Page 295 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

2072 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

powers of Europe, with Paris, Berlin, process of interaction between the
Vienna, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, centers and the peripheries has been
and somewhat marginally, Tokyo, a major and recurrent feature of the
A view of central São Paulo
Beijing, and Calcutta. world system. Thousand-year-long
the largest metropolis in
But that was then, and by 2000 sequences of concentration, which
South America. The city
the urban landscape was much brought city building, may have
sprawls over 3,000 square
changed.The figure reported in table alternated with periods of redistrib-
miles and contains countless
1, some three hundred cities for that ution that show stable if not stag-
medium-sized high rise
year, means that the population of nant urban conditions, and these, in
buildings. The city overtook
world cities became too numerous the past two instances, gave rise to
Rio in population during the
to be shown in that small table. In Dark Ages. This raises the question
1950s largely as a result of
that year, all the world’s regions were of whether the urban expansion and
investments in the automo-
now fully represented. The largest concentration recently and promi-
bile industry that attracted
single share was that of East Asia nently underway might not be
thousands of workers and
which, at over one-third, was not heralding the onset of a new age of
related industries. It is now
really surprising, for this is about redistribution.
the corporate headquarters
what its share was in the classical The world cities might be thought
of Brazil’s most important
era. Overall, the world city system of as making up a complex, inter-
firms. At one point in the
had moved into a new configura- linked system in a condition that
mid-1990s, the city claimed
tion and scholars are now at work to might be termed “urban entangle-
to have the largest number
clarify the nature and composition of ment.” In approaching this system,
of manufacturing workers
this new system. the useful starting point is the pre-
in the world.
sumption of connectivity; in other
Major Trends words, what needs to be demon-
The powerful process presented in this overview has been strated is isolation and lack of contact rather than the
the steady and unrelenting urbanization on a world reverse,which is currently the standard.If world cities have
scale.That is, over the past several millennia, cities have formed a system, then that system might be thought of as
emerged and have grown bigger and better, and their having emergent properties over and above the character-
weight in the social makeup of the human species has istics of its members, such as the alternation of phases of
kept on rising. By the start of the twenty-first century, one- concentration and redistribution just mentioned.
half of the world’s population was living in cities, and 10 More generally, the world city system might be viewed
percent in world cities alone (compared to about 1 per- as a component of world system evolution. The eras of
cent in the ancient and 2 percent in the classical worlds). world history (ancient, classical, and modern) that helped
What is more, because of the concurrent rise in the same us to organize the presentation of our material might be
time frame of the overall population of this planet, from viewed as phases of that process, and we have shown that
maybe 6 million to over 6 billion, the absolute number such eras display quantitative features (such as changes in
of people living in cities is of course the highest ever. magnitude) as well as qualitative changes (such as the
The world cities have composed,over the millennia,the scope of the network). Our study therefore suggests that
center of the emerging world system, but their story can world urbanization, which is a key component of glob-
never constitute the entire picture, for it neglects all those alization, might also be usefully studied as an evolution-
living outside the great urban centers, those in the periph- ary process.
eries and in the hinterlands of world history. In fact, the George Modelski