1. Roman Urban System
The Romans created the largest urban system with an excellent transportation system
The Romans were masters of engineering efficiency creating aqueducts, sewers, roads, bridges and great public buildings like arenas and baths.
The Etruscans had controlled Tuscany from Po Valley south-the Romans learned to build in stone, irrigation and drainage as well as urban living from them.
From the Greeks the Romans copied the grid pattern of streets at right angles
The Forum became the center of public life

3. Roman cities had great contrast-great villas & spacious avenues, aqueducts, baths and sewers, yet also –
Wretchedly poor housing in 4-5 story over-crowded tenements, dirty, noisy, crime-ridden streets and a population composed of ½ slaves.
With the collapse of the empire the city of 1 ½ m. shrunk to less than 50,000

4. Urban Growth Elsewhere
China-rapid growth in the Han Dynasty period-Xian became the Rome of East Asia.
Timbuktu developed in West Africa in the 14th cent. While Meroe on the upper Nile developed advanced metallurgy.
Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital was the most advanced city in the world with 100,000 by the 16th cent.

5. Huang He and Wei River Valleys
The Chinese purposefully planned their cities.
- centered on a
vertical structure
- inner wall built
around center
- temples and
palaces for the
leadership class
Terracotta Warriors guarding the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Qin Xi Huang

6. Pre industrial Europe
Muslim invasion of Europe and later the Crusades opened up trade and contact between Europe and the Far East and Near East
Paris, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Lisbon, Naples and Venice revived and grew.
By mid-15th cent. London had 80,000 and Paris had 120,000. By 19th cent. London was 1 m. while Paris had only 670,000
Top town gate of Salisbury, England
Bottom-Nordlingen, Germany-walled city 14th to 16th century

7. By 17th cent. Europe’s cities were:
Urban Environments
By 17th cent. Europe’s cities were:
Slum ridden
Unsanitary
Fire traps
Plagued by frequent epidemics
Crime ridden
Places of social dislocation
Picture at right-the Medieval Shambles of York, England

8. Models of Urban Places
Gideon Sjoberg explained the stages of urban development in The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (1960)
Sjoberg said that all cities were a product of their societies and went through stages:
Folk-preliterate
Feudal
Preindustrial
Urban-industrial

9. Primate Cities
Gideon Sjoberg was also the first to study the primate city.
A nation’s leading city in size that serves as an expression of national culture.
Not necessarily large
Dominated by religious and govt. buildings
Spacious with wealth near the center
Less privileged near the edge or outside wall
The leading city of a country. The city is disproportionately larger than the rest of the cities in the country.
For example: London, UK
Mexico City, Mexico
Paris, France
- the rank-size rule does not work for a
country with a primate city