May 22, 2017 Comments (1) Views: 5895 Urban Trekker

Why are cities located where they are?

It is a good question, have you ever wondered why some of the world’s largest and most influential cities flourish where they are? There are many reasons and factors that nurture cities as social, economic, and political centers, but let’s take a look to few of the most important ones.

Water

Since the dawn of human civilizations, more urban settlements thrived in the proximity of big rivers or at the open sea. Life in ancient Egypt sprout all along the Nile. The heart of Mesopotamia pulsated within the Tigris-Euphrates river systems. In medieval times, Florence in Italy emerged as the heart of European trade and finance. A home to the politically powerful Medici families, the city largely financed the industrial growth all over Europe. The first name of the city was Fluentia as it was well built between two rivers.

Today, fourteen out of the fifteen largest cities in the world are situated close to a sea or an ocean. Water has always been one of the most important and attainable methods as per transporting heavy goods and resources over long distances. So when you think about it, it’s quite logical; for a city to thrive economically, a founding position in the proximity of either an ocean or major river is everything.

33 countries face extremely high water stress by 2040, according to the World Resources Institute https://t.co/HzsOeTIH0p — The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 21, 2017

New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, London, are just a few such examples. Taking the advantage of being close to a body of water, may have just been the reason that enabled many of these cities to grow into the megacities they are today – in some cases, even socially more powerful than entire countries.

Continents and Climates

Sao Paulo, Rio, and Johannesburg are some of the 32 out of 220 largest cities in the world located in the Southern Hemisphere. That’s a strange thing also, isn’t it? An interesting thesis revolves around the fact that continents in the Northern Hemisphere have a vast east-west span, rather than a long north-south span. That is seemingly the reason why ancient emperors such as Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan were able to advance so much, conquering new territories without changing the assets and animals that used their troops. That might answer why the distribution of major settlements on the globe to date has remained disproportional.

Resources

When Fernando Magellan embarked with his fleet around the world in 1519, the first purpose of his odyssey was not to circumnavigate the planet, but to find the Spice Islands in South East Asia, by reaching them through a new western route. Resources have also taken central place as per city location, or at least they have been the reason for their presumably rapid growth.

In the case of boomtowns, an abrupt population and economic growths are frequently preconditioned thanks to lucrative resources such as gold, silver, gas or oil. A recent example is Dubai, which has immensely benefited from being an administrative heart of oil resources in the Middle East, albeit not physically located near the oil.

In the past, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester all make pretty good examples for boomtowns on the territory of United Kingdom, all undergoing a dramatic surge in the population at the turn of the 19th-century due to the Industrial Revolution. In pre-industrial Britain, these towns were just relative backwaters, in contrast to then more prominent market cities such as Bristol, York, and Norwich. These boomtowns do not directly owe their sudden growth to the discovery of local natural resources, but more to the factories that were launched there. A great advantage, of course, was the availability of large seams of cheap coal to fuel those factories.

The Spheres of Influence

According to the Wendover Productions, there is a Ten Mile Rule, a building block for the spread of cities across a country or a region. What most small towns all had in common, were everyday services such as food stores, pharmacies, banks or restaurants (services that everyone would use), but not every town needed or had specialized services as provided by car mechanics or more developed hospitals. In modern days, this role of specialized services may be fulfilled by airports and universities, which makes a city spread its influence for hundreds of miles. In fact, the documentary shared below, explains it pretty well: “the city sphere of influence is enormous because people will travel hundreds of miles to buy an expensive car, or get a brain surgery or fly from an airport“.

Mountains

Last but not least, mountains may be a very strong reason why some cities sprout where they sprout. Although a double-edge, historically, mountains have been essential for the survival of some cities (and even civilizations). While mountainous terrains generally slow down trade and transport activities, they still come with a natural advantage, which is reduced risk of siege in the case of invasion.

Some large cities have managed to grow and prosper because the risks of attacks have been largely reduced thanks to the mountains. Minerals, ores, and a variety of other natural resources are often abundant in mountainous terrains, and this makes up for the economic trade disadvantage that attaches to mountain cities.

Take a look at this short documentary that we warmly recommend for you:

Video source: Wendover Productions

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Tags: Atlanta, city location, Dubai, La Paz, Liverpool, resources, Shanghai