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In [[toponymic]] terminology, names of individual cities and towns are called ''astionyms'' (from [[Ancient Greek]] ἄστυ 'city or town' and ὄνομα 'name').{{sfn|Room|1996|p=13}} | In [[toponymic]] terminology, names of individual cities and towns are called ''astionyms'' (from [[Ancient Greek]] ἄστυ 'city or town' and ὄνομα 'name').{{sfn|Room|1996|p=13}} | ||
==Geography== | |||
[[File:Kartie Sakhali old grave yard - panoramio - Masoud Akbari.jpg|thumb|Hillside housing and [[graveyard]] in [[Kabul]]]][[Urban geography]] deals both with cities in their larger context and with their internal structure.<ref>Carter (1995), pp. 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."</ref> Cities are estimated to cover about 3% of the land surface of the Earth.<ref>Bataille, L., "From passive to energy generating assets", [https://issuu.com/energyinbuildingsindustry/docs/eibi_october_2021 ''Energy in Buildings & Industry'', October 2021], p. 34, accessed 12 February 2022</ref> | |||
=== Site === | |||
[[File:Allegheny Monongahela Ohio.jpg|thumb|[[Downtown Pittsburgh]] sits at the [[confluence]] of the [[Monongahela River|Monongahela]] and [[Allegheny River|Allegheny]] rivers, which become the [[Ohio River|Ohio]].]]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.<ref>Marshall (1989), pp. 11–14.</ref> | |||
Urban areas as a rule cannot [[Subsistence agriculture|produce their own food]] and therefore must develop some [[city region|relationship]] with a [[hinterland]] which sustains them.<ref name="Kaplan2004p155">Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 155–156.</ref> Only in special cases such as [[mining town]]s which play a vital role in long-distance trade, are cities disconnected from the countryside which feeds them.<ref name="Marshall1989p15">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."</ref> 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.<ref name="Latham2009p18" /> | |||
=== Center === | |||
{{Main|City centre}} | |||
[[File:Helsinginkeskustailmakuva 04.JPG|thumb|[[Kluuvi]], a city centre of [[Helsinki]], [[Finland]]|left]] | |||
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]].<ref>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.</ref> These spaces historically reflect and amplify the city's centrality and importance to its wider [[city region|sphere of influence]].<ref name="Latham2009p18">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 Navonae in Rome and Trafalgar Square in London.</ref> Today cities have a [[city center]] or [[downtown]], sometimes coincident with a [[central business district]]. | |||
=== Public space === | |||
Cities typically have [[public space]]s where anyone can go. These include [[privately owned public space|privately owned spaces open to the public]] as well as forms of public land such as [[Public domain (land)|public domain]] and the [[common land|commons]]. [[Western philosophy]] since the time of the Greek [[agora]] has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic [[public sphere]].<ref>Latham et al. (2009), pp. 177–179.</ref><ref>Don Mitchell, "[https://www.academia.edu/download/33133088/the-end-of-public-space-mitchell.pdf The End of Public Space? People's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy]";{{dead link|date=October 2017|fix-attempted=yes}} ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'' 85(1), March 1995.</ref> [[Public art]] adorns (or disfigures) public spaces. [[Park]]s and other [[Incorporation of nature within a city|natural sites within cities]] provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical [[built environment]]s. | |||
=== Internal structure === | |||
[[File:L'Enfant plan.svg|thumb|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 [[monument]]al architecture.<ref>Moholy-Nagy (1986), pp. 146–148.</ref>]] | |||
[[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, urban structure 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.<ref>Moholy-Nagy (1968), 21–33.</ref> Beyond these "geomorphic" features, cities can develop internal patterns, due to natural growth or to [[urban planning|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 wall]]s and [[citadel]]s marking older city boundaries. In more recent history, such forms were supplemented by [[ring road]]s 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 [[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]].<ref>Mohan Pant and Shjui Fumo, "[https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jaabe/4/1/4_1_51/_pdf 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.</ref><ref name="Smith2002">Smith, "[http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-02-EarlyCities.pdf Earliest Cities]", in Gmelch & Zenner (2002).</ref><ref>Michel Danino, "[http://www.iisc.ernet.in/prasthu/pages/PP_data/paper2.pdf New Insights into Harappan Town-Planning, Proportions and Units, with Special Reference to Dholavira] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525012828/http://www.iisc.ernet.in/prasthu/pages/PP_data/paper2.pdf |date=25 May 2017 }}", "Man and Environment 33(1), 2008.</ref><ref>Jane McIntosh, ''The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives''; ABC-CLIO, 2008; {{ISBN|978-1-57607-907-2}} pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1AJO2A-CbccC&pg=PA231 231], [https://books.google.com/books?id=1AJO2A-CbccC&pg=PA346 346].</ref> The ancient Greek city of [[Priene]] exemplifies a grid plan with specialized districts used across the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic Mediterranean]]. | |||
=== Urban areas === | |||
[[File:Tel Aviv, Israel by Planet Labs.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|This aerial view of the [[Gush Dan]] metropolitan area in Israel shows the geometrically planned<ref>Volker M. Welter, "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245874 The 1925 Master Plan for Tel-Aviv by Patrick Geddes]"; ''Israel Studies'' 14(3), Fall 2009.</ref> 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.<ref>[[Israel Central Bureau of Statistics]], "[http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton67/st02_25.pdf Locations, Population and Density per Sq. km., by metropolitan area and selected localities, 2015] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002132439/http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton67/st02_25.pdf |date=2016-10-02}}."</ref>|left]]Urban-type settlement extends far beyond the traditional boundaries of the [[city proper]]<ref>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."</ref> in a form of development sometimes described critically as [[urban sprawl]].<ref>{{Cite book | year=2013 |author1=Paul James |author2=Meg Holden |author3=Mary Lewin |author4=Lyndsay Neilson |author5=Christine Oakley |author6=Art Truter |author7=David Wilmoth | chapter= Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth | title= Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development |editor1=Harald Mieg |editor2=Klaus Töpfer | chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/7207756 | publisher= Routledge}}</ref> 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.<ref name="HugoEtAl2003" /> | |||
[[Metropolitan areas]] include [[suburbs]] and [[exurbs]] organized around the needs of [[commuting|commuters]], and sometimes [[edge city|edge cities]] characterized by a degree of economic and political independence. (In the US 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 [[northeast megalopolis|BosWash]] corridor of the [[Northeastern United States]].)<ref>Chaunglin Fang & Danlin Yu, "[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204617300439 Urban agglomeration: An evolving concept of an emerging phenomenon]"; ''Landscape and Urban Planning'' 162, 2017.</ref> | |||
{{clear}} | |||