Defining the City

The concept of urban and the phenomenon of urbanization are somewhat new to human popu­ lations. In fact, compared to the entire history of human evolution, it has only been fairly recently that people have begun to live in relatively dense urban agglomerations. None the less, the speed at which societies have become urbanized is striking, and the extent to which societies of today are urbanized and the size of present day agglomera­ tions is unprecedented. Davis (1969) notes that before 1850, no society could be described as being fundamentally urban in nature. Today, all industrial nations, and many of the less developed countries, could be described as being urban soci­ eties. Moreover, the world is overall becoming more and more urban with the passage of time, as those living in less developed societies move toward the urban living patterns that have been common in more advanced societies for some while. Despite this rapid transformation of societies from primarily rural to primarily urban, and the importance of this evolution for the study of human populations, the notion of urban remains fleeting, changing from time to time, differing across political boundaries, and being modified depending upon the purpose that the definition of urban would serve. At times, urban populations are defined in terms of administrative boundaries. at times in terms of functional boundaries, and at times they are defined in terms of ecological factors such as density and population size. Although many of today's social problems involve living in very large urban agglomerations, these divergences in defining the notion of urban has made it ditTicult to conduct comparative studies on urban populations across time and across borders. In a sense, then, the ditTiculties encountered in defining 'urban' create barriers to understanding the phenomenon completely and finding solutions to a host of social problems that involve the urban population. In order to place the city of today into c.ontext, the fo.llowing chapter is divided into two discus­ sions. First, we examine past, present and future trends in urban growth. To do this, we begin with a brief review of the history of urban formation. Following that, we examine trends in urban growth, and in specific cities, in the recent past and into the near future using population projec­ tions. In the second part of the chapter, we elabo­ rate on a number of concepts concerning the meaning of the term 'urban'. We begin by defining the city of today in terms of several criteria, such as function and space. We then go on to concentrate on a single example, the United States, to further clarify the evolution of the city definition. We conclude by suggesting a new definition of the city that better defines today's agglomerations, the' Functional Commu­ nity Area'.