Cities reflect other areas with which they are linked and the civilizations of which they are a part. Cities are centers of markets, governments, religion, and culture (Weber 1958, pp. 65–89). A community is a population sharing a physical environment and leading a common and interdependent life. The size, density, and heterogeneity of the urban community have been described as leading to "urbanism as a way of life," which includes organizational, attitudinal, and ecological components different from those of rural areas (Wirth 1938).
The City in History
Town and city development has been described as tied to a technological revolution in agriculture that increased food production, thereby freeing agriculturalists to engage in nonagricultural occupations. This resulted in an evolution to urban living and eventually to industrial production (Childe 1950). A second view is that some towns and cities first developed as trade centers, and were then nourished by agricultural activity in their hinterlands (Jacobs 1970).
Increasing complexity of social organization, environmental adaptation, and technology led to the emergence of cities (Child 1950; Duncan 1964). Excluding preagricultural settlements, towns and then cities were first established in the fourth to third millennium B.C.
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