In this post I am going to be covering a quick list of topics for you to consider when designing your city & thinking about how it functions not only as a unit but as apart of the larger global community. In later articles I will delve into each more in depth, both in regards to ancient approaches to futuristic ideas. The first two topics will be the largest, as they have the most significant hold over a city’s life, but I will keep the subsequent sections trim.

CONTENT:

Water – Food – Housing – Sewage – Transportation – Public Space & Rec – Power – Safety – Communication

Again this first set of 4-5 articles are written very generally, just trying to give you, the readers, a broad-stroke look at important concepts

Water

The most important commodity of a city is water, for it is the most important provision of life. Supplying a steady stream of clean, potable water to a city can be a product of public utility and government, the community, or private commercial enterprises. Most often the government shoulders this responsibility, which gives them an additional source of revenue. Regardless of who is in charge, however, we are talking about one of the most massive pieces of urban infrastructure, that requires continual upkeep, customer servicing, and expansion. This means jobs jobs jobs.

Water can come from many different sources

-Groundwater (Springs, aquifyers, etc) – Usually fairly pure

-Lakes & Reservoirs – Requires minimal processing

-Rivers & Canals – Requires purification (lots of bacterial)

-Rainwater & Condensation

-Desalination of Salt Water

-Maybe in the future we chemically combine elements to produce H20

There are many different systems for providing water:

-Aquaducts (as used by the romans)

-Public Wells and Fountains

-Underground Piping Systems

-Private/Home Systems (Rainwater Collection)

-Water Towers/Cisterns

-Direct Access to Water Source (Usually pollute when nearby megacities)

But most of these systems require more than just pipes. You need a complex system in place, complete with:

-Water treatment plants

-Water storage sites (tanks, towers, reservoirs, etc)

-Pumping stations (for those with underground piping)

-Waste return and sewer connections

Finally, being the most critical commodity, water really can be an amazing political tool. He who controls the water systems, controls the people, one could say. If privately owned, the supply can be manipulated for personal gain. With the collapsing of a water source, you can endanger the very future of the city. Obviously a city is more resilient if they have many sources or are apart of a larger supportive network (IE, California has the support of the country during drought, with the other 49 states trucking in water to help them through the tough times.) But, many times different regions have different levels of access to fresh water, countries are smaller and closer together, and this can lead to great global turmoil. A completely different governing body can have control of the water source for another. Tunnels can run mighty distances to supply the best water to a city, so it isn’t unrealistic for it to become a target during warfare or a point of ransom if the city is important enough.

Additional Reading:

Water Infrastructure Overview:

A Brief History of Drinking Water Distribution

History of Plumbing:

Wells of an Ancient Farming Culture:

Ancient Inventions Showers:

History of NYC Water Supply System

Food

My architectural thesis in college was on reinventing the Urban Food System, so I am very passionate when it comes to food infrastructures and the city. I will try here to hit the big considerations.

Cities, and perhaps more importantly, Culture, grows out of food surplus. By freeing up a huge chunk of the population from the farm field, you are allowing time for the exploration of different pursuits, including math, science, craft, art, music, philosophy, high level government, etc. Obviously Surplus can be achieved with various levels of technological sophistication (You don’t need to live in the 21st century to have an efficient farm system). \

With any food system, you need to consider the following:

-A solid transportation network (especially if farms & food sources are miles away) You need good roads, good vehicles, and to be honest, a limit in scale. Food goes bad, you know.

-Platforms for Exchange (Markets, forums, retailers, etc)

-Waste Management (recycling? reuse? landfill? compost?)

-(Optional) Processing Plants – for larger scale farming operations, processing is a critical component to getting food out the door and to the consumer.

As food operations scale up, you also start to have restaurants appear, as well as other food-services and gourmet options. Chefs exist at all levels of technological sophistication, with equal claim.

Your food infrastructure can really take on any form., and you can have a mix of many of these (and often do) in a city.

-Private home gardening (usually needs to be supplemented from market)

-Big-Ag + Large Retailers

-Small Farmers & Large Market Platforms

-Vertical Farms

-Co-Op Farms

-Hydroponics/Aquaponics Farming

-Underground Farms (See)

Food systems need access to the waste systems, distribution/transit systems, and water systems in place in your city, as well as power (if electric is a thing for you).

I also want to note that inevitably different areas of the city will have different levels of access to food supply sources. For example, a ‘food desert’ is a geographic region where affordable and nutritious food is hard to find, usually most common in MODERN rural and low-income urban communities.

There also can be global/large scale disaster that can prevent food from making it at all into they city (drought, pestilence, etc). When what little food is already in the city disappears/is consumed..well.. we are looking at complete civil unrest.

And, again, just as with water, who ever controls the food supply, has untapped powers of control over a city. Sieges in Medieval time were very effective as long as you had the time and patience to wait! Eventually, if no food is going into the city, the people will have to give themselves up to the will of the besiegers.

Additional Reading:

The Food System

Feeding Ancient Rome

List of Food Riots

Bread Riot in Richmond (Primary Source)

Vertical Farming

Romes Fifth Century Grain Supply

Grain Supply to the City of Rome

P. Garnsey, Famine and Food-Supply in the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge, 1988) P Sherman wallaby Sydney

Housing

In a city, housing takes all sorts of forms, but most often falls into the two categories of Renting and Owning. Knowing the look and tech level of your city will help you with deciding the dominating end. Where buildings tend between 2-5 storeys, ownership is more common.

When designing a city, you should consider:

-The juxtaposition of incomes: Is there a separation of peoples by income? What districts are considered ‘safe’ and ‘nice’ to live in for example)

-The juxtaposition of services to housing: Are services and manufacturing integrated amongst the housing or do they have their own separate districts as well? If separate, you are going to need a very good commuting/public transit system in place.

-Whether or not there will be public housing: This is a reflection of how involved the government is in the peoples lives.

-Whether or where there will be slums/ghettos

-How transportation, food, sewage, and water networks interface with housing sprawl (tends to be better access for higher income)

Housing also has taken on wide and varied form in history

-The Pre Urban (Huts, Tents, Igloos, Caves, Mud Brick etc)

-Townhouses

-Tenements

-Villas

-Apartment Buildings

-Hotels/Temporary/Transient-Customer

-Court/Garden Houses

-High Rise Luxury & High Rise Tenement

-Mixed-Use Buildings

-Communal Dwellings

-And mooooore!

Housing will often also be located, at the very least, near working environments. Upper class housing will often have direct access to the core of the city–its government or its business district, whereas lower class housing tends to end up near industrial, manufacturing, and sites of manual labor. Of course, this is not the rule in all cases, and active government can create a city that is diverse (Look at all the housing regulations in NYC).

It is widely accepted that a Mixed Income community is the best situation for everyone in a community, but this is hard to implement successfully and, sometimes, without the resentment of the upper classes. A mixed income community has people of extreme varying income levels living side by side, sharing the same amenities and services and goods.

I also want to touch quickly upon Public Housing. In many cities and countries, Public Housing has failed its public. It is worth looking into the history of Public Housing in the USA, especially the failures of projects such as Pruitt-Ingoe, The Jordan Downs Projects, and Cabrini Green Housing

Additional Reading

Ancient Roman Homes

Pruitt Ingoe Housing Project Disaster

A History of Housing in NYC (book)

6000 of Housing (Best book!)

The Roman Villa (book)

Sewage / Waste

Cities basically can’t function if there isn’t some sort of waste management/sewage system in place. There simply is no way for a city to be livable otherwise. (See: NYC Sanitation Strike 1968)

Early forms of sewage systems ranged from trenching to sewers covered by stone, not unlike our sewer systems today. They had toilets and bathhouses that drained their water, as well as outhouses, composting sites, and of course, open air sewers (which are extremely dangerous in regards to human health) Wiki has a nice broad history. One of the biggest changes in these systems over time was the re-routing of sewage from the rivers and oceans, to waste treatment plants.

However, it is important to note that human waste isn’t the only form of waste you need to consider. Electronic waste, toxic waste, medical waste, food waste… the list goes on. If you are a modern society, how you deal with waste and recycling of used materials is usually a critical component of city and environmental management.

Furthermore, if you are one of the more ancient systems, still dumping your waste into water, you probably want to situate your city upstream, if you know what I mean.

Transportation

Next on the list is transportation. The larger your city, the more critical it is in the global network, then the more significant and complex a transportation system you are going to need.

Transit systems can include:

Pedestrians, Bikes, Buses, Cars, Boats, Trains, Airplanes/Aircraft, balloons, Spacecraft

City roads & streets

Highways linking your city to its major resources/trade sources

Airports

Train stations

Railroads

Bridges

Ferries

Docking Stations / Ports

Marinas

Canals

etc.

Transit systems also require continual design and upkeep:

Signage

Lighting

Road Maintenance (paving, filling potholes, etc)

Maintenance and Repair of Publicly Owned Vehicles (Ie Buses & Trains)

Maps

Tolls & Collection

Licensing

Fueling Stations

Parking

etc

Whatever forms of transit you end up having, the way they are integrated in the city will define the quality of life. For example, an excellent commuter system will allow for people to live farther away/outside of the city.

You also need to take in consideration your city’s history. If it was first founded as a city for pedestrians and carts, most likely the city streets will be more narrow and people-friendly. You often also have an inner/old district of a city that preserves these streets and roads while the more modern sections of the city expanded around it.

Public Space & Recreation

Public Space & places for recreation are probably some of the most important parts of your city fabric. If people don’t have a way to let loose, to have their voice heard, to spread out in nature–they are going to go crazy.

Types of Public Spaces:

-Parks

-Playgrounds

-Recreation Fields (for the sport of your choice)

-Public Plazas (for pleasure and politics)

-Public Marketplaces

-Shopping Districts

-Theaters & Stadiums

-Galleries

Public spaces are so critical for the well being of your city inhabitants, because most likely, and unless they are rich, they probably don’t have a whole lot of space to move around. Thus, you need a whole Parks system that takes care of upkeep and maintenance, ongoing development, collecting of fees (if you allow someone to sell something on that public property), etc. There are also probably rules–what you can and can not do/what is publicly acceptable and unacceptable. You need to consider this all.

Power

In a more modern, technologically advanced city, your sources of power and how they not only integrate into the city, but are delivered to the people, are a component worth consideration.

Possible Sources for Energy:

Gas

Oil

Coal

Wind

Water/Steam

Nuclear

Magicite

Knowing what energy sources are available to you will allow you to make decisions in regards to many other factors, such as safety (think nuclear) or pollution (gas, oil).

For most energy supplies, not only do you need some sort of generator, but you need a delivery system and devices for output (heating, lighting, air conditioning devices.) You also probably have a slew of jobs as well, requiring specialized training, to operate these generators/furnaces/turbines/etc and to conduct routine maintenance.

Finally, decide whether or not this is a public utility. Is it reserved for the upper classes or can all have power if they pay $$ to the big guy? Or is it completely subsidized? This will influence quality of life for your citizens.

Safety

With so many people living so close together, crime is bound to happen, especially when there is a complex makeup of races, classes, beliefs, and so forth. This is not so much a massive physical piece of infrastructure, but parts that compose a whole.

Elements that Contribute to a Safer City:

-Larger sidewalks, smaller streets in cities with cars

-Good lighting at night and day in streets & public spaces

-A Police Force

-A Fire Department

-Little to no vacant lots/land

-Active Community organizations

-Surveillance

-An Alert/Advisory System

-Emergency Plans

-Proper signage

-Occupancy of the Area — People in the street

The list goes on. But it is also important to keep in mind this quote: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin. Any of these elements can be scaled in a way that results in the oppression of a population

An example of how manipulating just one of these things can influence the city is the Bronx Fires. In the 1960s / 1970s, NYC scaled down its Fire Department in different (mostly poorer) areas of the city based on some computer calculations, to put it simply. This reduction or complete elimination of service in some areas lead to absolute tragedy. Seven different census tracts in The Bronx lost more than 97% of their buildings to fire and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; 44 tracts (out of 289 in the borough) lost more than 50%. (read more) Obviously you can imagine what happened–displacement of thousands of people as they lost their homes (and thus overcrowding in other areas of the city), a massive jump in crime, irreparable damage done to an entire chunk of a borough, complete and utter dysfunction and economic disaster, and so on, and so on. That one decision–to reduce service in some areas–resulted in catastrophe for the city. (short video on this topic)

I’ve included a few books where societies have failed their people in their attempt to protect society.

Extra Reading:

The Death and Life of a Great American City by Jane Jacobs (On city planning)

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Farenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury

The Fires: How a Computer Formula, Big Ideas, and the Best of Intentions Burned Down New York City — and Determined the Future of Cities by Joe Flood

A Plague on your Hosues by Deborah Wallace

A Decade of Fire, Documentary

Communications

How do people talk to each other? Is there a sophisticated messenger service? Pigeons? Telephones? Telepathy? Depending on the path you follow, your city infrastructure needs to respond. Obviously a city that constantly employs messengers needs high quality pedestrian pathways, for example. If you are more sophisticated, moving towards telephone and internet stages of technological development, you need everything from wires to towers to delivery systems to troubleshooting employees.

Conclusion

Cities have become the powerhouses they are today thanks to the evolution and integration of the systems above. These systems allow for the peaceful co-habitation of very limited space by hundreds of thousands of people, with only minimal upset. The failure of one of these systems can throw a whole city into turmoil, or, as noted earlier, can lead to its demise.