Greg Clark - How cities took over the world: a history of globalisation spanning 4,000 years
History shows
that cities have tended to embrace international opportunities in waves and
cycles. They rarely break out into global activity by themselves. Cities
participate in collective movements or networks to take advantage of new
conditions, and often their demise or withdrawal from a global orientation is
also experienced jointly with other cities as circumstances change, affecting
many at once.
The world’s first
great market-driven cities were established more than 4,000 years ago in the
early bronze age, and their rich history is only now beginning to be
understood. An urban revolution was taking place, with most residents of what
is today southern Iraq living in cities, and this process of urbanisation was
accompanied by trade on a new scale.
Farther east, the
cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, in modern-day Pakistan along the Indus
River valley, were among the first cities with diversified economies and
societies. They were located on trade routes that specialised in gemstones and
spanned the whole of central Asia. These cities formed
the epicentre of a vast trade network based on a common cultural and linguistic
community, and built infrastructure to provide good standards of living for
residents. With their deep-rooted cultures and external orientation, they
exhibited many of the hallmarks of what are now considered to be global cities.
One important lesson
to be drawn from the early waves of urbanisation and the long distance
activities of cities is that prized assets and luxury possessions have often
been drivers of interconnection and collaboration. As China began to expand its
horizons, the trade in horses, silk, bamboo, rice and wine was vigorous and
often used in diplomacy to guarantee peace between empires and cities. Silk
even became an international currency.
Within a few hundred
years, the world had been effectively shrunk by the growing sophistication of
the trade network. As historian Peter Frankopan, author of The
Silk Roads, notes: “We think of globalisation as a uniquely modern
phenomenon, yet 2,000 years ago it was a fact of life – one that presented
opportunities, created problems, and prompted technological advance.”
The first European city
to develop networks akin to those of a modern global city was Rome.
Its empire came to consist of a federation of cities – stretching from Spain
and Scotland in the west, to the Euphrates river in the east – each of which
had a territory attached. Rome provided the administration, the stability, the
monetary regime, and the tax structure for cities to thrive amid a huge spike
in population mobility and mercantile activity... read more:
