BRIEF HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION AND

URBANIZATION

Urban sociology syllabus

Urban sociology course documents
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Carl Sagan’s concept of the cosmic calendar

Imagine entire history of our planet compressed into a single calendar year:
January 1st – date of Big Bang until December 31 – no homo sapiens
December 31st, homo sapiens appeared (100,000 years ago)
Last minute of year first cities appeared (90,000 years ago passed until permanent
settlements in the form of small villages existed)
Last second world acquired sizable urban population

HUMAN HISTORY
Factors Affecting Social Organization During Prehistory: Climate--it became warmer & new methods and
technologies for producing food

Paleolithic Period
Old stone age
Period referred to as the old stone age, period prior to 10,000 BC
Humans lived as nomads, wandering hunters and gatherers
Egalitarian societies, people did different tasks but all equally important
No permanent settlements
No food surplus, lived day-to-day

Mesolithic Period – after last ice age & Neolithic Period

Middle to new stone age, 10,000 to 5,000 years ago
Population density grew and began to deplete natural resources
Changing climate contributed to emergence of new plants and animals
Small widely dispersed semi-permanent settlements and nomads, everyone knew a bit
about everything
First permanent settlements
Development in fertile crescent which included present day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan,
Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran
Village life was becoming more sustainable and common

Bronze age & Iron age

5000 years ago
Division of labour became more complex and hierarchical power structure developed
with some form of administrative leadership
 Agricultural revolution - new technologies and modes of subsistence contributed to a
food surplus, domestication of plants and animals
Productive surplus or agricultural primacy, i.e. growth dependent upon agricultural
surplus

Overgrown Villages
Early forms of human settlement
Covered 5-10 acres and supported a population of about 5,000
Transition from settlements during the neolithic period to the emergence of the first
cities

Urban Preconditions: Gordon Childe

Permanent Settlement in dense aggregations
Nonagricultural Specialists
Taxation and Wealth Accumulation
Monumental Public Buildings
Ruling Class
Writing Techniques
Predictive Science
Artistic Expression
Trade for Vital materials
Decline in importance of Kinship

Evolution of urban areas

1. First Urban Revolution – city states and urban empires

1.1) Near East Mesopotamia and Egypt

New social organization – creation of city-state with some type of ruler
Favorable ecological conditions
Some sort of trade or food surplus
Complex social structure with sophisticated division of labour and power hierarchy

Mesopotamian Cities
About 4,000 BC
Located in Middle east in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley
Agricultural Cities (wheat, barley, sheep, goats)
Walled cities with populations of about 25,000
Wheeled Vehicles
Houses of dried or fired mud brick
Winding Streets, narrow and unpaved
Poor sanitation, refuse thrown into streets
Farmers lived just outside city walls within walking distance of fields
Poor lived at periphery but inside walls
Merchants and Craftsman closer to center
Nobility, Priests, Warriors lived at center
Vulnerable and Plagued by major problems
Fire, out of control cooking fires
 Disease, linked to poor sanitation
Famine
Threat of invasion by enemies

Egyptian Cities
3,300 BC along the Nile river, little is known about Egyptian cities prior to 2,000 BC
Similar to Mesopotamian cities but were not walled
Slightly smaller than Mesopotamian Cities

1.2) The Indus region – present day India and Pakistan

Cities of the Harappa Civilization
Emerged around 2,500 BC
Along Indus river in what is now western Pakistan
Important Cites were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
Streets were straight and laid out in a gridiron pattern forming rectangular blocks
Precincts/areas distinguished by specific economic activities
Western edge of city was religious, political and educational center
City had sewer system and system for collecting trash
First cities to show signs of planned development

Mycenaean and Minoan Cities

Emerged around 2,000 BC (Athens about 800 BC)
Radial Structure, with streets starting at center and extending straight out from that
center
Sections of city also radiated out from center (so everyone would be equal distance
from center)
1.3) China
China along the Yellow river, 2000-1500 BC
1.4) Americas
Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador), about 200 BC
1.5) Crete and Greece
1800 BCE
Athens, Corinth, Sparta independent Greek city-states
More egalitarian cities
Good life of city founded on principles of moderation, balance, human participation
1.6) Ancient Rome - 700-500 BCE
Good life was based on celebration of excess and domination, human debasement and
militaristic cruelty
Development of sophisticated road systems – pavement, and waterworks – aqueducts –
engineering and technical achievement
1.7) Middle ages or "Dark age" – 500 BCE – 1100 CE – only in Western world not Eastern world
Barbarism
Feudal system
Age of the Vikings and Islam
1.8) Renaissance or Medieval age
Importance of church life crucial, Roman Catholic
Crusades: armed marches by Christian European groups
Emergence of complex and competitive commercial class at center of trade dominated
by craft guilds
Conflict between church, landed gentry and feudal royalty for power
Center of city was cathedral, marketplace or guilds or town halls
Interest in art, literature and architecture, learnings in these areas were path to human
virtue, dignity, freedom and happiness, i.e. becoming perfect human being, in reality
vision for upper classes

Factors Contributing to Ancient Urbanization

Population pressures
Forces of Natural Environment--Topography, climate, natural resources
Technology--tools and techniques
Emergence of Agriculture
Organization--arrangement of population into functional institutions
Trade Between Villages
Division of Labor
Organized Religion
Organized Government
Transportation Technologies

What led to the emergence of cities

Technological advances: agricultural techniques, construction, smelting of metals
Higher productivity in agriculture
Food surplus sufficient to feed non-farmers, i.e. craftsmen, traders, soldiers, warfare,
religious leaders, politicians
Increased geographical mobility and diffusions of goods, technologies, ideas
Concentration of population: trade hubs, political centers and massive public projects
drainage and irrigation
Occupational diversity and specialization à interdependence
Some functions/skills are more "important" than others à complex social organization
and hierarchy
Cities as centers of imperial power
Cities as cultural centers: literacy, arts, religion, science
City and the countryside: First-political, then also economic domination of cities over
rural areas

2. Second urban revolution: the rise of modern cities

birth of capitalism
death of feudalism
commerce replacing agriculture as dominant mode of making a living
new middle class – the bourgeoisie comprised of shopkeepers, traders, bureaucrats,
government officials, and others engaged in commercial ventures
 industrial revolution began

Urbanization and Industrial Revolution

Western Europe/North America (from the 1760s--mid-1800s)
Why Europe/North America? Capitalism originally developed there.
Industrial Revolution
Improvements in industrial machinery, utilization of the steam engine, use of coal in
iron smelting
Specialization and division of labor in manufacturing
Non-economic changes: decline in mortality, population growth and concentration.

Industrialization/Urbanization and colonial expansion

the countryside supplied cheap labor
colonies (territorial expansion--in the case of the U.S.) supplied raw material for
industries
Result--rapid growth of urban centers and of the proportion of the urban population,
due to migration from rural areas (not natural increase!)

Composition of urban population

The biggest growth--industrial workers (proletariat), who did not own any means of
production and had to sell their labor to factory owners
Self-employed petty craftsmen and traders
Bourgeoisie--owners of the means of production
Bureaucracy--need to manage complex organization of production and distribution
The unemployed poor--underclass

Working and living conditions in cities

Work in the factories-monotonous, 15-16 hours a day
Child labor
Women--limited to certain industries and earned lower wages
No security as in the countryside
But concentration of workers in factories set the ground for workers' solidarity and
(later) labor organizations.
Industrial urbanization was largely spontaneous
chaotic housing construction, overcrowding, filth, no sewer, running water à
Urban policies to address these problems
Despite improvements in nutrition and medicine, relatively high mortality and disease
prevalence in urban centers
Other urban problems: pauperism, crime

System of cities
Larger cities dominated smaller cities--politically, economically
Interdependence and hierarchy among cities
National economic and political unity, nation-states

Urban growth in the 20th century

In richer countries:
Rate of growth has slowed and the proportion urban has stabilized at 70-80%
The boundary between urban/industrial and rural/agricultural is unclear.
In poorer countries:
Rapid growth of urban population due to migration and natural increase (especially in
the second half of the century)
Relatively little industrial growth in cities