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
• present day Iraq
• Nile River Valley - 3200BCE
• present day Egypt
• Indus River Valley - 2200BCE
• present day India
• Huang He River Valley - 1500BCE
• present day China 
• Mesoamerica - 200BCE
• present day Mexico

• 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