratzis, & Warnaby, `` The Need to Rethink Place Branding '' ; in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth ( 2015 ), p. 15. ^ Jump up to : David Wachsmuth, `` City as ideology : reconciling the explosion of the city form with the tenacity of the city concept '', Environment and planning D: Society and Space 31, 2014 ; doi : 10.1068 / d21911. Jump up ^ Adriana Campelo, `` Rethinking Sense of Place : Sense of One and Sense of Many '' ; in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth ( 2015 ). ^ Jump up to : Greg Kerr & Jessica Oliver, `` Rethinking Place Identities '', in Kavaratzis, Warnaby, & Ashworth ( 2015 ). Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), 186 -- 189. Jump up ^ Latham, et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 41, 189 -- 192. Jump up ^ Fred Coalter, `` The FIFA World Cup and Social Cohesion : Bread and Circuses or Bread and Butter ? '' ; International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education Bulletin 53, May 2008 ( Feature : Feature : `` Mega Sport Events in Developing Countries '' ). Jump up ^ Kimberly S Schimmel, `` Assessing the sociology of sport : On sport and the city '' ; International Review for the Sociology for Sport 50 ( 4 - 5 ), 2015 ; doi : 10.1177 / 1012690214539484. ^ Jump up to : Stephen V. Ward, `` Promoting the Olympic City '' ; in John R. Gold & Margaret M. Gold, eds., Olympic Cities : City Agendas, Planning and the World 's Games, 1896 -- 2016 ; London & New York : Routledge ( Taylor & Francis ), 2008 / 2011 ; ISBN 978 - 0 - 203 - 84074 - 0. All this media exposure, provided it is reasonably positive, influences many tourist decisions at the time of the Games. This tourism impact will focus on, but extend beyond, the city to the country and the wider global region. More importantly, there is also huge long term potential for both tourism and investment ( Kasimati, 2003 ). No other city marketing opportunity achieves this global exposure. At the same time, provided it is carefully managed at the local level, it also gives a tremendous opportunity to heighten and mobilize the commitment of citizens to their own city. The competitive nature of sport and its unrivalled capacity to be enjoyed as a mass cultural activity gives it many advantages from the marketing point of view ( S.V. Ward, 1998, pp. 231 -- 232 ). In a more subtle way it also becomes a metaphor for the notion of cities having to compete in a global marketplace, a way of reconciling citizens and local institutions to the wider economic realities of the world. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 127 -- 128. Jump up ^ Ashworth ( 1991 ). `` In more recent years, planned networks of defended settlements as part of military strategies can be found in the pacification programmes of what has become the conventional wisdom of anti-insurgency operations. Connected networks of protected settlements are inserted as islands of government control into insurgent areas -- either defensively to separate existing populations from insurgents or aggressively as a means of extending control over areas -- as used by the British in South Africa ( 1899 -- 1902 ) and Malaya ( 1950 -- 3 ) and by the Americans in Cuba ( 1898 ) and Vietnam ( 1965 -- 75 ). These were generally small settlements and intended as much for local security as offensive operations. / The planned settlement policy of the State of Israel, however, has been both more comprehensive and has longer - term objectives. (... ) These settlements provide a source of armed manpower, a defence in depth of a vulnerable frontier area and islands of cultural and political control in the midst of a potentially hostile population, thus continuing a tradition of the use of such settlements as part of similar policies in that area which is over 2,000 years old. '' Jump up ^ See Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell 's telegraphic circular to all station commanders, 8 December 1901, in Robert D. Ramsey III, A Masterpiece of Counterguerrilla Warfare : BG J. Franklin Bell in the Philippines, 1901 -- 1902, Long War Series, Occasion Paper 25 ; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas : Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center ; pp. 45 -- 46. `` Commanding officers will also see that orders are at once given and distributed to all the inhabitants within the jurisdiction of towns over which they exercise supervision, informing them of the danger of remaining outside of these limits and that unless they move by December 25th from outlying barrios and districts with all their movable food supplies, including rice, palay, chickens, live stock, etc., to within the limits of the zone established at their own or nearest town, their property ( found outside of said zone at said date ) will become liable to confiscation or destruction. '' Jump up ^ Maj. Eric Weyenberg, U.S. Army, Population Isolation in the Philippine War : A Case Study ; School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas ; January 2015. Jump up ^ Ashworth ( 1991 ), p. 3. Citing L.C. Peltier and G.E. Pearcy, Military Geography ( 1966 ). Jump up ^ R.D. McLaurin & R. Miller. Urban Counterinsurgency : Case Studies and Implications for U.S. Military Forces. Springfield, VA : Abbott Associates, October 1989. Produced for U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Jump up ^ Ashworth ( 1991 ), pp. 91 -- 93. `` However, some specific sorts of crime, together with those antisocial activities which may or may not be treated as crime ( such as vandalism, graffiti daubing, littering and even noisy or boisterous behavior ), do play various roles in the process of insurgency. This leads in consequence to defensive reactions on the part of those responsible for public security, and by individual citizens concerned for their personal safety. The authorities react with situational crime prevention as part of the armoury of urban defense, and individuals fashion their behavior according to an ' urban geography of fear '. '' Jump up ^ Adams ( 1981 ), p. 132 `` Physical destruction and ensuing decline of population were certain to be particularly severe in the case of cities that joined unsuccessful rebellions, or whose ruling dynasts were overcome by others in abbtle. The traditional lamentations provide eloquently stylized literary accounts of this, while in other cases the combinations of archaeological evidence with the testimony of a city 's like Ur 's victorious opponent as to its destruction grounds the world of metaphor in harsh reality ( Brinkman 1969, pp. 311 -- 12 ). '' Jump up ^ Fabien Limonier, `` Rome et la destruction de Carthage : un crime gratuit ? '' Revue des Études Anciennes 101 ( 3 ). Jump up ^ Ben Kiernan, `` The First Genocide : Carthage, 146 BC '' ; Diogenes 203, 2004 ; doi : 1177 / 0392192104043648. Jump up ^ Burns H. Westou, `` Nuclear Weapons Versus International Law : A Contextual Reassessment '' ; McGill Law Journal 28, p. 577. `` As noted above, nulcear weapons designed for countervalue or city - killing purposes tend to be of the strategic class, with known yields of deployed warheads averaging somewhere between two and three times and 1500 times the firepower of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. '' Jump up ^ Dallas Boyd, `` Revealed Preference and the Minimum Requirements of Nuclear Deterrence '' ; Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2016. ^ Jump up to : Joel A. Tarr, `` The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries '' ; in Hanson ( 1984 ). ^ Jump up to : Wellman & Spiller, `` Introduction '', in Wellman & Spiller ( 2012 ). ^ Jump up to : Kath Wellman & Frederik Pretorius, `` Urban Infrastructure : Productivity, Project Evaluation, and Finance '' ; in Wellman & Spiller ( 2012 ). Jump up ^ Thomas DiLorenzo, `` The Myth of Natural Monopoly '' ; Review of Australian Economics 9 ( 2 ), 1996. Jump up ^ Jean - Michel Guldmann, `` Economies of Scale and Natural Monopoly in Urban Utilities : The Case of Natural Gas Distribution '' ; Geographical Analysis 17 ( 4 ), October 1985 ; doi : 10.1111 / j. 1538 - 4632.1985. tb00852. x. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 70. Jump up ^ Kath Wellman & Frederik Pretorius, `` Urban Infrastructure : Productivity, Project Evaluation, and Finance '' ; in Wellman & Spiller ( 2012 ), pp. 73 -- 74. `` The NCP established a legislative regime at Federal and State levels to facilitate third - party access to provision and operation of infrastructure facilities, including electricity and telecommunications networks, gas and water pipelines, railroad terminals and networks, airports, and ports. Following these reforms, few countries embarked on a larger scale initiative than Australia to privatize delivery and management of public infrastructure at all levels of government. '' Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 75. By the 1960s, however, this ' integrated ideal ' was being challenged, public infrastructure entering into crisis. There is now a new orthodoxy in many branches of urban planning : ' The logic is now for planners to fight for the best possible networked infrastructures for their specialized district, in partnership with ( often privatised and internationalised network ) operators, rather than seeking to orchestrate how networks roll out through the city as a whole ' ( Graham and Marvin, 2001 : 113 ). In the context of development theory, these ' secessionary ' infrastructures physically by - pass sectors of cities unable to afford the necessary cabling, pipe - laying, or streetscaping that underpins service provision. Cities such as Manila, Lagos or Mumbai are thus increasingly characterized by a two - speed mode of urbanisation. Jump up ^ `` public, adj. and n. '', Oxford English Dictionary, September 2007. Jump up ^ Emanuele Lobina, David Hall, & Vladimir Popov, `` List of water remunicipalisations in Asia and worldwide - As of April 2014 '' ; Public Services International Research Unit, University of Greenwich. Jump up ^ Michael Goldman, `` How ' Water for All ! ' policy became hegemonic : The power of the World Bank and its transnational policy networks '' ; Geoforum 38 ( 5 ), September 2007 ; doi : 10.1016 / j. geoforum. 2005.10. 008. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 169 -- 170. Jump up ^ Grava ( 2003 ), pp. 1 -- 2. ^ Jump up to : Tom Hart, `` Transport and the City '' ; in Paddison ( 2001 ). Jump up ^ Grava ( 2003 ), pp. 15 -- 18. Jump up ^ Grava ( 2003 ), Jump up ^ Smethurst pp. 67 -- 71. Jump up ^ Smethurst pp. 105 -- 71. ^ Jump up to : J. Allen Whitt & Glenn Yago, `` Corporate Strategies and the Decline of Transit in U.S. Cities '' ; Urban Affairs Quarterly 21 ( 1 ), September 1985. ^ Jump up to : Iain Borden, `` Automobile Interstices : Driving and the In - Between Spaces of the City '' ; in Brighenti ( 2013 ). Jump up ^ Moshe Safdie with Wendy Kohn, The City After the Automobile ; BasicBooks ( Harper Collins ), 1997 ; ISBN 0 - 465 - 09836 - 3 ; pp. 3 -- 6. Jump up ^ Grava ( 2003 ), pp. 128 -- 132 ; 152 -- 157. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 30 -- 32. Jump up ^ Grava ( 2003 ), 301 -- 305. `` There are a great many places where ( buses ) are the only public service mode offered ; to the best of the author 's knowledge, no city that has transit operates without a bus component. Leaving aside private cars, all indicators -- passengers carried, vehicle kilometers accumulated, size of fleet, accidents recorded, pollution caused, workers employed, or whatever else -- show the dominance of buses among all transit modes, in this country as well as anywhere else around the world. (... ) At the global scale, there are probably 8000 to 10,000 communities and cities that provide organized bus transit. The larger places have other modes as well, but the bulk of these cities offers buses as their sole public means of mobility. '' Jump up ^ Herbert S. Levinson, Samuel Zimmerman, Jennifer Clinger, & C. Scott Rutherford, `` Bus Rapid Transit : An Overview '' ; Journal of Public Transportation 5 ( 2 ), 2002. Jump up ^ Yvonne Rydin et al., `` Shaping cities for health : complexity and the planning of urban environments in the 21st century '' ; The Lancet 379 ( 9831 ), 2012 ; PMID 3428861. Jump up ^ Anthony Walmsley, `` Greenways : multiplying and diversifying in the 21st century '' ; Landscape and Urban Planning 76, 2006 ; doi : 10.1016 / j. landurbplan. 2004.09. 036. Jump up ^ McQuillin ( 1937 / 1987 ), § 1.74. `` It can not be too strongly emphasized that no city begins to be well - planned until it has solved its housing problem. The problems of living and working are of primary importance. These include sanitation, sufficient sewers, clean, well lighted streets, rehabilitation of slum areas, and health protection through provision for pure water and wholesome food. Jump up ^ Ray Forrest & Peter Williams, Housing in the Twentieth Century `` ; in Paddison ( 2001 ). Jump up ^ Franz Rebele, `` Urban Ecology and Special Features of Urban Ecosystems '', Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 4 ( 6 ), November 1994. Jump up ^ Herbert Sukopp, `` On the Early History of Urban Ecology in Europe '' ; in Marzluff et al. ( 2008 ). ^ Jump up to : S.T.A. Pickett, M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, C.H. Nilon, R.V. Pouyat, W.C. Zipperer, & R. Costanza, `` Urban Ecological Systems : Linking Terrestrial Ecological, Physical, and Socioeconomic Components of Metropolitan Areas '' ; in Marzluff et al. ( 2008 ). Jump up ^ Ingo Kowarik, `` On the Role of Alien Species in Urban Flora and Vegetation '' ; in Marzluff et al. ( 2008 ). Jump up ^ Robert Campagni, Roberta Capello, & Peter Nijamp, `` Managing Sustainable Urban Environments '' ; in Paddison ( 2001 ). Jump up ^ `` National Geographic Magazine ; Special report 2008 : Changing Climate : Village Green ''. Michelle Nijhuis. 2008 - 08 - 26. Retrieved 2009 - 02 - 07. Jump up ^ `` Indoor Air Quality -- American Lung Association of Alaska ''. Aklung.org. Retrieved 2009 - 02 - 07. Jump up ^ `` Newsminer.com ; EPA to put Fairbanks on air pollution problem list ''. Newsminer.com. 2008 - 08 - 20. Retrieved 2009 - 02 - 07. Jump up ^ Peter Adey, `` Coming up for Air : Comfort, Conflict and the Air of the Megacity '' ; in Brighenti ( 2013 ), p. 103. Jump up ^ Anthony Brazel, Nancy Selover, Russel Vose, & Gordon Heisler, `` The tale of two climates -- Baltimore and Phoenix urban LTER sites '' ; Climate Research 15, 2000. Jump up ^ Sharon L. Harlan, Anthony J. Brazel, G. Darrel Jenerette, Nancy S. Jones, Larissa Larsen, Lela Prashad, & William L. Stefanov, `` In the Shade of Affluence : The Inequitable Distribution of the Urban Heat Island '' ; in Robert C. Wilkinson & William R. Freudenburg, eds., Equity and the Environment ( Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 15 ) ; Oxford : JAI Press ( Elsevier ) ; ISBN 978 - 0 - 7623 - 1417 - 1. Jump up ^ Abrahamson ( 2004 ), p. 2 -- 4. `` The linkages among cities cutting across nations became a global network. It is important to note here that the key nodes in the international system are ( global ) cities, not nations. (... ) Once the linkages among cities became a global network, nations became dependent upon their major cities for connections to the rest of the world. '' ^ Jump up to : Herrschel & Newman ( 2017 ), pp. 3 -- 4. `` Instead, the picture is becoming more detailed and differentiated, with a growing number of sub-national entities, cities, city - regions and regions, becoming more visible in their own right, either individually, or collectively as networks, by, more or less tentatively, stepping out of the territorial canvas and hierarchical institutional hegemony of the state. Prominent and well - known cities, and those regions with a strong sense of identity and often a quest for more autonomy, have been the most enthusiastic, as they began to be represented beyond state borders by high - profile city mayors and some regional leaders with political courage and agency. (... ) This, then, became part of the much bigger political project of the European Union ( EU ), which has offered a particularly supportive environment for international engagement by -- and among -- subnational governments as part of its inherent integrationist agenda. '' Jump up ^ Gupta et al. ( 2015 ), 5 -- 11. `` Current globalization, characterized by hyper capitalism and technological revolutions, is understood as the growing intensity of economic, demographic, social, political, cultural and environmental interactions worldwide, leading to increasing interdependence and homogenization of ideologies, production and consumption patterns and lifestyles ( Pieterse 1994 ; Sassen 1998 ). (... ) Decentralization processes have increased city - level capacities of city authorities to develop and implement local social and developmental policies. Cities as homes of the rich, and of powerful businesses, banks, stock markets, UN agencies and NGOs, are the location from which global to local decision - making occurs ( e.g. New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, São Paulo ). '' Jump up ^ Herrschel & Newman ( 2017 ), pp. 9 -- 10. `` The merchants of the Hanseatic League, for instance, enjoyed substantial trading privileges as a result of inter-city diplomacy and collective agreements within the networks ( Lloyd 2002 ), as well as with larger powers, such as states. That way, the League could negotiate ' extra-territorial ' legal spaces with special privileges, such as the ' German Steelyard ' in the port of London ( Schofield 2012 ). This special status was granted and guaranteed by the English king as part of an agreement between the state and a foreign city association. '' Jump up ^ Curtis ( 2016 ), p. 5. Jump up ^ Kaplan ( 2004 ), pp. 115 -- 133. Jump up ^ John Friedmann and Goetz Wolff, `` World City Formation : An Agenda for Research and Action, '' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 6, no. 3 ( 1982 ) : 319 Jump up ^ Abrahamson ( 2004 ), p. 4. `` The formerly major industrial cities that were most able quickly and thoroughly to transform themselves into the new postindustrial mode became the leading global cities -- the centers of the new global system. '' Jump up ^ Kaplan et al. ( 2004 ), p. 88. Jump up ^ James, Paul ; with Magee, Liam ; Scerri, Andy ; Steger, Manfred B. ( 2015 ). Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice : Circles of Sustainability. London : Routledge. pp. 28, 30. `` Against those writers who, by emphasizing the importance of financial exchange systems, distinguish a few special cities as ' global cities ' -- commonly London, Paris, New York and Tokyo -- we recognize the uneven global dimensions of all the cities that we study. Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, is a globalizing city, though perhaps more significantly in cultural than economic terms. And so is Dili globalizing, the small and ' insignificant ' capital of Timor Leste -- except this time it is predominantly in political terms... '' Jump up ^ Kaplan ( 2004 ), 99 -- 106. Jump up ^ Kaplan ( 2004 ), pp. 91 -- 95. `` The United States is also dominant in providing high - quality, global engineering - design services, accounting for approximately 50 percent of the world 's total exports. The disproportionate presence of these U.S. - headquartered firms is attributable to the U.S. role in overseas automobile production, the electronics and petroleum industries, and various kinds of construction, including work on the country 's numerous overseas air and navy military bases. '' Jump up ^ Kaplan ( 2004 ), p. 90 -- 92. Jump up ^ Michael Samers, `` Immigration and the Global City Hypothesis : Towards an Alternative Research Agenda '' ; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26 ( 2 ), June 2002. `` And not withstanding some major world cities that do not have comparatively high levels of immigration, like Tokyo, it may in fact be the presence of such large - scale immigrant economic ' communities ' ( with their attendant global financial remittances and their ability to incubate small business growth, rather than simply their complementarity to producer services employment ) which partially distinguishes mega-cities from other more nationally oriented urban centres. '' Jump up ^ Jane Willis, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans, Joanna Herbert, Jon May, & Cathy McIlwane, Global Cities at Work : New Migrant Divisions of Labour ; London : Pluto Press, 2010 ; ISBN 978 0 7453 2799 0 ; p. 29 : `` These apparently rather different takes on London 's ' global city ' status are of course not so far removed from one another as they may first appear. Holding them together is the figure of the migrant worker. The reliance of London 's financial institutions and business services industries on the continuing flow of highly skilled labour from overseas is now well known ( Beaverstock and Smith 1996 ). Less well known is the extent to which London 's economy as a whole is now dependent upon the labour power of low - paid workers from across the world. '' Jump up ^ Mattthew R. Sanderson, Ben Derudder, Michael Timberlake, & Frank Witlox, `` Are world cities also world immigrant cities ? An international, cross-city analysis of global centrality and immigration '' ; International Journal of Comparative Sociology 56 ( 3 -- 4 ), 2015 ; doi : 10.1177 / 0020715215604350. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 49 -- 50. Jump up ^ Charlie Jeffery, `` Sub-National Authorities and European Integration : Moving Beyond the Nation - State ? '' Presented at the Fifth Biennial International Conference of the European Community Studies Association, 29 May -- 1 June 1997, Seattle, USA. Jump up ^ Jing Pan, `` The Role of Local Government in Shaping and Influencing International Policy Frameworks '', PhD thesis accepted at De Montfort University, April 2014. Jump up ^ Herrschel & Newman ( 2017 ), p. `` In Europe, the EU provides incentives and institutional frameworks for multiple new forms of city and regional networking and lobbying, including at the international EU level. But a growing number of cities and regions also seek to ' go it alone ' by establishing their own representations in Brussels, either individually or in shared accommodation, as the base for European lobbying. '' Jump up ^ Gary Marks, Richard Haesly, Heather A.D. Mbaye, `` What Do Subnational Offices Think They 're Doing in Brussels ? '' ; Regional and Federal Studies 12 ( 3 ), Autumn 2002. Jump up ^ Carola Hein, `` Cities ( and regions ) within a city : subnational representations and the creation of European imaginaries in Brussels '' ; International Journal of the Urban Sciences 19 ( 1 ), 2015. See also websites of individual city embassies cited therein, including Hanse Office ( Hamburg and Schleswig - Holstein ) and City of London `` City Office in Brussels '' ; and CoR 's ( cor.europa.eu/en/regions/Documents/regional-offices.xls spreadsheet of regional offices ) in Brussels. Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), pp. 45 -- 47. ^ Jump up to : Sofie Bouteligier, `` Inequality in new global governance arrangements : the North -- South divide in transnational municipal networks '' ; Innovation : The European Journal of Social Science Research 26 ( 3 ), 2013 ; doi : 10.1080 / 13511610.2013. 771890. `` City networks are not a new phenomenon, but it was the 1990s that saw an explosion of such initiatives, especially in the environmental domain. This is mostly ascribed to ( chapter 28 of ) Agenda 21, which recognizes the role of local authorities in the promotion of sustainable development and stimulates exchange and cooperation between them. '' ^ Jump up to : Herrschel & Newman ( 2017 ), p. 82. ^ Jump up to : Nancy Duxbury & Sharon Jeannotte, `` Global Cultural Governance Policy '' ; Chapter 21 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning and Culture ; London : Ashgate, 2013. Jump up ^ Now the Global Covenant of Mayors ; see : `` Global Covenant of Mayors - Compact of Mayors ''. Retrieved 13 October 2016. Jump up ^ `` The Vancouver Action Plan '' ; Approved at Habitat : United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, Vancouver, Canada ; 31 May to 11 June 1976. ^ Jump up to : Peter R. Walker, `` Human Settlements and Urban Life : A United Nations Perspective '' ; Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 14, 2005 ; doi : 10.1179 / 105307805807066329. Jump up ^ David Satterthwaite, `` Editorial : A new urban agenda ? '' ; Environment & Urbanization, 2016 ; doi : 10.1177 / 0956247816637501. ^ Jump up to : Susan Parnell, `` Defining a Global Urban Development Agenda '' ; World Development 78, 2015 ; doi : 10.1016 / j. worlddev. 2015.10. 028 ; pp. 531 -- 532 : `` Garnered by its interest in the urban poor the Bank, along with other international donors, became an active and influential participant in the Habitat deliberations, confirming both Habitat I and Habitat II 's focus on ' development in cities ' instead of the role of ' cities in development '. '' ^ Jump up to : Vanessa Watson, `` Locating planning in the New Urban Agenda of the urban sustainable development goal '' ; Planning Theory 15 ( 4 ), 2016 ; doi : 10.1177 / 1473095216660786. Jump up ^ New Urban Agenda, Habitat III Secretariat, 2017 ; A / RES / 71 / 256 * ; ISBN 978 - 92 - 1 - 132731 - 1 ; p. 15. Jump up ^ Akin L. Mabogunje, `` A New Paradigm for Urban Development '' ; Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1991. `` Irrespective of the economic outcome, the regime of structural adjustment being adopted in most developing countries today is likely to spur urbanization. If structural adjustment actually succeeds in turning around economic performance, the enhanced gross domestic product is bound to attract more migrants to the cities ; if it fails, the deepening misery -- especially in the rural areas -- is certain to push more migrants to the city. '' Jump up ^ John Briggs and Ian E.A. Yeboah, `` Structural adjustment and the contemporary sub-Saharan African city '' ; Area 33 ( 1 ), 2001. Jump up ^ Claire Wanjiru Ngare, `` Supporting Learning Cities : A Case Study of the Cities Alliance '' ; master 's thesis accepted at the University of Ottawa, April 2012. Jump up ^ Alexandre Apsan Frediani, `` Amartya Sen, the World Bank, and the Redress of Urban Poverty : A Brazilian Case Study '' ; in Journal of Human Development 8 ( 1 ), March 2007. Jump up ^ Ellul ( 1970 ). Jump up ^ Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, `` City Imaginaries '', in Bridge & Watson, eds. ( 2000 ). Jump up ^ Herrschel & Newman ( 2017 ), pp. 7 -- 8. `` Growing inequalities as a result of neo-liberal globalism, such as between the successful cities and the less successful, struggling, often peripheral, cities and regions, produce rising political discontent, such as we are now facing across Europe and in the United States as populist accusations of self - serving metropolitan elitism. '' Jump up ^ J.E. Cirlot, `` City '' ; A Dictionary of Symbols, Second Edition, translated from Spanish to English by Jack Read ; New York : Philosophical Library, 1971 ; pp. 48 -- 49 ( online ). Jump up ^ Latham et al. ( 2009 ), p. 115. Jump up ^ Leach ( 1993 ), p. 345. `` The German film director Fritz Lang was inspired to ' make a film ' about ' the sensations ' he felt when he first saw Times Square in 1923 ; a place ' lit as if in full daylight by neon lights and topping them oversized luminous advertisements moving, turning, flashing on and off... something completely new and nearly fairly - tale - like for a European... a luxurious cloth hung from a dark sky to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize. ' The film Lang made turned out to be The Metropolis, an unremittingly dark vision of a modern industrial city. Jump up ^ Curtis ( 2016 ), p. vii -- x, 1. Jump up ^ Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, Ecumenopolis : Tomorrow 's City ; Brittanica Book of the Year, 1968. Chapter V : Ecumenopolis, the Real City of Man. `` Ecumenopolis, which mankind will have built 150 years from now, can be the real city of man because, for the first time in history, man will have one city rather than many cities belonging to different national, racial, religious, or local groups, each ready to protect its own members but also ready to fight those from other cities, large and small, interconnected into a system of cities. Ecumenopolis, the unique city of man, will form a continuous, differentiated, but also unified texture consisting of many cells, the human communities. '' Bibliography Abrahamson, Mark ( 2004 ). Global Cities. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 514204 - 7 Ashworth, G.J. War and the City. London & New York : Routledge, 1991. ISBN 0 - 203 - 40963 - 9. Bairoch, Paul ( 1988 ). Cities and Economic Development : From the Dawn of History to the Present. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0 - 226 - 03465 - 8. Bridge, Gary, and Sophie Watson, eds. ( 2000 ). A Companion to the City. Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2000 / 2003. ISBN 0 - 631 - 21052 - 0 Brighenti, Andrea Mubi, ed. ( 2013 ). Urban Interstices : The Aesthetics and the Politics of the In - between. Farnham : Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 9781472410023. Carter, Harold ( 1995 ). The Study of Urban Geography. Fourth edition. London : Arnold. ISBN 0 7131 65898 Curtis, Simon ( 2016 ). Global Cities and Global Order. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 874401 - 6 Ellul, Jacques ( 1970 ). The Meaning of the City. Translated by Dennis Pardee. Grand Rapids, Michigan : Eerdmans, 1970. ISBN 9780802815552 ; French original ( written earlier, published later as ) : Sans feu ni lieu : Signification biblique de la Grande Ville ; Paris : Gallimard, 1975. Republished 2003 with ISBN 9782710325826 Gupta, Joyetta, Karin Pfeffer, Hebe Verrest, & Mirjam Ros - Tonen, eds. ( 2015 ). Geographies of Urban Governance : Advanced Theories, Methods and Practices. Springer, 2015. ISBN 978 - 3 - 319 - 21272 - 2. Hahn, Harlan, & Charles Levine ( 1980 ). Urban Politics : Past, Present, & Future. New York & London : Longman. Hanson, Royce ( ed. ). Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure. Committee on National Urban Policy, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. Washington : National Academy Press, 1984. Herrschel, Tassilo & Peter Newman ( 2017 ). Cities as International Actors : Urban and Regional Governance Beyond the Nation State. Palgrave Macmillan ( Springer Nature ). ISBN 978 - 1 - 137 - 39617 - 4 Jacobs, Jane ( 1969 ). The Economy of Cities. New York : Random House Inc. Grava, Sigurd ( 2003 ). Urban Transportation Systems : Choices for Communities. McGraw Hill, e-book. ISBN 9780071476799 James, Paul ; with Magee, Liam ; Scerri, Andy ; Steger, Manfred B. ( 2015 ). Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice : Circles of Sustainability. London : Routledge. Kaplan, David H. ; James O. Wheeler ; Steven R. Holloway ; & Thomas W. Hodler, cartographer ( 2004 ). Urban Geography. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0 - 471 - 35998 - X Kavaratzis, Mihalis, Gary Warnaby, & Gregory J. Ashworth, eds. ( 2015 ). Rethinking Place Branding : Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions. Springer. ISBN 978 - 3 - 319 - 12424 - 7. Kraas, Frauke, Surinder Aggarwal, Martin Coy, & Günter Mertins, eds. ( 2014 ). Megacities : Our Global Urban Future. United Nations `` International Year of Planet Earth '' book series. Springer. ISBN 978 - 90 - 481 - 3417 - 5. Latham, Alan, Derek McCormack, Kim McNamara, & Donald McNeil ( 2009 ). Key Concepts in Urban Geography. London : SAGE. ISBN 978 1 4129 3041 3. Leach, William ( 1993 ). Land of Desire : Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York : Vintage Books ( Random House ), 1994. ISBN 0 - 679 - 75411 - 3. Levy, John M. ( 2017 ). Contemporary Urban Planning. 11th Edition. New York : Routledge ( Taylor & Francis ). Magnusson, Warren. Politics of Urbanism : Seeing like a city. London & New York : Routledge, 2011. ISBN 978 - 0 - 203 - 80889 - 4. Marshall, John U. ( 1989 ). The Structure of Urban Systems. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802067357. Marzluff, John M., Eric Schulenberger, Wilfried Endlicher, Marina Alberti, Gordon Bradley, Clre Ryan, Craig ZumBrunne, & Ute Simon ( 2008 ). Urban Ecology : An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature. New York : Springer Science + Business Media. ISBN 978 - 0 - 387 - 73412 - 5. McQuillan, Eugene ( 1937 / 1987 ). The Law of Municipal Corporations : Third Edition. 1987 revised volume by Charles R.P. Keating, Esq. Wilmette, Illinois : Callaghan & Company. Moholy - Nagy, Sibyl ( 1968 ). Matrix of Man : An Illustrated History of Urban Environment. New York : Frederick A Praeger. ISBN 9781315619408 Mumford, Lewis ( 1961 ). The City in History : Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. New York : Harcourt, Brace & World. O'Flaherty, Brendan ( 2005 ). City Economics. Cambridge Massachusetts : Harvard University Press. ISBN 0 - 674 - 01918 - 0. Pacione, Michael ( 2001 ). The City : Critical Concepts in The Social Sciences. New York : Routledge. ISBN 0 - 415 - 25270 - 9. Paddison, Ronan, ed. ( 2001 ). Handbook of Urban Studies. London ; Thousand Oaks, California ; and New Delhi : SAGE Publications. ISBN 0 8039 7695 X. Rybczynski, W., City Life : Urban Expectations in a New World, ( 1995 ) Smith, Michael E. ( 2002 ) The Earliest Cities. In Urban Life : Readings in Urban Anthropology, edited by George Gmelch and Walter Zenner, pp. 3 -- 19. 4th ed. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, IL. Southall, Aidan ( 1998 ). The City in Time and Space. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 46211 8 Wellman, Kath & Marcus Spiller, eds. ( 2012 ). Urban Infrastructure : Finance and Management. Chichester, UK : Wiley - Blackwell. ISBN 978 - 0 - 470 - 67218 - 1. Further reading Berger, Alan S., The City : Urban Communities and Their Problems, Dubuque, Iowa : William C. Brown, 1978. Chandler, T. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth : An Historical Census. Lewiston, NY : Edwin Mellen Press, 1987. Geddes, Patrick, City Development ( 1904 ) Glaeser, Edward ( 2011 ), Triumph of the City : How Our Best Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, New York : Penguin Press, ISBN 978 - 1 - 59420 - 277 - 3 Kemp, Roger L. Managing America 's Cities : A Handbook for Local Government Productivity, McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina, USA, and London, England, UK, 2007. ( ISBN 978 - 0 - 7864 - 3151 - 9 ). Kemp, Roger L. How American Governments Work : A Handbook of City, County, Regional, State, and Federal Operations, McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina, USA, and London, England, UK. ( ISBN 978 - 0 - 7864 - 3152 - 6 ). Kemp, Roger L. `` City and Gown Relations : A Handbook of Best Practices, '' McFarland and Company, Inc., Publisher, Jefferson, North Carolina, USA, and London, England, UK, ( 2013 ). ( ISBN 978 - 0 - 7864 - 6399 - 2 ). Monti, Daniel J., Jr., The American City : A Social and Cultural History. Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts : Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 391 pp. ISBN 978 - 1 - 55786 - 918 - 0. Reader, John ( 2005 ) Cities. Vintage, New York. Robson, W.A., and Regan, D.E., ed., Great Cities of the World, ( 3d ed., 2 vol., 1972 ) Smethurst, Paul ( 2015 ). The Bicycle -- Towards a Global History. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978 - 1 - 137 - 49951 - 6. Thernstrom, S., and Sennett, R., ed., Nineteenth - Century Cities ( 1969 ) Toynbee, Arnold J. ( ed ), Cities of Destiny, New York : McGraw - Hill, 1967. Pan historical / geographical essays, many images. Starts with `` Athens '', ends with `` The Coming World City - Ecumenopolis ''. Weber, Max, The City, 1921. 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Lynch Ian McHarg Clarence Perry James Rouse Clarence Stein Raymond Unwin List of urban theorists List of urban planners Critics Elizabeth Farrelly Jane Jacobs James Howard Kunstler Lewis Mumford Randal O'Toole Related disciplines Architecture Civil engineering Urban ecology Geography Land development Landscape architecture Marine spatial planning Public health Real estate development Index of urban planning articles List of planned cities List of planning journals Commons Designations for types of administrative territorial entities English terms Common English terms Area Insular area Local government area Protected area Special area Statistical area Combined statistical area Metropolitan statistical area Micropolitan statistical area Urban area Canton Half - canton Borough County borough Metropolitan borough Capital Federal capital Imperial capital City City state Autonomous city Charter city Independent city Incorporated city Imperial city Free imperial city Royal free city Community Autonomous community Residential community County Administrative county Autonomous county Consolidated city - county Metropolitan county Non-metropolitan Viscountcy Country Overseas country Department Overseas department District Capital district City district Congressional district Electoral district Federal district Indian government district Land district Metropolitan district Non-metropolitan district Military district Municipal district Police district Regional district Rural district Sanitary district Subdistrict Urban district Special district Division Census division Police division Subdivision Municipality County municipality Norway Nova Scotia Regional county municipality Direct - controlled municipality District municipality Mountain resort municipality Neutral municipality Regional municipality Resort municipality Rural municipality Specialized municipality Prefecture Autonomous prefecture Subprefecture Super-prefecture Praetorian prefecture Province Autonomous province Overseas province Roman province Region Administrative region Autonomous region Capital region Development region Economic region Mesoregion Microregion Overseas region Planning region Special administrative region Statistical region Subregion Reserve Biosphere reserve Ecological reserve Game reserve Indian reserve Nature reserve State Federal state Free state Sovereign state Territory Capital territory Federal capital territory Dependent territory Federal territory Military territory Organized incorporated territory Overseas territory Union territory Unorganized territory Town Census town Market town Township Charter township Civil township Paper township Survey township Urban township Unit Autonomous territorial unit Local administrative unit Municipal unit Regional unit Zone Economic zone Exclusive economic zone Free economic zone Special economic zone Free - trade zone Neutral zone Self - administered zone Other English terms Current Alpine resort Bailiwick Banner Autonomous Block Cadastre Circle Circuit Colony Commune Condominium Constituency Duchy Eldership Emirate Federal dependency Governorate Hamlet Ilkhanate Indian reservation Manor Royal Muftiate Neighbourhood Parish Periphery Precinct Principality Protectorate Quarter Regency Autonomous republic Riding Sector Autonomous Shire Sultanate Suzerainty Townland Village Administrative Summer Ward Historical Agency Barony Burgh Exarchate Hide Hundred Imperial Circle March Monthon Presidency Residency Roman diocese Seat Tenth Tithing Non-English or loanwords Current Amt Bakhsh Barangay Bezirk Regierungsbezirk Comune Frazione Fu Gemeinde Județ Kunta / kommun Finland Sweden Län Località Megye Muban Oblast Autonomous Okrug Ostān Poblacion Purok Shahrestān Sum Sýsla Tehsil Vingtaine Historical Commote Gau Heerlijkheid Köping Maalaiskunta Nome Egypt Greece Pagus Pargana Plasă Satrapy Socken Subah Syssel Zhou Arabic terms for country subdivisions First - level Muhafazah ( محافظة governorate ) Wilayah ( ولاية province ) Mintaqah ( منطقة region ) Mudiriyah ( مديرية directorate ) Imarah ( إمارة emirate ) Baladiyah ( بلدية municipality ) Shabiyah ( شعبية `` popularate '' ) Second / third - level Mintaqah ( منطقة region ) Qadaa ( قضاء district ) Nahiyah ( ناحية subdistrict ) Markaz ( مركز district ) Mutamadiyah ( معتمدية `` delegation '' ) Daerah / Daïra ( دائرة circle ) Liwa ( لواء banner / sanjak ) City / township - level Amanah ( أمانة municipality ) Baladiyah ( بلدية municipality ) Ḥai ( حي neighborhood / quarter ) Mahallah ( محلة ) Qarya ( قرية ) Sheyakhah ( شياخة `` neighborhood subdivision '' ) English translations given are those most commonly used. French terms for country subdivisions arrondissement département préfecture subprefectures Greek terms for country subdivisions Modern apokentromenes dioikiseis / geniki dioikisis / diamerisma / periphereia nomos / periphereiaki enotita demos / eparchia / koinotita Historical archontia / archontaton bandon demos despotaton dioikesis doukaton droungos eparchia exarchaton katepanikion kephalatikion kleisoura meris naukrareia satrapeia strategis thema toparchia tourma signifies a defunct institution Portuguese terms for country subdivisions Regional subdivisions Estado Distrito federal Província Região Distrito Comarca Capitania Local subdivisions Município Concelho Freguesia Comuna Circunscrição Settlements Cidade Vila Aldeia Bairro Lugar Historical subdivisions in italics. Slavic terms for country subdivisions Current dzielnica gmina krai kraj krajina / pokrajina městys obec oblast / oblast ' / oblasti / oblys / obwód / voblast ' okręg okres okrug opština / općina / občina / obshtina osiedle powiat / povit raion selsoviet / silrada sołectwo voivodeship / vojvodina županija Historical darugha gromada guberniya / gubernia jurydyka khutor obshchina okolia opole pogost prowincja sorok srez starostwo / starostva uyezd volost ziemia župa Spanish terms for country subdivisions National, Federal Comunidad autónoma Departamento Distrito federal Estado Provincia Región Regional, Metropolitan Cantón Comarca Comuna Corregimiento Delegación Distrito Mancomunidad Merindad Municipalidad Municipio Parroquia Ecuador Spain Urban, Rural Aldea Alquería Anteiglesia Asentamiento Asentamiento informal Pueblos jóvenes Barrio Campamento Caserío Ciudad Ciudad autónoma Colonia Lugar Masía Pedanía Población Ranchería Sitio Vereda Villa Village ( Pueblito / Pueblo ) Historical subdivisions in italics. Turkish terms for country subdivisions Modern il ( province ) ilçe ( district ) şehir ( city ) kasaba ( town ) belediye ( municipality ) belde ( community ) köy ( village ) mahalle ( neighbourhood / quarter ) Historical ağalık ( feudal district ) bucak ( subdistrict ) beylerbeylik ( province ) kadılık ( subprovince ) kaza ( sub-province ) hidivlik ( viceroyalty ) mutasarrıflık ( subprovince ) nahiye ( nahiyah ) paşalık ( province ) reya ( Romanian principalities ) sancak ( prefecture ) vilayet ( province ) voyvodalık ( Romanian provinces ) Used by ten or more countries or having derived terms. Historical derivations in italics. See also : Census division, Electoral district, Political division, and List of administrative divisions by country GND : 4056723 - 0 HDS : 7875 NDL : 00573347 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=City&oldid=816708751 '' Categories : Types of country subdivisions City Populated places by type Types of populated places Hidden categories : CS1 errors : invisible characters All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from October 2017 CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list CS1 Spanish - language sources ( es ) Webarchive template wayback links Articles with dead external links from December 2017 Articles with permanently dead external links All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from December 2017 Articles with DMOZ links Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Адыгэбзэ Afrikaans Alemannisch አማርኛ Ænglisc Аҧсшәа Aragonés ܐܪܡܝܐ Armãneashti Arpetan Asturianu Авар Aymar aru Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه বাংলা Bahasa Banjar Bân - lâm - gú Башҡортса Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ भोजपुरी Bikol Central Български Boarisch བོད ་ ཡིག Bosanski Brezhoneg Буряад Català Чӑвашла Cebuano Čeština Chamoru Chavacano de Zamboanga ChiShona Cymraeg Dansk Deitsch Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Emiliàn e rumagnòl Español Esperanto Estremeñu Euskara فارسی Fiji Hindi Føroyskt Français Frysk Furlan Gaeilge Gaelg Gagauz Gàidhlig Galego 贛 語 Gĩkũyũ ગુજરાતી 客家 語 / Hak - kâ - ngî 한국어 Hawaiʻi Հայերեն हिन्दी Hornjoserbsce Hrvatski Ido Igbo Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia Interlingua Interlingue ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ / inuktitut Ирон Íslenska Italiano עברית Basa Jawa ಕನ್ನಡ Къарачай - малкъар ქართული Қазақша Kiswahili Коми Kreyòl ayisyen Kurdî Кыргызча Ladino Лакку Лезги Latina Latviešu Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Limburgs Lingála La. lojban. 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Question: what is the main part of a city
Answer: city center or downtown