In modern times many cities have grown bigger and bigger. The whole area is often called a " "metropolis" " and can sometimes include several small ancient towns and villages. The "metropolis" of London includes London, Westminster, and many old villages such as Notting Hill, Southwark, Richmond, Greenwich, etc. The part that is officially known as the " City of London " only takes up one square mile. The rest is known as "Greater London. " Many other cities have grown in the same way.
These giant cities can be exciting places to live, and many people can find good jobs there, but modern cities also have many problems. Many people cannot find jobs in the cities and have to get money by begging or by crime. Automobiles, factories, and waste create a lot of pollution that makes people sick.
Urban history is history of civilization. The first cities were made in ancient times, as soon as people began to create civilization . Famous ancient cities which fell to ruins included Babylon, Troy, Mycenae and Mohenjo-daro.
Benares in northern India is one among the ancient cities which has a history of more than 3000 years. Other cities that have existed since ancient times are Athens in Greece, Rome and Volterra in Italy, Alexandria in Egypt and York in England.
In Europe, in the Middle Ages, being a city was a special privilege, granted by nobility. Cities that fall into this category, usually had (or still have) city walls. The people who lived in the city were privileged over those who did not. Medieval cities that still have walls include Carcassonne in France, Tehran in Iran, Toledo in Spain and Canterbury in England.
People in a city live close together, so they cannot grow all their own food or gather their own water or energy. People also create waste and need a place to put it. Modern cities have infrastructure to solve these problems. Pipes carry running water, and power lines carry electricity. Sewers take away the dirty water and human waste. Most cities collect garbage to take it to a landfill, burn it, or recycle it.
Transport is any way of getting from one place to another. Cities have roads which are used by automobiles (including trucks), buses, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians (people walking). Some cities have trains and larger cities have airports. Many people in cities travel to work each day, which is called commuting.
Houses and apartments are common places to live in cities. Great numbers of people in developing countries (and developed countries, in the past) live in slums. A slum is poorly built housing, without clean water, where people live very close together. Buildings are usually taller in the city center, and some cities have skyscrapers.
City streets can be shaped like a grid, or as a "wheel and spokes": a set of rings and lines coming out from the center. Streets in some older cities like London are arranged at random, without a pattern. The design of cities is a subject called urban planning. One area of the city might have only shops, and another area might have only factories. Cities have parks, and other public areas like city squares.
Cities in the US are usually very-left leaning. The best examples of these would be New York, New York, and Washington, D.C. For example, in Louisiana, the only Democratic delegate in US Congress who is a Democrat was elected from a district comprising in New Orleans. Below is a list of states and the major city/cities that provide much of the liberal support in them :
These cities have more than 10 million people and can be called megacities:
Cooking
Cooking is a process to make food ready to eat by heating it. Cooking can kill bacteria that may be in the food.
Raw food is food that is not cooked. Some foods are good to eat raw. Other foods are not good for the body when they are raw, so they must be cooked. Some foods are good to eat either raw or cooked.
Cooking is often done in a kitchen using a stove or an oven. It can also be done over a fire (for example, over a campfire or on a barbecue).
The heat for cooking can be made in different ways. It can be from an open fire that burns wood or charcoal. It can be on a stove or in an oven that uses propane, natural gas, or electricity.
There are several different ways to cook food. Boiling cooks food in hot water. Frying (deep or shallow) cooks food in hot butter, fat or oil. Baking and roasting cook food by surrounding it with hot air. Grilling means cooking food on a metal grill that has heat under it.
People often cook meat by boiling, roasting, frying, or grilling it. Some foods such as bread or pastries are usually baked.
Usually food is cooked in some kind of pot or pan. Sometimes people cook food by putting it directly into the fire, or by wrapping the food in leaves before they put it into the fire.
A person whose job it is to cook food may be called a "cook" or a "chef". The word "cooker" means a machine or tool that a cook might use to cook food. Rice cookers and pressure cookers are examples.
Chat
To chat is to talk about ordinary things that are not very important. A person can chat with another person, or to many people. People also use this word now for parts of the Internet where we can talk with many different people at the same time. Usually, people chat on the Internet in a chat room or messaging service like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger Windows Live Messenger or Tencent QQ. There are also programs which let people use different messaging services from one program, such as Pidgin.
Cup
A cup is any kind of container used for holding liquid and drinking. These include:
Cup may also mean:
Crime
A crime (or misdemeanor or felony) is an act done by a person which is against the laws of a country or region. A person who does this is called a criminal.
The basic idea of what things are called "crimes" is that they are thought to be things that might cause a problem for another person. Things like killing another person, injuring another person, or stealing from another person are crimes in most countries. Also, it can be a crime to have or sell contraband such as guns or illegal drugs.
When some criminals make money from crime, they try to stop the police finding out where the money came from by money laundering. Men and boys commit many more crimes than women and girls.
The word "crime" is derived from the Latin root "cernō", meaning "I decide, I give judgment". Originally the Latin word "crīmen" meant "charge" or "cry of distress." The Ancient Greek word κρίμα, "krima", from which the Latin cognate derives, typically referred to an intellectual mistake or an offense against the community, rather than a private or moral wrong.
In 13th century English "crime" meant "sinfulness", according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. It was probably brought to England as Old French "crimne" (12th century form of Modern French "crime"), from Latin "crimen" (in the genitive case: "criminis"). In Latin, "crimen" could have signified any one of the following: "charge, indictment, accusation; crime, fault, offense".
Whether a given act or omission constitutes a crime does not depend on the nature of that act or omission; it depends on the nature of the legal consequences that may follow it. An act or omission is a crime if it is capable of being followed by what are called criminal proceedings.
For the purpose of section 243 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, a crime means an offence punishable on indictment, or an offence punishable on summary conviction, and for the commission of which the offender is liable under the statute making the offence punishable to be imprisoned either absolutely or at the discretion of the court as an alternative for some other punishment.
A normative definition views crime as deviant behavior that violates prevailing norms – cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally.
There are various levels of crimes. In some jurisdictions they are: