City

Generally speaking a city is a relatively densely populated incorporated area, usually consisting of residential, industrial and business areas. A large percentage of a city is generally taken up by buildings, streets and parks. Waterways, lakes and parks are usually the only undeveloped areas within a city center.

In American English, at least, the center is called "downtown".

Geography

The geographies of cities are diverse. Often cities will either be coastal and have a harbor or be situated near a river - for economic reasons. river[?] and ocean transport in bygone days was (and in most cases still is) cheaper and more efficient than road transport.

Older European cities which have not been extensively rebuilt tend to have city centers where the streets are jumbled together, often seemingly without a structural plan. This is a hangover from a time when city planning included the idea that a confusingly winding street layout would confuse invading armies. Today this is usually perceived by tourists to be quaint and picturesque. Modern city planning has seen many different schemes for how a city should look. The most commonly seen pattern is the grid, almost a rule in the United States, and used for hundreds of years in China.

History

Cities have a long history, although opinions vary on whether any particular ancient settlement can be considered to be a city. The first true cities are sometimes considered to be large settlements where the inhabitants were no longer simply farmers of the surrounding area, but began to take on specialised occupations. By this definition, the first cities we know of were located in Mesopotamia, such as Ur, and along the Nile, the Indus Valley Civilisation and China. Before this time it was rare for settlements to reach significant size, although there were exceptions such as Jericho, Catalhoyuk and Mehrgarh.

During the European middle ages, a city was as much a political entity as a collection of houses. A city could often have its own legislature, and sometimes a city could be directly under the supervision of the monarch, circumventing local noblemen.

The Industrial Revolution led to the rise of the modern great cities. Prior to that, cities were trading centers, but their populations were in general relatively small. There were exceptions such as the ancient cities of Rome and Byzantium, and 17th-century London. With the Industrial Revolution, as national economies changed from agrarian to industrial, huge numbers of people migrated from rural communities into the cities.

Environmental effects

Modern cities are known for creating their own microclimates. This is due to the large clustering of hard sufaces that heat up in sunlight and that channel rainwater[?] into underground ducts. As a result, city weather is often windier and cloudier than the weather in the surrounding countryside. Conversely, because these effects make cities warmer (urban heat shield) than the surrounding area, tornadoes tend to go around cities. Additionally towns can cause significant downstream weather effects.

Garbage[?] and sewage are two major problems for cities, as is air pollution coming from internal combustion engines (see public transport).

See also : Cities of the world, Largest cities of the world

Common misspelling and questions (FAQ)

ity  cty  ciy  cit  icty  ctiy  ciyt  cit  ccity  ciity  citty  cityy  dity  xity  fity  fity  vity  c8ty  cuty  cjty  c9ty  ckty  c9ty  coty  ckty  ci5y  ciry  cify  ci6y  cigy  ci6y  ciyy  cigy  cit6  citt  citg  cit7  cith  cit7  citu  cith  cyty  ciyy  cityy  citys 


answered, very simply, that he did. This gives a body's mind a good serious face, said we could not be furnished with dinner, because we had hour before dinner-time. We argued, she yielded not; we supplicated, she people, and so it seemed that we should have to go home dinnerless. it was not the market-day for fish. Things began to look serious; but was laid before him he was cheerfully willing to divide. So we had much of damaged ships; and in between we had a soup that had something in it of a particularly vivacious kind. And we had an iron-clad chicken that thing to convince this sort. He ought to have been put through a quartz- again. We got a good deal of sport out of him, but not enough sustenance and a sociable good time. Then a ramble through the town, which is a with here and there a grain of dust. Here, as in Hamilton, the dwellings shutters, hinged at the sides, but a single broad shutter, hinged at the required by the sun or desired by yourself. All about the island one sees great white scars on the hill-slopes. exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre are few and poor, and there are no natural springs and no brooks. .