Once upon a time…..

Once upon a time…..There was a city

But what is a city?City UrbanPaige lived in a city

named Houston, TX. She knew it was a city because it was a very clustered space with big buildings and a lot of people and a variety of different types of family history/beliefs.

Then when Paige got offered an excellent high paying job downtown, she moved to the ‘’heart’’ of Houston. It provided more resources and was more busy than Houston. It was more people downtown and she enjoyed the center of the city.

In the beginning there was a village…

Where Paige lived because she was very poor. In this agricultural village, she only grew enough for her family and she knew this was not enough to make it. Paige knew she had to do something to survive so she went through agricultural surplus. Paige grew more than enough food for her family. Eventually, Paige was placed in a higher social class called social stratification because she grew more food than the normal person. Finally, Paige was placed in a leadership class which meant that she make the choices and control the resources of the lives of others.

The First Urban Revolution!

All of a sudden…. BOOM!

This was the new way of

living in about 5 hearths of

the city. Many people of the

city became engaged in

bigger jobs, more trading,

the army or military and

even more! Paige became

very happy that this started

to come in the hearth of her

city.

The First Urban HearthsRiver Valley Civilizations

Mesopotamia

Kaylee, one of Paige’s cousins, lived in Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamia was the first urban hearth. It means the region of GREAT cities located between Tigers and Euphrates rivers. This first urban hearth had found signs of non equal social classes of the sizes and the the way the houses were decorated. These cities were protected by a mud wall covering the community or sometimes temples and shrines. There were a lot of temples in the urban city, not only because they were the biggest places in town but because they were built on mounds often 100 feet high. Priests and other people in control worked in palaces. Regular citizens lived in mud-walled houses packed together and separated by narrow lines. On those narrow lines, craftspeople set up their workshops. Kaylee, the poorest out of the family, lived in a tiny hut. They had mud-smeared reed walls on the outside of the city. The evil witch of Mesopotamia was in the leadership class and often held slaves in prison-life rooms sometimes even outside the city walls! The people of this city always threw their trash into the garbage because they didn't’t want to collect layers and layers of garbage in streets. Because of that, there wasn’t many diseases in the city. Although many died from nasty conditions, people who study culture have searched though the city’s garbage to get clues about the life of Mesopotamia!!

Nile River ValleyPaige had many family members located in the second hearth of urbanization. Dating wayyyyy back to 3200 BCE! But some say this region isn’t a hearth (beginning or origin of a place) because the citizens just came from the region Mesopotamia. Many argue that agriculture(growing crops and goods) came to this region from Fertile Crescent, but evidence supported the invention of the Nile River Valley came on it’s own. This region was between urbanization and irrigation which made t different from other urban hearths. People in this city DID NOT build walls around their cities. Power along the river was mainly in the hands of the people who controlled irrigation systems. Not having any walls located in the city, it reflected the the single control of the region. The rulers of this city is reflected in the pyramids, tombs and sphinx what were built by thousands of slaves.

Indus River ValleyPaige’s brother named Harry was interested in coins and money. He moved to the Indus River Valley, which was the third urban hearth dating back to the 2200 BCE. This was another place that came from the Fertile Crescent. Unable to have Indus writing, scholars were confused by Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the first cities of the Indus River Valley. The complicated planning of the cities points to the leadership class existing, but the houses continued to be equal in size. They had no places or monuments appearing in the cities. Moreover, all the dwellings in the cities could get to the same infrastructure including wastewater drains and carefully took care of stonelined walls. This city had thick walls, and the discovery of coins from as far away as the Mediterranean found at the gateways to these walls points to the significant trade over a long distance.

Huang He and Wei River ValleysNot many of Paige’s family went to China because they had a great fear of deathly things! In China there was the fourth urban hearth around the joining rivers. The Huang He and Wei River Valleys around 1500 BCE. The Chinese planned their ancient cities to center on a vertical structure in the middle of the city and built an inner wall around it. Inside the inner wall, the people of this hearth placed temples and palaces for leadership class. The urban part of the Huang He and Wei region, like urban part of the Nile River Valley showed power by building big structures. Around 200 BCE, the Emperor Qin Xi Huang directed the building of the Great Wall of China. Like Egyptians, he had an complicated mausoleum built for himself. Around 700,000 slaved worked for 40 years to craft the detailed faces, weapons, horses, and chariots of an army of over 7000 terracotta warriors who protect this place of death.

MesoamericaPaige’s mom loved religion and she thought she would move to a place that took was about religion. She moved to the fifth urban hearth called Mesoamerica during the 200 BCE! This city was religious and fought for their rights with priests, temples, and shrines. Many old cities were religious centers where rulers wanted to be considered to have authority and were, in effect, god-kings. Some examples were the building of Yucatan, Guatemala, and Honduras built by Maya Indians.

Time passes….

The Greeks!In Greece there was an Acropolis. This was the place were the most work was formed. They were usually religious buildings and people built the BEST buildings and structures! There was also a public place called agora(market) also became the focus of commercial activity. Which means where the business, technology and selling things happened

By 500 BCE Greece became the most urbanized area on the EARTH! Greece changed faster than any other place, having more than 500 towns and cities on Greek Islands! More of Paige’s family came here for better jobs and money.

The Romans! Paige and her family took a visit

to see Rome and learn about the beautiful buildings. The Romans took the Greek acropolis and agora and combined them into ONE zone, the Forum, the focus of ALL OF ROMAN LIFE! In Rome, the forum includes the world’s first great stadium, the Colosseum, which was a much bigger version of the Greek theater. A lot of gladiators fought and killed animals at this very place.

The Romans were greatly influenced by the Greeks. They became very tied into each other and shared plans, ideas, much more.

Here’s the situation…. Paige and her family said Europe changed very badly. The trade pathways were being left out and it made a difference in the cities. The important part of trade pathways changed A LOT! When European maritime exploration and overseas settlement (colonization) showed in a time of oceanic worldwide trade. With this shift, the situation of cities like Paris and Xhan changed from HAVING TO HAVE a trade pathway to being left out of an oceanic trade. The situation of a city is its relative location, its place in the region and the world around it.

The Second Urban Revolution.

.

Then began the second urban revolution that Paige and her family saw while exploring Europe. This was big changes made in the urban life of European cities. This was a very bad revolution. The cities were not carefully tooken care of and there was just jumbles of activities gone wild! Factories became private homes. Open spaced became garbage dumps. Urban dwellers turned nice pretty houses into overcrowded slums! Cleanness failed and water supplies failed were bad and often had polluted (chemicals or bad things in them where you couldn't’t use it) Living conditions were horrible for workers in cities and working conditions were shocking. Health conditions were even the worse! The air and water was polluted and people have to breathe in that air and drink that water to survive. These horrible conditions happened because of the coal mining. The coal caused this to happen to the city. The grimy, soot-covered cities of British Midlands were the ‘’black towns’’ few if any safety mechanicals protected the workings and there were a lot of injuries. Paige and her family could no longer take the life of Europe. Kaylee died from the pollution and Harry was seriously sick. Paige took care of Harry back in her city and the whole family moved in with Paige in the heart of Houston. There, Paige took care of her family better than she would in regular parts of Houston because the heart was the best of the best!

THE END!… Wait, There is no “The End” to our story….Urbanization never ends. This is just the beginning.