1 SOCI 390 Urban Sociology Professor Kurt Reymers, Ph.D. FALL 2012 B. “The City” in History Why look at the history of city building? Because it gives us a glimpse into how people ORGANIZED themselves SOCIALLY beyond simple blood relations; this may give us an insight into the development of SOCIETY itself. B. “The City” in History History also gives us a glimpse into the nature of the social forces (economic, political and cultural forces) with which early societies had to deal and how the details of those forces differed from those in the present. Mumford suggests that all of these forces combine into a “megamachine,” a social and technical force that created the first cities.
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SOCI 390
Urban Sociology Professor Kurt Reymers, Ph.D.
FALL 2012
B. “The City” in History
Why look at the history of city building?
Because it gives us a glimpse into how people ORGANIZED themselves SOCIALLY beyond simple blood relations; this may give us an insight into the development of SOCIETY itself.
B. “The City” in History
History also gives us a glimpse into the nature of the social forces (economic, political and cultural forces) with which early societies had to deal and how the details of those forces differed from those in the present.
Mumford suggests that all of these forces combine into a “megamachine,” a social and technical force that created the first cities.
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B. “The City” in History
Mumford also suggests that cities have a “life course”:
- eopolis (village economy)
- polis (small city)
- metropolis (“mother” city)
- megalopolis (the overgrown metropolis) - tyrannopolis (authority rules)
- necropolis (city of the dead)
B. “The City” in History
According to archaeologists, the first large towns are
presumed to date back roughly 10,000 years. cf. Catalhoyuk (modern day Turkey)
The earliest known “cities” (settlements of many
thousands) date back roughly 6,000 years (to about 3,500BC to 3,900BC).
See table 2.1 text: Nippur Indus River (Mohenjo Daro) map Ur Crete Babylonia Yucatan Peninsula (e.g. Palenque) Yellow River Valley - China
B. “The City” in History
1. Relationships exist between historic cities’ settlement space and the meaning that space is given.
Ancient people put what is socially meaningful into their “built environment” – this shows us what was important to those people.
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B. “The City” in History
1.a. Religion and death greatly influenced the early ancient cities. For example, Pyramids of Giza (~2550 BC); (map) and Thebes.
Also, early “built environments” were astronomically oriented (religiously oriented to the heavens); other examples, Stonehenge or the ancient Beijing Observatory.
B. “The City” in History
1.b. Over time, this relationship changed from a religious affiliation to a more strictly political one.
For example: Athens (~200BC) – one of the first
democratic societies – the Settlement Space is politically oriented (all citizens lived equidistant from the Acropolis, the central meeting place).
For example: Beijing (~980AD) - an autocratic
society during the Ming Dynasty had a Forbidden Center
B. “The City” in History
1.c. What aspect of society is represented in modern cities? (i.e., what are today's "pyramids" or "acropolis"?)
An economic relationship – for example, downtown Buffalo’s tallest building is owned by HSBC Bank; Wall Street is the Power Center of New York.
The Financial District of most cities today are their symbolic centers.
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B. “The City” in History
2. THEORY OF THE RISE OF CITIES: V. Gordon Childe (1950s)
a. Main Assumption - The URBAN REVOLUTION was sponsored by AGRICULTURAL SURPLUS (e.g., the fertile crescent of ancient Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, or the Nile.
B. “The City” in History
b. City building was the first "revolution" of humanity because it involved:
1) non-kindred (non-family) living
2) a division of labor and a barter system 3) development of a ruling class - (social stratification) 4) development of written language 5) existence of trade with other cities
(development of commerce). 6) development of fortifications and defense.
B. “The City” in History
c. Note: Childe's theory is evolutionary.
In other words, according to Childe, stages of social development went from:
(i) Hunting/Gathering
(ii) Agriculture
(iii) Urban-based economies (like industrialism)
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B. “The City” in History
d. Recent evidence suggests that this socio-evolutionary schema may not be true.
Archaeologists now know that trade-based crafts such as pottery and writing emergted in some regions prior to sustained agriculture
Urban development may have been primarily the result of trade between small villages rather than agricultural surplus.
This means that stages of development are NOT necessarily continuous and linked to “progress”.
B. “The City” in History
e. This explains why after the Fall of Rome (the largest and most complex city of the ancient world), Feudalism developed (which is NOT an urban-based social system) while at the same time cities in Asia (Beijing), Northern Africa (Constantinople), and South America (Tenochtitlan) developed tremendously.
B. “The City” in History
3. The origins of the Industrial City can be found in the transition to a new capitalist world system.
a. The economic transition from simple
commodity production (primarily barter economies) to extended commodity production (widespread use of money) was a central turn in the change of feudal societies to capitalist societies. Mercantalism (merchant trade) was on the rise and guilds held less power.
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B. “The City” in History
b. Also, other social and cultural practices changed to encourage the pursuit of wealth;
(e.g. the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century swept away usury laws, or church decrees that made the loaning of money unacceptable).
B. “The City” in History
c. By the 1500s, commerce and trade strongly supported the accumulation of capital (wealth) and eventually this accumulation made cities the repositories (centers) of wealth;
Capitalists bought out the declining feudal lands (no competition) and introduced the real estate market - this was a big incentive for the growth of cities in the 1700-1800s.
B. “The City” in History
d. As money was now to be made in cities, there was a big movement of population to the cities in the industrial 1800s.
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B. “The City” in History
e. With the introduction of industry and factories in the 1700s and 1800s, feudal serfs (farmers) became the proletariat (factory workers).
Karl Marx : “Capitalists waged economic war on the
countryside.”
Rapid growth of industrial cities led to immense
gaps between rich and poor (uneven development).
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