Urbanism & Planning: Including lecture notes, summary of the City Reader, key takeaways and graphs!
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Urbanism and Planning mid-term summary
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Urbanism and Planning
CR Prologue
Special thought to:
1. The role of utopian thought about cities and predictions
2. Normative theory about what city planners and policy maker might do to make cities better
Much of the classic writing about cities over the last hundred years remains relevant today. We are
now living in a period of enormous change that demands attention to entirely new patterns in urban
society, culture, economics, information use, governance, and policy. Theory and practice should be
linked in studying cities. Multiple types of research methods:
- Quantitative: analyzing data using statistical methods
- Qualitative
- Cross-sectional
- Longitudinal: a research design that chooses to look at how conditions change over time.
Important aspects in Urban research:
- Time
- Geographical space
CR - The urbanization of the human population Davis
Definition of urbanization by Davis: ‘the increase over time of the proportion of the total human
population that is urban as opposed to rural’. Historically, urbanization is primarily caused by
rural-urban migration. (not different birth and mortality rates).
Davis argues that urbanization follows an attenuated S curve in which pre-industrial cities urbanize
very slowly at the bottom of the S, shoot up at the middle of the S as they industrialize, and then level
off at the top of the S. Davis concludes that there will be an end to urbanization- but not necessarily to
absolute population growth, the physical size of cities or the absolute number of people contained.
CR - The urban revolution Childe
Childe disposed the three-age system (stone age, bronze age, iron age) and introduces a series of
four stages(Paleolithic, Neolithic, urban, industrial) , punctuated by three “revolutions”:
1. Neolithic Revolution: from old Stone Age hunter-gatherer cultures to settled agriculture.
2. Urban Revolution: the movement from Neolithic agriculture to complex, hierarchical systems
of city-based manufacturing and trade.
3. Industrial Revolution:
Childe felt that the major factors motivating the transformation were rooted in the material base of the
society: its means of production and its available physical and technological resources. Childe has
been faulted for his apparent disregard of the primacy of non-material aspects of culture.
Lecture: The Rise of Cities 1: Urban Revolution
Colonisation was the start of urbanisation.
The agricultural revolution: put in the last ingredient for a society: permanence. hunter and gathering
and agriculture coexisted for a time. But agriculture was able to sustain a lot of people and meant
people could be somewhere permanently. This meant those societies could be larger than those of
hunters and gatherers.
Childe: we should talk about the ‘revolutions’ instead of the ‘ages’ stone, bronze, iron → instead talk
about four stages intersected by ‘revolutions’:
1
, - Paleolithic → neolithic (tools/fire)
- Neolithic → urban (agricultural/ trade)
- Urban → industrial (steam/coal/iron/fertilizes/mass production/social change)
- Industrial → ?? (internet/globalization)
The first urban settlements Catal Huyuk → first housing was different from the traditional agricultural
villages that we knew.
What then divines an urban environment? The notion of density and a rather large population creates
a more complex society (organization, government, management).
What then divines an urban economy? It's not only about how the economy within cities works and
the management of the city, but also the area around that city. The cities became more complex in the
urban civilisation, people were specializing in certain ‘jobs’ contrary to agricultural societies for
example.
Urban economy is characterized by the beautification and division of labour.
What then devines urban civilisation? When you have a certain area around when you have urban
and agricultural societies co exciting, cities are engaged in one society. They collaborated in terms of
harvest, crops, tools, sharing soldiers etc.
Urbanization of the Human Population: (Davis)
Demographic S-curves of urbanization. When the industrial revolution takes place the graph grows
almost exponentially. (the steep part of the S-curve).
1. Urbanization slowly increases
2. Rapid urbanization during the industrial revolution(s)
3. Urban flattening out as the area is almost fully urbanized
Urban vs. rural
- When cities expand spatially, to what extent are they still urban? (peri-urban) They don’t really
function as urban anymore?
- Increasing percentage of the urban as opposed to the rural doesn’t mean that the rural
population declines
- Agriculture → population spreads out
- Manufacturing, commerce services → concentrates on site. That’s why the diversity of
‘labour’ grew much larger in the cities.
CR - The Realization of Democracys: Athens Fowler
One of the Greek contributions is the concept of urban democracy. Fowler argues that the Athenian
people were uniquely able to perceive “what the State might do for the individual, and the individual
for the state. Towards the realization of a good life.”
There was direct democracy, where the whole body of citizens was sovereign not just in theory but in
day-to-day practice. This is very different from modern democracy. We have borrowed the word and
given it a new meaning.
Fowler also points out that the rosy vision of Athenian democracy expressed by Pericles failed to
recognize a major shortcoming. Like the fact that Athens, like all other Greek city-states of the time,
was a slave-holding society. Also, many of the smaller Greek cities were forced into the status of
client states and heavily taxed to support the Athenian public budget.
Fowler argues that the importance of Athenian democracy cannot be denied, especially in the way
that it allowed both the individual and the collective community of the polis to flourish and mutually
reinforce each other.
It can be argued that Greek democracy evolved by a series of revolutions and reforms out of the long
cultural history of the “polis”. The idea of the polis meant a unique, mutually reinforcing relationship
between the individual and the state, a unifying spirit of belonging, embedded in age-old rituals and
commonly held cultural norms, that inspired a special kind of patriotic attachment between
autonomous individuals seamlessly identifying with the larger community.
2
,The physical form of the polis stressed public space (houses were low and turned away from the
street). The polis as a social institution defined for its citizens the very nature of what it means to
be human.
CR - Selection from Politics Aristotle
Aristotle had the ability to stand outside the dynamic little polis of Athens and ask fundamental
questions that have remained valid for centuries and are still important today.
Aristotle argued that man is by nature a political animal that needs to live in some form of community,
which eventually takes the form of a state. According to Aristotle, every state is a community
established with a view to some good and that its function as a political community is the highest form
of community. He also argued that a state’s purpose was to assure the good life of their citizens.
Aristotle’s discussion of the borderline between rights and obligations for citizens and noncitizen
resident aliens is remarkably relevant today. Aristotle pointed out that a person does not become a
citizen because he lives in a particular place. Aristotle: ‘the state consists of a body of citizens and the
defining attribute of a citizen is the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of
the state’.
How populous should a polis or city be? Aristotle: populous does not mean great/good. There is a limit
until which a city can be governed well. The city-state should be large enough to provide food security,
self-protection, arts, revenue, religion, and the power to decide the public interest.
In Athens, at the time of most of Aristotle’s writing, many governmental roles were performed by
ordinary citizens serving in rotation for a short period of time, an approach Aristotle liked. However, as
Athens was becoming larger, he raised the concern that some people would want to be in office
because of the financial and other advantages that office-holding brought to a general philosophical
principle – that states should make sure democratic government by public-spirited freemen is not
perverted into despotic government where a minority rule in their own interest.
Aristotle advocates a system which is best both theoretically and relative to what is possible in a
specific society at the time. He favors true democracy, particularly by a large middle class. Aristotle
argued strongly for the role of law. Should property be private or possessed in common? Aristotle saw
pros and cons in both approaches. He concluded that property should be private, but the use of it is
common.
Lecture: The Rise of Cities 2: Ancient and Classic Era
The Ancient Era
The urban revolution happened at various points at various time frames in the world.
Sumerian Civilization (Mesopotamia)
- First cities in the world (to our knowledge)
- First multi-city state (to our knowledge) → many cities relatively close to each other. War
against each other, uniting, trade relationships → becoming part of the same civilization.
- First to all these new things (wheel, calendar, horoscopes, writing etc.)
- Mari (Mesopotamia) was an important trade port between the areas nearby, it connected
trade between other cities. The cities started to depend on each other.
- Babylon (Mesopotamia) became the epicenter of mesopotamia; the first capital. They
designed their city to impress people. Estimated to have 200k inhabitants at its peak.
- Harappa (Indus). Extensive and intensive urbanisation → they had areas (cities) planned for
density and smaller cities around the big dense cities to hold less people. They had granaries,
sewage, plumbing, public baths, air conditioning, dikes, dams etc.
- Memphis (Egypt)
- Ao (Yellow River) → advanced civilizations.
- Caral (Andes) was a city built to sustain earthquakes.
3
, All around the world urban evolution took place and sparked trade and stuff between cities. A couple
thousand years later this urban revolution spread out or started taking place.
Ancient cities (physical features)
- Located around rivers for fertile soil, irrigation, and trade. The sea is preferred for trade.
- Mostly walled (square or circle shaped)(Walls gave away the wealthy-ness of the city)
- Distinct citadel precinct with temple (pyramid/ziggurat)
- Palace (Earthly power)
- Central granary (food storage)
- Public works: bathhouses, market places, courtyards
- infrastructure: road systems, sewage
Ancient cities (societal features):
- Large populations (at that time)
- Full-time specialization (advanced division of labour)
- agricultural surplus enabled a differentiated society
- Long-distance trade
- A ruling class (authority, earthly and heavenly)
- Monumental public architecture (display of power)
- Structured use of writing (literacy, bureaucracy)
- Laws, regulations, standards, taxes (civil servants)
- Arithmetic, geometric, astronomy, time
- Sophisticated art (result of major surplus)
The Classic Era
The Poleis of Greece
Athens reached 100k inhabitants in the classical era. It became a really influential city.
Agora → amphitheatre
Aristotle → politics: pertaining to Athens at the time
- “Man is a political animal”
- “What is a state?” (“The purpose of the state is to assure the good life of its citizens”)
- “What is a citizen?” (rights vs obligations, inclusion vs exclusion) → citizenship (refers to
- ‘city’, not state)
- “What is the ideal size of a city?”
- “What is the role of property?” Property should be private, but the use of it is common.
- Tutor of Alexander the Great who spread Hellenic (Greek) civilization to a large part of the
- near and far East.
Rome was invested in learning as much as possible from other places all over the whole world. Rome
was one of the first cities to reach one million inhabitants.
They had urban expansion vertically instead of just horizontally.
The population of Rome collapsed vastly in a very short period of time
Classical cities (physical and societal):
- Extensively planned (incl dwellings)
- Often dependent on long-distance trade (empire)
- Sophisticated ‘state’-structures (political society)
- Inclusive citizenship (yet: serfdom, slavery, women)
- Rule of Law (but not for all)/Pax Romana
- A denser ‘competitive field’ (more cities)
- Serious de-urbanisation in the Early Middle Ages
Lessening dependence on the God-given environnement.
Lecture: An Evolving Dutch Landscape
- Sand, sea, and swamps
- Soil was poor, not an easy country. The Netherlands was not very densely populated.
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