Understanding the Cities - Essay Example

113376 It is not easy to compare one with another, unless they are geographically close to one another and share a similar background. It is also difficult to understand one city with many interconnections spreading to other cities. But it is almost impossible to understand a city without pertinent studies of other cities. Cities are not independent entities that spring up from nowhere. They are the focus of a wider and vaster geography. Hence, to understand them these wider proportions should be understood simultaneously. Understanding the cities requires an overall look at other cities, comparison and contrast between such cities, with knowledge of their beginnings, fortunes, shape and their growth etc. The images of cities bring forth bustling streets, unending streams of vehicles, people jostling with each other for space and attention, faceless groups of people hurrying either to work or home, crowded markets and unruly by lanes, libraries, hospitals, hotels, museums, traffic, cathedrals and other religious places, skyscrapers and underground and on ground railways and more than anything else, lighting and brightness all over. We also notice that mostly people are lonely in the crowd, lost in their own thoughts and hurrying towards the next goal. Very rarely one could see the heartening sights of people walking companionably together in groups. Cities are not accidental happenings. They are created for a purpose, the result of a long and interesting evolution of the landscape. They must have started as the centres of a certain activity and with additional activities growing around it, they have formed into present cities. Cities do not spring up without reason. There always exist economical, social, geographical or historical reasons for their materialising from nowhere. They are the focussed places of social, cultural and geographical mass. They are the centres of many activities and had been the hubs of certain bustling, continuous activity for a long time, and hence, they have grown into cities. All of us have our own pleasant and unpleasant experiences of the cities. Intensity of urban life differs from place to place, from city to city. Every city differs from another if urban elements and social significance are taken into account. Cities could be awe-inspiring for a villager. A city could be romanticised, revered, mystified, or even feared. Every city has its own individuality. It has even its own skyline from which usually it is recognised. Famous cities have popular skylines, and their recognition is instantaneous. "From this perspective, city life is distinctive because its scale is larger and activities more intense than anywhere else," (p.6). Massey et al are of the opinion that smaller cities like Kuala Lumpur try to rival with bigger cities like New York by having impressive skyscrapers, even though skyscraper like announcements are unnecessary for a city. There are arguments that cities with impressive skyscrapers also have people begging on the streets and slums full of misery. Every city is not a planned city. Most of the cities are grown in a rather uncontrolled way adjusting itself to the geography and the main activity of the city. Some of these cities, though rather cumbersome, are a few of the most attractive cities in the world. City is a hub of activity and hence, centre of many connections and networks. These connections could be of any kind and mode; social, economical, cultural, religious, historical, political, commercial, business-oriented or even connected with tourism or transport. It could be connected with a port where goods are loaded and unloaded and around the activities of the port, a city could have been built. It could be connected with the movements of the army, navy or a business centre, famous for certain trade. It could be housing one of the major businesses and the city might have been built around this particular business. There are thousands and thousands of possibilities. Today, new cities are springing up on the ruins of the old cities that have been transformed into historical tourist attractions. Range of these connections and networks flourish on their own for decades and centuries. When the situation changes, that particular aspect where the change had been relevant, would change, while the rest of the factors would remain unaltered. Sometimes, these networks expand themselves beyond recognition. Still they would have sprung up from the original activity. Sometimes, connected branch activities would gain importance with the original activity fading out. Or as the time alters, the main activity would have become unpopular, unviable, or simply could have tapered out, leaving the connected activities to flourish as independent entities. With alternative activities, networks too change and eventually, city will get adjusted to the new networks and connections, which would result in a changed landscape of the city. Networks and their diversities never fail to alter the landscape of the city, along with that of the neighbouring area. Most of the physical features of the cities are, nowadays, becoming identical. Globalisation has erased many of the cultures, and even the cities in the East are getting slowly westernised. In recent years, interaction with one city and another has become simpler. This does not mean that in ancient days, cities did not interact with one another. They interacted with one another regularly. Trade routes were open all over the world, along with the new victories of the explorers. There is a school of thought that city dwellers are fond of rules and justice. The fact is only that city societies are more regularised. Massey et al are intrigued by Mumford's (1937, p.185 - from Massey et al, p.16) argument that the city is a Geographic Plexus. Even though, plexus is an uncommon word to be used in this context, perhaps Mumford was referring to the various networks spread out in the city. "Through multiform networks, people, commodities, money, and so on, are continually moving through the city, but they are also meeting up in specific places in the city, whether it is the supermarket, the office-block, the home - or wherever," (p.16). Every city has its own physical form that is based on its social, economic, cultural and institutional institutions and networks at various levels. Massey et al argue that 'these social exchanges are predicated on specific networks and these networks are geographical, that they intersect within the city in particular locations, and that they stretch out beyond the city to other locations in specific ways.' Cities are part of the geographical changes evolved over centuries. If one city has to be understood, it should be done so, with reference with other cities, especially those cities that are contemporary to the first city, because the same situation might have affected to all those cities. Growth of one city has interconnections with other cities as well. Cities are part of a geographical kaleidoscope and cannot be studies individually, for the main reason that from the initiation of those cities, they had been an integral part of a bigger geographical network that watered their growth. Whatever form a city can attain, still in its atom, it would retain the original connection that it had experienced with other cities. A city becomes a web of social interactions by intensifying and focusing at personal and social level of its masses. "The city is a cauldron - hot, ready to catch fire, to burst info flame. Of course, flames can be both beautiful and deadly. So, the theatre of the city can as easily stage stories about mildness and humanity as about conflict and disharmony," (p.17). But this involvement does not separate it from the total network of other cities. This does not mean that all cities can be part of the same network. Some of them, according to their geographical placement and inherent growth might belong to another set of network. Undoubtedly they belong to some network or other, although it may not be the same one. Shaping of a city, its formation etc. depends on the network to which it belongs. Network provides a certain fundamental character to the city on which it rests its future formation. Later, people who dominated the city, its social, economic, political and cultural links play a much higher role in shaping it. Changed connections and networks can have far reaching impact not only on one particular city, but also on other cities belonging to the same or similar networks. These changes brought by the changing time force the cities to alter their individual style. Environmental impacts, geographical disasters, natural calamities affect the growth and shape of cities. Altered connections can also create tension and uncertainty. Connections could be either negative or positive, depending on the impact they create on the city. All connections need not have good impact. Some of them could bring doom and disaster to it. It is also important that we should not see the city as a separate entity segregated from nature. Environmentally segregated cities do not have a future. Today, most of the cities are growing bigger and larger and very few cities in the world are dying out. The intensity of city life is measured in relation to size, density and heterogeneity. City remains alive with its teaming millions depending on the density of settlement and heterogeneity both of individuals and of group life. Because of greater range of variation between individuals, greater numbers of social interactions, greater potential for differentiation among people, it need not be presumed that cities are a big beehive of interrelationships. On the contrary, cities are depressingly individualistic. "The contacts of the city may indeed be face to face, but they are nevertheless impersonal, superficial, transitory and segmental," (Wirth, 1938, p.192, from Massey p.44). City crowd is indifferent, reserved, and there is hardly any scope for personal relationship leading to personal claims and expectations. People are anonymous and faceless and according to Wirth, city disorganises life. Close physical contact need not bring any closeness with other individuals. City dwellers are insensitive compared to rural folk. City people can simply lose themselves in the crowd, or they, with some effort, can find the like-minded and form much-needed relationships. City people have a greater tolerance for difference and diversity. It is a mosaic of social worlds. Every city has its own rhythm and throbbing of life. This pulsating of life around you, gives the illusion that we are never alone. There is a fascinating pattern of mobility and life, palpating with the landscape. There is a pattern in city life, according to the time of the day or night, which is rhythmic and mesmerising and that particular pattern can be seen in that city alone. Even the skylines have their own unique structure according to the season and weather. Cities show the culture and lifestyle of the people in various hues. Monuments, old buildings and historical background lend their own uniqueness to the city atmosphere. Historical cities have their own aura. It can be so strong at times that one could think that he imagined a particular famous historical scene, because history is always alive and breathes into the city where the event took place, in spite of change brought by changing times. Another uniqueness comes through the environment of the city. Moods, environments, surreal contrasts in the physical landscape allow the uniqueness of the city to be traced. City life is full of proximity and difference, closed worlds and high walls. City life consists of high fences and walls, guarded by men and electronic devices, with people and cameras watching, isolation and distance from others and nature, closeness combined with distance as a result of using telephones and mobiles; but curtained sociability. Today, city dwellers are using the common spaces as less as possible resulting in indifferent worlds and detached lifestyles. "we have the different worlds of a city spilling over into one another spatially and socially," (p. 94). Cities also are places that assimilate many cultures. WORK CITED: Massey, D & Allen, J & Pile, S 1999, ed. City worlds, Routledge, London. (All references are from this work). Read More