Urban geography part 2

Today in human geography we continued to discuss the topic of urban geography.

Components to form cities:

1. An agricultural surplus

2. Social stratification (a leadership class)

Hearths of Urbanization:

Mesopotamia (Iraq)- 3500 BC

Nile River Valley (Egypt)- 3200 BC

Indus River Valley (India)- 2200 BC

Haung He An Wei River Valley (China)- 1500 BC

Mesomerica (The Americans)- 200 BC

These are an agricultural surplus and social stratification

Examples:

Indus River Valley:

Harappa and moheno-daro were two of the first cities of the Indus River Valley

They lived an equal lifestyle, keeping houses in equal size, no palaces, no monuments, and this idea was intricately planned.

Haung He An Wei River Valley:

The Chinese purposefully planned their cities too.

They are centered on a vertical structure, and had an inner wall built around the center.

They did not treat everyone here equally, for there were palaces and temples, but only for the leadership class.

Mesomerica: 

Mayan Aztec civilizations

Many ancient cities were theocratic centers where rulers were deemed to have divine authority and were god-kings.

Diffusion of Urbanization:
The Greek cities:
By 500 BC, Greeks were highly urbanized.
A network of more than 500 cities and towns made up the Greek empire.
Theses cities and towns were sitting on mainlands and islands.
Each city had an acropolis and a agora.
The Roman cities:
A system of cities and small towns that were linked together with roads and routes.
The Romans were the first to come up with connecting their cities with roads.
Sites of Roman cities were typically for trade.
A Roman city's form combines the acropolis and agora into one space.
Roman cities had extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Between 1/3 and 2/3's of the population was enslaved.