ancient cities

As i A n cities
Asia extends from the Ural Mountains and Turkey
eastward to the Pacific Ocean and includes the
major island states along the western Pacific Rim.
Asian cities are diverse in many major characteristics.
The colonial era, particularly from the early
nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, produced
a few common features among some larger cities.
Decolonization, beginning in the 1940s, created
new states and imprinted on the larger urban
areas. The partition of the Indian subcontinent
and the creation of Muslim Pakistan and
Bangladesh had an impact on the cities. In Pacific
Asia the emergence of socialist states in China,
Vietnam, and elsewhere shaped distinctive urban
land-use patterns. By the late twentieth century
the escalating economic development of Asia had
increased the recognizable international features
of the majority of Asia’s cities and accelerated the
emergence of several giant megacities.
Asian Cities in History
Prior to World War II there was little analysis in
the English language of Asian cities. However,
throughout history, travelers regularly published
descriptions of Asia’s towns and cities. Marco
Polo, the thirteenth-century Venetian trader, wrote
of the Mongolian and Chinese towns he visited,
though there is some dispute whether his story is
told firsthand or is based on accounts by other
travelers. He claimed to have visited Khanbaliq,
present-day Beijing, the home of the Kublai Khan
and capital of the Yuan Dynasty. Italo Cavalo has
written a modern fictionalized account of Polo’s
journey.
Max Weber’s writings in the first half of the
twentieth century compared and contrasted the
Occidental and the “Asiatic,” or “Oriental,” city,
focusing mainly on China, India, and Japan. The
sociologist Gideon Sjoberg drew extensively on
Indian and Chinese urban histories in his conceptualization
of the “preindustrial city.” However, in
general, Asian cities were marginal to the study of
the evolving twentieth-century city.
The number of published analytical writings
about Asian cities increased significantly in the
Asian Cities
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mid-twentieth century. The demise of colonialism
and the emergence of new independent nations,
including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Vietnam,
saw an expansion of Western interest in Asian cities.
Independence coincided with an escalation in
the pace of urbanization, especially through the
migration of rural residents to the emerging capital
cities and the centers of commerce and trade.
The Dutch sociologist William Wertheim edited
nineteenth-century Dutch writings on the Indonesian
town, revealing the poor conditions of the
cities, with their wealthy colonial enclaves and the
wretched village housing of the native Javanese.
Another growing source of writings on Asian cities
was Asian regional geography texts. Authors such
as J. E. Spencer included descriptive chapters on
the populations and economies of Asian cities.
Historians writing about the emergence of cities
in Asia began to emphasize the deep historical roots
of some of Asia’s cities. Anthony Reid drew attention
to the significant urban history of Asia, highlighting
a long urban tradition in a region that was
generally seen as agriculture oriented, because of the
interest in the wet rice cultivation systems. A distinction
existed between Asia’s “sacred” cities and
“market” cities. Sacred cities such as Kyoto and
Yogyakarta were shaped by rulers and their cosmological
beliefs. Market cities, including Singapore,
Shanghai, and Kolkata, were a product of their
locations on major trade routes and hosted a cosmopolitan
population of merchants and traders.
Contemporary Asian Cities
Around two thirds of the world’s population live
in Asia, which encompasses the two most populous
nations, China and India. Both have well in
excess of 1 billion inhabitants. Four other countries,
Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Japan,
have populations of over 100 million.
Rapid decolonization and the establishment of
independent states followed the end of World War
II. Attention turned to the formation of new states
trying to meet the challenges of recovering from
the colonial experience and building new societies,
economies, and political infrastructure. The process
of urbanization and the challenges of the cities
became an increasing focus. By the last quarter of
the twentieth century, the escalating integration of