I know, I know - when a mommy city and a daddy city love each other very much…
But seriously. What spurs the construction of a town or city on a new site? Where does the money for the initial local government structure/infrastructure come from? I would assume in most cases a state (or in the case of countries not already divided into states, national) government will at some point decide a new city is needed/wanted enough to allocate the funds. But how - by petitions, consensus votes, or does it ever happen such that a wealthy individual/family or group of such incites the building of a new city merely by moving there and getting things started (probably with the help of their political ties in getting public funds directed toward it)? How do they entice pioneering residents and merchants when there’s really nothing there yet? Just wondering what that process is like in the real world.
In most cases I would think a smaller municipality like a town or a village grows into a city. There have been some artifically created cities though, Brasilia is an example. It existed as some kind of region where people lived before, but a large government investment created the infrastructure and incentive for people to move there. The District of Columbia could qualify in that category also. But it doesn’t happen in a day
Well perhaps I should have clarified my question a little. I meant “city” in a general sense more or less interchangeable with “town” (even though I know there are stricter definitions out there). Where would that smaller town come from? And when they built it did they know it would be likely to attract a large enough population that it would become a larger city eventually (if that’s the case), and plan accordingly? Is there a magic tipping point that keeps some small towns forever but leads others to grow and grow once they pass it?
I’d expect that the vast majority of towns begin with a single person or family establishing some kind of economic activity at a resource location, or else a crossroads or confluence of waterways, with little anticipation of its eventual growth into a major settlement. As long as it thrives, it tends to draw more people. More people and more activity increases its identity as a place and also the inertial effect against going elsewhere to start all over.
Looking at a map, you’ll notice that most cities are located at a strategic location, like a harbor, or a river confluence or mouth, or a crossroads. Wherever trade goods are exchanged, cities grow.
There are other reasons for cities, like military presence (brings a lot of wealth, and people are needed to support that presence) – many cities in Britain grew up around Roman forts, for example.
More recent cities grew up around railway junctions, or sources of fresh water in semi-arid locales like the Great Plains.
And some cities were founded by one guy, who walked up to a riverbank and said ‘This would be a good place for a city’. Those tend to not grow into bustling metropolises.
But once you have a settlement, inertia tends to keep it there – it’s a very rare event that everyone would pack up and leave, even if the city’s reason for existence disappeared.
In classical geographic theory, cities tend to form naturally at one of the following locations:
Break-in-bulk points, where goods are moved from one form of transportation to another. Example: Chicago (water to rail, and one railroad to another), any port city.
Fall lines, where waterfalls provide a source of power for industry, and create a minor break in bulk point. Example: Minneapolis (St. Anthony Falls)
Strategic confluences, such as a point equidistant between raw materials and a large market. Example: Buffalo (equidistant between Upper Peninsula iron deposits, coal deposits in West Virginia, and the Northeast Corridor).
Small market towns are an example of a strategic confluence, being at a point between farmers and major markets.
Other factors include relatively hospitable weather, and the availability of fresh water for drinking and industry.
As always, there’s a few exceptions: Johannesburg is one that comes to mind. Mining towns tend to be small.
With the decline in transportation costs, emergence of air conditioning, and ability to build large public works for the transport and storage of fresh water, this is all changing. Before WWII, nobody would have thought Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Austin, Albuquerque or Colorado Springs would ever become major cities. Also consider that into the 1950s, Detroit grew at the same rate, and had roughly the same metro population, as Los Angeles.
Planned cities (Washington, Canberra, Brasilia, cities that emerged from colonial administrative centers and hill stations) are the exception, not the norm.
This. Basically, cities sprout up where there is an economic or strategic value. E.g. cities sprout up near natural resources that can be exploited and exported, near shipping lanes where cargo can be bought, sold, and transshipped, and where governments can accomplish policy or war goals.
There is also the legal route of city formation, in the sense of when a “city” exists in law. These don’t always match 100% with the common definition of city. For example, Arlington, Virginia is, arguably, a “real” city across the Potomac river from Washington, DC (because it looks like one, has culture like one, and industry like one…), but legally it is an unincorporated county, while Manassas Park, Virginia is a weird mass of suburbia, but legally it is a full Independent City.
Nowadays, it’s often when a developer buys up a bunch of land and starts building houses. Highlands Ranch, near Denver, was empty ranchland in the 1970’s. The Mission Viejo company bought the land anticipating the population growth of the Denver area, and built it up into what is now a community of 100,000. It technically isn’t a free standing city, as it is unincorporated, but that may change shortly.
A followup: geographers and urban planners often get asked “Why didn’t Cairo, Illinois ever become a major city? It’s a natural location, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio.” Here’s why:
A confluence alone isn’t a break-in-bulk point. At Cairo, riverboats either stopped for supplies, made a turn left down the Mississippi or right into the Ohio, or continued south down the Mississippi.
St. Louis got a nearly 100-year head start, and it was better situated to be a secondary “gateway” between the Northeast and Midwest than Cairo to the south.
It’s in a swamp that makes New Orleans seem high and dry by comparison.
Other places I’ve heard cited as “there ought to have been a major city there” include the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and Ashtabula, Ohio.
Why here? It’s very close to Cleveland, and Erie (which isn’t much of a city either) has a better harbour. And the lack of major cities, excepting Cleveland, on either side of Lake Erie leads me to believe there isn’t much need for a port in the middle of the Detroit-Buffalo run.
Can you give some context for your question? Are you thinking of the western US in the 1850s, new planned suburbs of the 1970s, or new cities being built today in China?
In the US, with the exception of wartime settlements like Los Alamos or Oak Ridge and the 1970s HUD New Towns, there has never been any government assistance or determination. For most US towns the story was simple: A railroad, a canal commission, or a private company or syndicate owned a parcel of land, platted a town, and attempted to sell lots. Some attracted settlers; many didn’t.
From what I heard, it was where the equivalent of Youngstown should have been. It’s the closest port on the Great Lakes to the coal fields in West Virginia, which would have made it a very strategic location for heavy industry.
