Cities are more than just a collection of buildings and their inhabitants, they are distinguished from other urban centres by their size, ceremonial, symbolic and legal designation. Throughout history the distribution of inhabitants between the countryside and urban centres has shifted with unprecedented growth in the preference for city dwelling over the last 200 years.
Clearly there are some extraordinary benefits to making your home in a city compared to country living. These are afforded by particular attributes that could be said to classify cities.
- Location: cities are invariably founded close to natural resources that give the inhabitants economic and defensive advantages
- Organisation: specialist skills are in demand by the inhabitants who can benefit from not having to do everything for themselves and their families to subsist. These also lead to network effects where workers can collaborate, forming support relationships between dependent types of industry. Furthermore, city administrators oversee the provision of services that are common to all and advance the management and expansion of the city
- Protection and security: aside from the physical construction of walls and ramparts, the city has an administrative and legal infrastructure that ensures fairness, efficacy, and equality in all the dealings and duties of its citizens
- Economy: trade and commerce lift the standard of living for societies engaged in them. The concentration of individuals in cities facilitates the exchange of ideas, knowledge, skills and other goods. The barriers and costs of these exchanges are lowered, increasing the attained benefit for all
- Civilisation and culture: with prosperity comes more leisure; cities draw in artists, poets, playwrights, and other cultural actors that are essential to establishing and evolving a distinct culture.With prosperity bringing free time and spare cash, cultural commerce flourishes