Text B. Types of Modern Cities
Any classification of cities is somewhat arbitrary. The criteria of classification are a matter of choice. We classify cities according to function, but we recognize that most cities are dedicated to a plurality of overlapping functions. The typeis derived from the predominating function. Some cities, of course, are distinct types, such as college towns, one-industry towns, or agricultural trading centers. But such clear distinction is the exception rather than the rule.
To establish a system of classification, we arrange function according to the manner in which it occurred in urban history. There are cities that function as seats of institutions, trading centers, industrial centers, metropolitan centers, and resort towns.
The first mentioned city type, characterized as the seat of- one or several institutions, reaches back into the dawn of urban history when city life was centered around the temple or the palace of the ruler. There were economic reasons, of course, that made the foundation and growth of such cities possible. They were dependent upon an agricultural surplus in the immediate hinterland. Yet the economic function of these early cities was subsidiary to religious worship or secular homage.
The city as a center exclusively for trade and commerce was prominent at another phase of urban development. Such singleness of purpose is unusual for the large city in the contemporary scene. The cities at the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in antiquity, however, could be considered primarily centers of trade and commerce. Upon these cities the products of a vast rural hinterland converged. Between these cities, products of the hinterland were exchanged. From the urban centers, these products Were distributed to the country population in the region.
In the Middle Ages, urban commerce developed before urban industry. Trade gave a livelihood to merchants and to those engaged in transportation before it stimulated the development of crafts and industries which were later to replace the commercial activities in importance. In the contemporary scene, we have to look to our agricultural trading centers for a similar type of town.
The industrial city reaches its full development during the industrialization process itself. It is dependent, in both location and growth, upon the availability of raw materials within a favorable range of transportation. It is also dependent upon a supply of labour, and not unconcerned with the distance at which the product can be marketed.
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In the metropolitan center, the process of urbanization reaches its climax. The metropolitan center is characterized by a multiplicity of functions. It contains industry as well as commerce, educational as well as governmental institutions. The metropolitan center feeds on the cumulative processes of urban growth.
The metropolis may start its development from any of the above mentioned types.
We place the resort town at the very end of our historical continuum. The resort town appears as the outgrowth of a metropolitan way of life that requires specialized services for purposes of human recuperation. The resort is most frequently tied to small urban settlements which function simultaneously as agricultural trading centers. Accessibility to metropolitan travelers and a site which appeals through natural catures such as lakes and meadows and mountains are important prerequisites.
Such conditions establish for the indigenous population the opportunity of additional income through boarding houses, hotels, cabins, and artificial recreational facilities.
3. Listen to the text again and answer the following questions:
1. What is the type of the city derived from? 2. When did the cities as seats of institutions appear? 3. What type of the city do the college towns belong to? 4. Did the cities as trading centers exist in antiquity? 5. What is the industrial city dependent upon? 6. What kind of a city expresses the idea of urbanization as its climax? 7. Where are the resort towns located?
4. Discussion questions:
1. What groups are the cities classified into according to their functions? 2. What were the reasons for building cities as seats of institutions? 3. What kinds of cities as seats of institutions are there now? 4. Where were the cities as centers of trade situated in ancient times? 5. Why are the industrial centers dependent upon transport and supply of labour? 6. What is the multiplicity of functions of the modern metropolitan centre? 7. What are the opportunities of additional income for the people in the resort towns?
5 . Group activities:
a) Is there a limit in the continuous growth of the metropolitan centres?
b) What are the advantages and disadvantages of a metropolis centre?
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