BRIEF HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION AND URBANIZATION

Carl Sagan’s concept of the cosmic calendar

Imagine entire history of our planet compressed into a single calendar year:

	January 1^st – date of Big Bang until December 31 – no homo sapiens
	December 31^st, homo sapiens appeared (100,000 years ago)
	Last minute of year first cities appeared (90,000 years ago passed until permanent settlements in the form of small villages existed)
	Last second world acquired sizable urban population

HUMAN HISTORY

Factors Affecting Social Organization During Prehistory: Climate--it became warmer & new methods and technologies for producing food

Paleolithic Period

	Old stone age
	Period referred to as the old stone age, period prior to 10,000 BC
	Humans lived as nomads, wandering hunters and gatherers
	Egalitarian societies, people did different tasks but all equally important
	No permanent settlements
	No food surplus, lived day-to-day

Mesolithic Period – after last ice age & Neolithic Period

	Middle to new stone age, 10,000 to 5,000 years ago
	Population density grew and began to deplete natural resources
	Changing climate contributed to emergence of new plants and animals
	Small widely dispersed semi-permanent settlements and nomads, everyone knew a bit about everything
	First permanent settlements
	Development in fertile crescent which included present day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran
	Village life was becoming more sustainable and common

Bronze age & Iron age

	5000 years ago
	Division of labour became more complex and hierarchical power structure developed with some form of administrative leadership
	Agricultural revolution - new technologies and modes of subsistence contributed to a food surplus, domestication of plants and animals
	Productive surplus or agricultural primacy, i.e. growth dependent upon agricultural surplus

Overgrown Villages

	Early forms of human settlement
	Covered 5-10 acres and supported a population of about 5,000
	Transition from settlements during the neolithic period to the emergence of the first cities

Urban Preconditions: Gordon Childe

	Permanent Settlement in dense aggregations
	Nonagricultural Specialists
	Taxation and Wealth Accumulation
	Monumental Public Buildings
	Ruling Class
	Writing Techniques
	Predictive Science
	Artistic Expression
	Trade for Vital materials
	Decline in importance of Kinship

Evolution of urban areas

1.  First Urban Revolution – city states and urban empires

1.1) Near East Mesopotamia and Egypt

	New social organization – creation of city-state with some type of ruler
	Favorable ecological conditions
	Some sort of trade or food surplus
	Complex social structure with sophisticated division of labour and power hierarchy

Mesopotamian Cities

	About 4,000 BC
	Located in Middle east in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley
	Agricultural Cities (wheat, barley, sheep, goats)
	Walled cities with populations of about 25,000
	Wheeled Vehicles
	Houses of dried or fired mud brick
	Winding Streets, narrow and unpaved
	Poor sanitation, refuse thrown into streets
	Farmers lived just outside city walls within walking distance of fields
	Poor lived at periphery but inside walls
	Merchants and Craftsman closer to center
	Nobility, Priests, Warriors lived at center
	Vulnerable and Plagued by major problems
	Fire, out of control cooking fires
	Disease, linked to poor sanitation
	Famine
	Threat of invasion by enemies

Egyptian Cities

	3,300 BC along the Nile river, little is known about Egyptian cities prior to 2,000 BC
	Similar to Mesopotamian cities but were not walled
	Slightly smaller than Mesopotamian Cities

1.2) The Indus region – present day India and Pakistan

Cities of the Harappa Civilization

	Emerged around 2,500 BC
	Along Indus river in what is now western Pakistan
	Important Cites were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
	Streets were straight and laid out in a gridiron pattern forming rectangular blocks
	Precincts/areas distinguished by specific economic activities
	Western edge of city was religious, political and educational center
	City had sewer system and system for collecting trash
	First cities to show signs of planned development

Mycenaean and Minoan Cities

	Emerged around 2,000 BC (Athens about 800 BC)
	Radial Structure, with streets starting at center and extending straight out from that center
	Sections of city also radiated out from center (so everyone would be equal distance from center)

1.3)  China

China along the Yellow river, 2000-1500 BC

1.4)  Americas

Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador), about 200 BC

1.5)  Crete and Greece

	1800 BCE
	Athens, Corinth, Sparta independent Greek city-states
	More egalitarian cities
	Good life of city founded on principles of moderation, balance, human participation

1.6)  Ancient Rome - 700-500 BCE

	Good life was based on celebration of excess and domination, human debasement and militaristic cruelty
	Development of sophisticated road systems – pavement, and waterworks – aqueducts – engineering and technical achievement

1.7)  Middle ages or "Dark age" – 500 BCE – 1100 CE – only in Western world not Eastern world

	Barbarism
	Feudal system
	Age of the Vikings and Islam

1.8)  Renaissance or Medieval age

	Importance of church life crucial, Roman Catholic
	Crusades: armed marches by Christian European groups
	Emergence of complex and competitive commercial class at center of trade dominated by craft guilds
	Conflict between church, landed gentry and feudal royalty for power
	Center of city was cathedral, marketplace or guilds or town halls
	Interest in art, literature and architecture, learnings in these areas were path to human virtue, dignity, freedom and happiness, i.e. becoming perfect human being, in reality vision for upper classes

Factors Contributing to Ancient Urbanization

	Population pressures
	Forces of Natural Environment--Topography, climate, natural resources
	Technology--tools and techniques
	Emergence of Agriculture
	Organization--arrangement of population into functional institutions
	Trade Between Villages
	Division of Labor
	Organized Religion
	Organized Government
	Transportation Technologies

What led to the emergence of cities

	Technological advances: agricultural techniques, construction, smelting of metals
	Higher productivity in agriculture
	Food surplus sufficient to feed non-farmers, i.e. craftsmen, traders, soldiers, warfare, religious leaders, politicians
	Increased geographical mobility and diffusions of goods, technologies, ideas
	Concentration of population:  trade hubs, political centers and massive public projects drainage and irrigation

	Occupational diversity and specialization à interdependence
	Some functions/skills are more "important" than others à complex social organization and hierarchy
	Cities as centers of imperial power
	Cities as cultural centers: literacy, arts, religion, science
	City and the countryside: First-political, then also economic domination of cities over rural areas

2.  Second urban revolution: the rise of modern cities

	birth of capitalism
	death of feudalism
	commerce replacing agriculture as dominant mode of making a living
	new middle class – the bourgeoisie comprised of shopkeepers, traders, bureaucrats, government officials, and others engaged in commercial ventures
	industrial revolution began

Urbanization and Industrial Revolution

Western Europe/North America (from the 1760s--mid-1800s)

	Why Europe/North America? Capitalism originally developed there.
	Industrial Revolution

	Improvements in industrial machinery, utilization of the steam engine, use of coal in iron smelting
	Specialization and division of labor in manufacturing
	Non-economic changes: decline in mortality, population growth and concentration.

Industrialization/Urbanization and colonial expansion

	the countryside supplied cheap labor
	colonies (territorial expansion--in the case of the U.S.) supplied raw material for industries
	Result--rapid growth of urban centers and of the proportion of the urban population, due to migration from rural areas (not natural increase!)

Composition of urban population

	The biggest growth--industrial workers (proletariat), who did not own any means of production and had to sell their labor to factory owners
	Self-employed petty craftsmen and traders
	Bourgeoisie--owners of the means of production
	Bureaucracy--need to manage complex organization of production and distribution
	The unemployed poor--underclass

Working and living conditions in cities

	Work in the factories-monotonous, 15-16 hours a day
	Child labor
	Women--limited to certain industries and earned lower wages
	No security as in the countryside
	But concentration of workers in factories set the ground for workers' solidarity and (later) labor organizations.
	Industrial urbanization was largely spontaneous
	chaotic housing construction, overcrowding, filth, no sewer, running water à
	Urban policies to address these problems
	Despite improvements in nutrition and medicine, relatively high mortality and disease prevalence in urban centers
	Other urban problems: pauperism, crime

System of cities

	Larger cities dominated smaller cities--politically, economically
	Interdependence and hierarchy among cities
	National economic and political unity, nation-states

Urban growth in the 20th century

	In richer countries:
	Rate of growth has slowed and the proportion urban has stabilized at 70-80%
	The boundary between urban/industrial and rural/agricultural is unclear.
	In poorer countries:
	Rapid growth of urban population due to migration and natural increase (especially in the second half of the century)
	Relatively little industrial growth in cities