Urban Geography
day 2
Agricultural Villages
- as soon as they started growing things two big things happened
- a surplus of food on sight
- permanent homes
- before urbanization, people often clustered in agricultural villages
The First Urban Revolution
- an agricultural surplus
- social stratification(leadership)
The Hearths of Urbanization
- Mesopotamia - 3500BCE
- Nile River Valley - 3200BCE
- Indus River Valley - 2200BCE
- Huang He River Valley - 1500BCE
- Mesoamerica - 200BCE
- Many ancient cities were theocratic centers where rules were deemed to have divine authority and were god-kings
Diffusion of Urbanization
- The Greek cities
- network of more then 500 cities and towns
- on the mainland and on islands
- each city had an acropolis and agora
- 500BCE Greeks were highly urbanized
- The Roman Cities
- a system of cities and small towns linked together with hundreds of miles of roads and sea routes
- made for trade
- combined the acropolis and agora into one meeting place
- had either extreme wealth or extreme poverty