The city

by Robert Ezra Park; E. W. Burgess; Roderick Duncan McKenzie

II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CITY

The history of the city is almost synonymous with the history of civilization. The sociologist is interested in the natural history of the city as a phase of social evolution. Unlike the historian, he is not aiming to get the concrete facts of the rise and the decay of any particular city, but rather seeks to find in the study of the history of various cities the genesis of the typical city as a basis for the classification of types of cities and of social processes, irrespective of time and place.

1. Most of our ideas as to the origin of the city we owe to the findings of the archeologists. Exactly when cities began to appear in the story of mankind is still a doubtful question. We hear of cave cities in the paleolithic age. When we come down to historic times we find numerous cities whose main purpose was defense. The ancient cities of Memphis, Thebes, Babylon, and several others were already imposing aggregations of human beings and were centers of administration and of culture. Such a vast literature exists on the Greek city-state and on Rome, that is available in almost any library, that only a few references need be cited here.

Clerget, Pierre. “Urbanism: A Historic, Geographic, and Economic Study,” Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1912 (Washington, D.C., 1913), pp. 653–67. (II, 2, 3; III; V, 1, 2, 3; VI; VII; VIII.)

Coulanges, Fustel de. The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Boston, 1894). Translated by Willard Small.

Davis, W. S. A Day in Old Athens: A Picture of Athenian Life (New York, 1914).

Fowler, W. W. The City-State of the Greeks and Romans (London and New York, 1895). (I, 2.)

Friedländer, L. Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire. Authorized translation by L. A. Magnus from the 7th rev. ed. of the Sittengeschichte Roms (London, 1908–13), 4 vols. (III, 4.)

Rostovtzeff, Michael. “Cities in the Ancient World,” in volume Urban Land Economics, edited by R. T. Ely, Institute for Research in Land Economics, Ann Arbor, 1922.

Zimmern, Alfred E. The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens (2d rev. edition; Oxford, 1915).

2. Historians are still doubtful whether the medieval city was the product of a continuous growth starting with Rome or whether, around the year 1000, the city was born anew after some centuries of reversion to a simpler form of social life. There is little doubt, however, that the medieval city not only had a different structure but also played a decidedly different rôle than the Greek or the Roman city. The typical medieval city was fortified and had achieved a certain degree of political autonomy from the central government. It played its leading rôle, however, as the center of trade and commerce and the home of the guilds. With the sixteenth century there came an important change over the urban life of Europe. New inventions, such as that of gunpowder, made the city wall obsolete. The beginnings of industry spelled the doom of the narrow guild system. In the light of this new order of things the medieval city of a former day—which was really a town—either had to adapt itself to the new forces that had become operative and join the ranks of growing cities or else become sterile and sink into decay.

Bax, E. B. German Culture, Past and Present (London, 1915).

Traces the development of the medieval German city. (II, 3).

Benson, E. Life in a Medieval City, Illustrated by York in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1920).

Consentius, Ernst. Alt-Berlin, Anno 1740 (2d ed.; Berlin, 1911).

One of a great number of special studies in the early history of German towns and cities. (III, 6.)

Coulton, George Gordon. Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1918).

Green, Alice S. A. (Mrs. J. R.) Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1894). (III, 5.)

Pirenne, Henry. Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. (Princeton, N.J., 1925).

Traces the growth of cities and their institutions in relation to the revival of trade. (I, 4; III, 4; IV, 4; VII, 1.)

Preuss, Hugo. Die Entwicklung des Deutschen Städtewesens (Leipzig, 1906).

A standard history of the development of the German city. (I, 2; II, 3; IV, 3; VI, 7; VII, 1.)

Stow, John. The Survey of London (1598) (London and New York, 1908).

3. The modern city marks the advent of a new epoch in civilization. Its rise has been accompanied by, and, in turn, is the result of a profound revolution in economic, political, intellectual, and social life. The modern man is to so great an extent a product of the modern city that in order to grasp the full significance of the transformation the city has wrought we must get a view of its origins and development. The city, as we find it today, is by no means a finished product. Its growth is so rapid and its energy so great that it changes its complexion almost daily, and with it the character of mankind itself.

Baily, W. L. “Twentieth Century City,” Amer. City, XXXI (August, 1924), 142–43.

Beard, C. A. “Awakening of Japanese Cities,” Review of Reviews, LXIX (May, 1924), 523–27.

Bücher, Karl. Industrial Evolution. Translated by S. M. Wickett (London and New York, 1901).

The modern city from the standpoint of industrial society. (II, 1, 2; III, 4, 5; IV, 6; VII, 1; IX, 1.)

Die Stadt Danzig: ihre geschichtliche Entwickelung und ihre öffentlichen Einrichtungen (Danzig, 1904).

Shows the development of a modern city and its characteristic institutions. (III, 1, 2, 3; VI.)

Ebeling, Martin. “Grossstadtsozialismus.” Vol. XLIV of Grossstadtdokumente, edited by Hans Ostwald (Berlin, 1905).

A cross-section of the modern city from the standpoint of the workingman. (IV, 3, 6; V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 2, 5; VIII, 1.)

Ende, A. von. New York (Berlin, 1909).

Typical of a great number of descriptions of cities by travelers and writers of tourists’ guidebooks. The best known are those of Baedeker, of Leipzig, covering every important European city.

George, M. Dorothy. London life in the XVIIIth Century (New York, 1925).

Contains an excellent selected bibliography on the city of London. A cross-section of London life on the threshold of the modern era. (III; VII, 1, 2.)

Hare, Augustus J. C. Paris (London, 1900).

One of a series of books of various European cities, being intended as a guide for tourists.

Hessel, J. F. The Destiny of the American City. Champaign, Illinois, 1922.

The trend of American city growth and its problems.

Howe, Frederic C. The Modern City and Its Problems (New York, 1915).

A short outline of the development of the modern city, a statement of the implications of city civilization, a discussion of the city as a physical mechanism, and suggestions for an extension of the principle of municipal ownership and management, city-planning, and co-operation. (III, 5; IV, 2, 3; V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 1, 2; IX, 3.)

Irwin, Will. The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco (New York, 1906).

Johnson, Clarence Richard (editor). Constantinople Today, or, the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life (New York and London, 1923). (III, 2; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX, 1, 3.)

Kirk, William (editor). A Modern City: Providence, Rhode Island, and Its Activities (Chicago, 1909). (III, 4; VI; VII.)

“London: A Geographical Synthesis,” Geog. Rev., XIV (1924), 310–12.

A summary of the co-ordinated geographical study of a modern city. (III; IV; V; VI, 3.)

Pollock, H. M., and Morgan, W. S. Modern Cities (New York, 1913).

A general study of American cities and their problems. (III, 6; V, 5; VI.)

Strong, Josiah. The Twentieth Century City (New York, 1898).

Zueblin, Charles. American Municipal Progress (new and revised edition; New York, 1916).

Attempts to formulate a science of “municipal sociology.” (VI; VII; VIII, 1.)

Almost every modern city has several histories of its recent development, and the current magazines contain a great deal of general information about particular cities. The list of typical works on the modern city might be extended indefinitely, but the numerous bibliographies already available make this task unnecessary. There are published bibliographies of some of the more important European and American cities. Books on London, for instance, are so numerous that there exists in the city of London a library devoted exclusively to works on that city. A similar volume of literature is available about Paris, Rome, and other centers of culture around which there has grown up an historical tradition which gives to the locality a world-wide human interest. There are a number of books on such cities as Moscow, the city of churches, which emphasize the fact that this metropolis has occupied a position of dominance in Russian life because of its spiritual leadership, which expresses itself institutionally in its magnificent cathedrals. There are other Meccas of this sort, the literature on which would occupy many pages.

The inclusion of such books as Augustus Hare’s Paris and von Ende’s New York in this list might well raise the question as to why these two rather unimportant works were included and others of a similar nature excluded. Their pertinence in this connection was thought to lie in the fact that they are typical of books on many cities which are intended as guides to tourists or represent accounts of travelers, which are not included in this bibliography, but which might prove of interest to the student dealing with the individualities and eccentricities of individual cities.

There has grown up in recent years a renewed interest in the variety and diversity of American cities. Many such books have appeared, often in series including several cities, which give more than a traveler’s account, and actually succeed in entering into the spirit of the city. Grace King’s volume on New Orleans is perhaps the best, if not the most representative, of these American volumes.