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City

A city is a human settlement of a notable size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agreed definition of the lower boundary for their size.[1][2] In a more narrow sense, a city can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks.[3] Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication.[4][5] Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations, and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving the efficiency of goods and service distribution.

For other uses, see City (disambiguation).

Historically, city dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability.[6][7][8][9][10] Present-day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling toward city centres for employment, entertainment, and education. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are to varying degrees also connected globally beyond these regions. This increased influence means that cities also have significant influences on global issues, such as sustainable development, climate change, and global health. Because of these major influences on global issues, the international community has prioritized investment in sustainable cities through Sustainable Development Goal 11. Due to the efficiency of transportation and the smaller land consumption, dense cities hold the potential to have a smaller ecological footprint per inhabitant than more sparsely populated areas.[11][12] Therefore, compact cities are often referred to as a crucial element in fighting climate change.[13][14][15] However, this concentration can also have significant negative consequences, such as forming urban heat islands, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources.


Other important traits of cities besides population include the capital status and relative continued occupation of the city. For example, country capitals such as Beijing, Berlin, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, London, Manila, Mexico City, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. reflect the identity and apex of their respective nations.[16] Some historic capitals, such as Istanbul, Yogyakarta, and Xi'an, maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion; examples include Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Haridwar, and Prayagraj.

Etymology[edit]

The word city and the related civilization come from the Latin root civitas, originally meaning 'citizenship' or 'community member' and eventually coming to correspond with urbs, meaning 'city' in a more physical sense.[18] The Roman civitas was closely linked with the Greek polis—another common root appearing in English words such as metropolis.[30]


In toponymic terminology, names of individual cities and towns are called astionyms (from Ancient Greek ἄστυ 'city or town' and ὄνομα 'name').[31]

Society[edit]

Social structure[edit]

Urban society is typically stratified. Spatially, cities are formally or informally segregated along ethnic, economic, and racial lines. People living relatively close together may live, work, and play in separate areas, and associate with different people, forming ethnic or lifestyle enclaves or, in areas of concentrated poverty, ghettoes. While in the US and elsewhere poverty became associated with the inner city, in France it has become associated with the banlieues, areas of urban development that surround the city proper. Meanwhile, across Europe and North America, the racially white majority is empirically the most segregated group. Suburbs in the West, and, increasingly, gated communities and other forms of "privatopia" around the world, allow local elites to self-segregate into secure and exclusive neighborhoods.[154]


Landless urban workers, contrasted with peasants and known as the proletariat, form a growing stratum of society in the age of urbanization. In Marxist doctrine, the proletariat will inevitably revolt against the bourgeoisie as their ranks swell with disenfranchised and disaffected people lacking all stake in the status quo.[155] The global urban proletariat of today, however, generally lacks the status of factory workers which in the nineteenth century provided access to the means of production.[156]

The conference in 1976 adopted the "Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements" which identifies urban management as a fundamental aspect of development and establishes various principles for maintaining urban habitats.[292]

Habitat I

Citing the Vancouver Declaration, the UN General Assembly in December 1977 authorized the United Nations Commission Human Settlements and the HABITAT Centre for Human Settlements, intended to coordinate UN activities related to housing and settlements.

[293]

The 1992 in Rio de Janeiro resulted in a set of international agreements including Agenda 21 which establishes principles and plans for sustainable development.[294]

Earth Summit

The conference in 1996 called for cities to play a leading role in this program, which subsequently advanced the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals.[295]

Habitat II

In January 2002 the UN Commission on Human Settlements became an umbrella agency called the or UN-Habitat, a member of the United Nations Development Group.[293]

United Nations Human Settlements Programme

The conference of 2016 focused on implementing these goals under the banner of a "New Urban Agenda". The four mechanisms envisioned for effecting the New Urban Agenda are (1) national policies promoting integrated sustainable development, (2) stronger urban governance, (3) long-term integrated urban and territorial planning, and (4) effective financing frameworks.[296][297] Just before this conference, the European Union concurrently approved an "Urban Agenda for the European Union" known as the Pact of Amsterdam.[296]

Habitat III

Lists of cities

List of adjectivals and demonyms for cities

Lost city

Metropolis

Compact city

Megacity

Settlement hierarchy

Urbanization

 

Cities portal

Website of the United Nations Population Division (archived 10 July 2017)

World Urbanization Prospects

– World Bank website based on UN data.

Urban population (% of total)

Statista, based on Population Reference Bureau data.

Degree of urbanization (percentage of urban population in total population) by continent in 2016

at Curlie

Human Geography

at Curlie

Urban and Regional Planning