Lecture 2

A Brief History of Cities

The human species attained its present evolutionary form about 40 to 25
thousand years ago. It left the cradle of Africa and spread through the Middle
East, Europe, and Asia. Humans lived in families and small tribal units,
subsisting on gathered food and wild game. There are cave paintings and
petroglyphs from this period, depicting the hunt. Survival required a
nomadic existence that precluded permanent settlements.

The Fertile Crescent extends from the Nile Delta, along the Eastern Shore of
the Mediterranean, through present day Lebanon and Syria to Iraq, and
down the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the Persian Gulf. This area was
blessed fertile land, sufficient water, and an agreeable climate for the
development of agriculture. The river banks teemed with wildlife, and their
swamps grew wheat and barley, ripe for domestication. But the area posed
challenges as well that required social organization to overcome. Rivers, not
skies provided reliable water. Large irrigation systems were needed to
water the crops. Religion helped create social identity for new urbanites
whose traditional loyalties lay in family and clan. A priestly caste provided
organization for communal building activities. Their temples invariably
occupy a central area of early cities. By 4000 BC there is evidence of
agricultural surpluses developing in the Tigris Euphrates valley. The first
examples of writing date from around 3500 BC, from the city of Uruk.
Writing developed for religious and commercial purposes. This early
Mesopotamian culture in the region came to be known as Sumerian, and
included the cities of Ur, Nineveh, Uruk.

Elsewhere in the world, the Minoan civilization was forming in Crete by

3000 BC. The great Pyramids were built in Egypt around 2600 BC. Cities
emerge in India about 2150 BC.

Around 2300 BC, Sargon conquered the city states of Mesopotamia and
founded a new city called Agade close to where Babylon would eventually be
located. Agade became the first Imperial city. Sargon continued the existing
religious order, but took political and economic control. He allowed private
land ownership. The King was responsible for public works projects and
commerce. Sargon’s empire lasted only four generations, but succeeding
dynasties maintained his economic reforms.

Babylon became the preeminent city of Mesopotamian by 1900 BC and

remained among the world's greatest cities for the next 1500 years. Babylon
developed trading relationships over a wide area and created a legal system
to govern a cosmopolitan society with different clients and races. King,
Hammurabi codified this law in what is the earliest written legal code.
Regional control eventually passed to the Assyrians with their capital
Nineveh, but the Greek historian Herodotus, in the fourth century BC
described Babylon as the world’s largest city of 250,000 inhabitants that

2.2
was a center of religion and learning surpassing “in splendor any in the
world.” In the map above, notice the extent of the city walls, the irrigation
system, and the prominent placement of temples and the palace.

The palace at Knossos

While empires rose and fell in Mesopotamia, the Minoan civilization

developed on the island Crete in the Mediterranean. This culture is a
precursor to the ancient Greeks, and is the setting for a number of Greek
myths including Theseus’ defeat of the Minitaur in the labyrinth. The
Minoans are notable for their architecture and engineering which produced
open airy living spaces, running water, indoor baths, and toilets. They

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produced beautiful earthenware, brass tools, jewelry, sculpture, and
frescoes. They were accomplished sailors and had extensive trade routes.

The picture above shows the palace at Knossos, the largest of the Minoan
cities. The palace first built around 2000 BC and was destroyed at least twice
by earthquakes and/or invaders. Its final construction was in 1400 BC.

The Mycenaeans were heirs to the Minoan culture, but were conquerors
rather than traders. These are the people of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
describing Odysseus’ conquest of Troy and his long journey home to Ithaca.
In 1100 BC the Mycenaean cities were destroyed by natural disaster or
sacked by their enemies. Greece entered a dark age that lasted several
centuries.

The Phoenicians soon rose to fill the trading void left by the Mycenaeans.
They built cities based on commercial prowess rather than imperial
domination. Tyre and Sidon were the principle Phoenician cities, located on
the Mediterranean coast in what is now Lebanon. Their artisans and
craftsmen made jewelry, fine clothes, glass, and dye. They were
accomplished architects and exported their skill by designing urban areas
throughout the Mideast. They also refined the hieroglyphic writing systems
of Mesopotamia and Egypt by developing a phonetic system that eventually
evolved into the Greek and Latin alphabets. In 814 BC the Phoenicians
founded Carthage which grew to as many as 400,000 inhabitants. Carthage
had a highly developed system of government with a constitution, senate,
and general assembly.

Now comes the classical Greeks of the time of Plato, Socrates, Pericles,
Thucydides, Herodotus, and Sophocles. The Greeks inherited much from the
Minoans and Mycenaeans. In culture, they borrowed much from the
Egyptians and Babylonians. In commerce, governance, architecture, and
writing they learned much from the Phoenicians. Greeks added the theater
and Agora to temples and palaces as essential parts of the urban landscape.
The Greek interior was too dry and rocky to produce enough to support its
coastal cities. Of necessity the Greeks expanded outward along the
Mediterranean and eastward into Asia to establish colonies in trading routes
to establish markets and bring goods to their home cities. In this way they

2.4
exported culture throughout the Mediterranean and near East. Like earlier
imperialists, they enslaved conquered people to provide cheap labor. At its

zenith, Athens approached 300,000 inhabitants of whom less than 50,000

were citizens.

The Hellenic city states shared a common culture, fierce independence, and a
propensity for conflict. Unlike the Babylonians and Persians the Greeks did
not integrate the conquered populations into the city administration very

2.5
well. Their expansion brought them into increasing conflict with the
Persians leading to the Persian invasion of 480 BC. The Athenians managed
to unite the Greek city states in raising an army and repelling the Persians at
Salamis in an epic battle of European history. Having raised a defensive
army, the Athenians sought to make it permanent by extracting tributes
from their erstwhile allies. Sparta organized a coalition to oppose Athenian
domination and defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Athens was
forced to destroy its defensive walls and lost many of its slaves and foreign
artisans. Athens never regained its standing.

Philip of Macedonia took advantage of the power vacuum to gain control

over the Greek empire. His son, Alexander, had been a student of Aristotle.
Alexander the Great extended Greek culture as he strengthened the empire.
Alexander had a more cosmopolitan approach to administration and
encouraged multinational populations within the cities he controlled. His
greatest urban achievement was planning the new city of Alexandria in
Egypt. The city offered a blank slate on which to build a city based on Greek
ideals without the encumbrance of existing structures. Alexandria was
intended to challenge Carthage as a trade center in North Africa, which

2.6
required a massive construction project to create the Great Harbor.
Alexander did not live to see the city completed but under the
administration of the Ptolemy family the city thrived and became the first
great cosmopolitan city, home to Egyptians, Jews, Persians, Babylonians, and
Greeks. Consequently, the city produced great cultural and scientific
development.

According to legend, Rome was founded in 735 BC by Romulus and Remus,

two quarrelsome brothers who were raised by a wolf. Rome’s early years
were pretty rough-and-tumble. The Etruscans occupied Rome during the
seventh and sixth centuries BC, an experience that helped to expose the
Romans to other cultures. The city suffered many devastating fires. Gallic
invaders briefly occupied Rome 390 BC. They continued fighting with the
Etruscans and the Greeks throughout the second and third centuries BC. In
146 BC they defeated Carthage, thereby eliminating their greatest rival in
the Mediterranean. This set the stage for the development of the Roman
Empire.

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Rome succeeded in spite of its modest natural endowments. It was situated
on a natural trade route where crossing the Tiber River was relatively easy,
but it lacked a Mediterranean port. Its inland location protected it from
naval assault, but its seven Hills offered little geographical protection from
invading armies. The surrounding land was insufficiently fertile to support
the growing population. The Tiber was not the great river that the Nile and
Euphrates were. These challenges made conquest necessary to feed Rome's
people, and honed its organizational, engineering, and military skills.

2.8
What Rome had going for it was a strong Roman identity, religious
conviction, and military organization. Romans’ religion, ancestors, and
family bound them to the city. Rome is said to have been infused with the
gods as evidenced by its many temples. Roman homes had their own altars
to their ancestors and gods. The gods were said to inhabit Rome’s public
places. Mars, the god of war, had a particularly strong following.

By 450 BC, the Romans developed a comprehensive legal code known as the
Law of the Twelve Tables. This law set out the governmental structure, rules
of commerce, the rights of aristocrats, protection for plebeians, and rules of
conduct conveying the citizen’s obligation family, civic duty, and the gods.
Roman law evolved into the Justinian code, which was exported throughout
Europe in the conquered cities of the empire. The code fell into disuse with
the decline of the Roman Empire, but was revived by Emperor Napoleon in
the 19th century. It remains a basis of European law today, and there are
remnants of the code in the law of Louisiana. This law helped integrate the
populations of conquered city's into the Roman Empire by allowing them to
acquire citizenship and even hold military and political office.

The Romans were ruthless in the pursuit of empire. They took slaves,
extracted agricultural surplus, demanded tributes, destroyed rival cities, and
pressed men into military service. The flow of wealth was largely one-way,
giving Rome the reputation of being a parasitic city. In exchange for
economic goods, however, Rome offered conquered cities law, order,
security, peace, public works, transportation, education, religion, and
culture. Cities like Lyon, Nice, Marseilles, Avignon, and Nimes, thrived and
built coliseums, aqueducts, amphitheaters, bridges, and temples like those in
Rome. The empire stretched from Great Britain to Mesopotamia and
included as many as 50 million people. The City of Rome grew to one million,
a size not seen again until the 19th century.

Ever since Gideon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, historians have made
a cottage industry of explaining the fall of Rome. Perhaps if Rome had had
reciprocal trading relationships with its client cities, they would have had a
larger stake in remaining in the empire when the Germanic tribes attacked.
The cohesive hold of religion, ancestors, and family on provincial Roman
administrators probably diminished with their time and distance from

2.9
Rome. Conversion to Christianity in the fourth century AD probably
weakened allegiances to secular cities. St. Augustine wrote the City of God
explicitly to encourage his followers to focus more on Christianity. Rome
was partially a victim of its own success. Slave labor replaced more
expensive Roman laborers causing unemployment, with one-third of the
population dependant on government subsidies.

Whatever caused the decline, Rome took the entire western world down
with it. By the fourth century AD, urban areas were depopulating rapidly.
City infrastructure went unused and then deteriorated. Buildings were
abandoned and collapsed. Entire cities disappeared. Fewer people were
educated. Europe entered the dark ages.

While European cities decayed, Mohamed and Islam were setting the stage
for the revival cities in the Near East during the seventh century. Islam
provided a unified system of belief that quickly spread throughout the
Mideast, and eventually extended into India, Southeast Asia and Central Asia
to the frontiers of the Chinese empire. Mohammed wanted his followers to
worship together, and urban mosques soon became centers of community
culture, education and leadership as well as religion. Damascus and Baghdad
developed into cities that rivaled Rome and Babylon in splendor, if not
population. Cairo became a notable center of learning with unrivaled
universities and hospitals. Tunis, Fez, Marrakesh, Córdoba, Jerusalem,
Timbuktu, Mombasa, Mogadishu, Istanbul, Delhi and many of India's other
urban centers were all part of a vast Islamic region with the common
culture, language, law and customs. But urban Islam was largely controlled
by independent autocratic leaders, and the fortunes of the cities were tied to
the ruling families. The first generations of rulers possessed the ruthless
energy and relentless drive to conquer and build magnificent cities. But
successive generations became accustomed to comfortable living and less
adept at the martial arts. This made them easy prey for the Mongol invaders
of the 13th century.

The reemergence of European urbanism began in trading cities like Venice,

Genoa, and Pisa, and banking and manufacturing cities like Florence and
Padua. These cities flourished by trading with the Islamic world. Venice was
preeminent among these city states, building its wealth on commerce, not by

2.10
conquest or through religious significance. The city was divided into
commercial districts for ship building, munitions and glassmaking. Venice
developed into the richest and most cosmopolitan city in Europe. Florence
was its primary rival. In addition to Art and banking Venice is notable for its
development of modern politics at the hands of the Medicis who ruled like
Chicago bosses by delivering largess to their supporters.

Little Portugal did an end run around, the Italian city states and their trade
routes with the East. Their ships traded along the west coast of Africa, and
eventually established colonies there. In 1498, Vasco da Gama rounded the
Horn of Africa and made his way to Asia, breaking Italy’s trade monopoly.
One decade later, in 1509, a Portuguese fleet defeated a much larger Muslim
armada off the coast of India. This broke the Arab and Chinese control of
eastern trade. The Spanish and Portuguese subdued South America and
drained it of gold and silver, igniting inflation throughout Europe. Spanish
and Portuguese were notably intolerant. As Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
Spain expelled 200,000 Jews and new Christian converts, decimating the
country’s commercial middle class. Lacking a thriving manufacturing

2.11
economy, Spain relied on its gold to buy products and finance war. It
couldn't sustain its losses of young soldiers required for conquest.

No one was happier about Spain's difficulties than the Netherlands. In the
great revolt of 1572, The Protestant Netherlands successfully threw off
Spanish control. Amsterdam the was preeminent city in the Netherlands. It
soon became the world's greatest commercial city. Several of Europe's great
rivers drain into the low lands, and with them Europe's people. Amsterdam
collected a diversity of people, including Jews, Catholics, Huguenots, and
Lutherans. Toleration fueled the city's intellectual, artistic, scientific,
religious, and commercial prowess. This city of canals, fed by the Amstel
River and emptying into the harbor was built for manufacturing and trade.
Its ships traveled the globe, exchanging raw materials and finished products
and making the Amsterdamers rich. For a brief golden age this small country
was a global superpower.

Amsterdam was primarily interested in trade rather than conquest or

settlement. It did not have the population pressure to support mass
emigration or a large fighting force. London had all the advantages of
Amsterdam and more. Not content with a mere embarrassment of riches, the
English sought global empire and had the population to achieve it. History
often omits the role that the Dutch played in the rise of the English. The
Netherlands bled Spain during the great revolt, and then enthusiastically
helped the British sink Spanish ships over the next century. There were

2.12
Anglo-Dutch wars over trade supremacy in the 1650s, that ended
inconclusively. The Dutch helped the English stage the Glorious Revolution
and depose their Catholic King James II by landing an army of 15,000 men
under William of Orange, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands. William forced
James to flee the country, and later defeated him at the Battle of Boyne, in
Ireland. William and his wife Mary became King and Queen of England, and
the personal union of England and the United Provinces ended the English-
Dutch military competition.

London began the 17th century as one of a group of European Cities of

similar size and importance. During the century, it lost over 100,000 people
in four outbreaks of Plague, repelled an assault by the Royalist army during
the British Civil War, defended itself from a Dutch fleet in the Thames
estuaries, suffered two great fires destroying over 80% of the city, endured a

2.13
“mini ice age,” and staged the Glorious Revolution. Yet its population nearly
doubled, making it the largest city in Europe by 1700 with half a million
people. In the next fifty years, it received another half million through
immigration alone.

Government and service industries dominated London’s west side, the

center housed financial institutions and traditional trades, and
manufacturing firms located in the east, including foundries, textiles, paper
milling, and glass making.

2.14
Source: http://www.millwall-history.co.uk/Origins-1.htm

Paris was founded during the Roman period, but was largely abandoned
with the fall of Rome. It subsequently developed as an ecclesiastic center and
by the eleventh century became the administrative center of the Capetian
dynasty. Over the next century under Phillip Augustus’ rule its streets were
paved, the market place was built at Les Halles, its defenses were
strengthened, a great university developed, and construction of Notre Dame
began. Paris benefited greatly from being the governmental center of France
during the age of absolutism under the Bourbon Kings. When the first
Bourbon King, Henry IV, converted to Catholicism as a condition of
ascending the throne in 1594, he reportedly said, “Paris is well worth a
Mass.” Henry was good to Paris. He improved its streets and built public
parks and squares on the Italian model. He expanded the Louvre. Paris was
larger than London at the beginning of the middle ages and grew
substantially throughout the period, but was overtaken by London in size
and economic power by the beginning of the 18th century. Paris remained
the cultural and artistic center of Europe and its greatest continental city.
Maintaining its splender drained the French people of wealth, fueling a
resentment that eventually contributed to the French Revolution. But
throughout the upheaval, the Napoleonic Wars, and the establishment of the
French Republic, Paris remained the seat of a highly centralized government.
The City was greatly transformed and modernized under Louis Napoleon by
the great civic architect Haussmann.

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This brief history of cities has now arrived at the dawn of the industrial
revolution. We now develop two economic models intended to explain the
development of simple cities. The first is a model of a trading city based on
the idea of comparative advantage. The second is a model of a city with
small-scale production. The models explain some basic city characteristics
such as city size, population density, land prices, and the role of economies
of scale and transportation costs. These models explain the economic
conditions that are necessary for the development of cities. You should
consider how these conditions apply to the cities and our historical review.
In subsequent chapters, we will develop additional economic concepts that
apply to more complex, industrialized, and modern cities.

The development of cities

Imagine a vast undifferentiated plain with fertile soil, and plenty of water.
The region could be the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, the Central

2.16
European planes, or the American interior from the Appalachian to the
Rocky Mountains. Under certain economic conditions, no cities will develop
in this environment. These conditions are:

1) The area has equaled or uniform endowments. In other words, raw

materials like water, soil quality, minerals, and timber are equally available
anywhere in the region.

2) The people in the region are equally productive. Everyone has access to
the same production methods, and no one becomes more productive than
anyone else by specializing their labor.

3) There are no economies of scale.1 This means that the cost of producing
one unit of some output does not decrease as the total amount of output
increases.

4). There are no economies in transport. This means that the cost of
transporting goods does not decrease as the number of goods transported
increases.

Hunter gatherers and subsistence farmers live under approximately these

economic conditions. They gather up or grow what they need to survive. All
the raw materials they need are readily available. Each individual or family
group produces all of their own necessities for survival, and there is no
advantage to specialization of production. Producing more than one's own
requirements does not reduce the unit costs of output. There are no
advantages to transporting goods in bulk. Under these conditions,
individuals or family units, spread out uniformly over the region, because
there's no benefit to trade, and they don't want to compete for the same
resources.

Now consider what is necessary for the development of trading cities. There
are three necessary conditions:

1) There must be an agricultural surplus. This means that people engaged

in agriculture produce more food than is necessary for their own survival.

1
The next chapter will explore economies of scale in detail.

2.17
The surplus is available to feed others who may engage in non-agricultural
production.

2) There must be differences in productivity so that individuals have

comparative advantages in the production of different goods. This may
come about in several ways. Some people may have better access to certain
natural resources (unequal endowments). Some people may have superior
skill in producing certain goods (specialization of labor). Some people may
produce more of the good to take advantage of economies of scale that
reduce the cost of producing each unit.

3) There must be economies of scale in transport. Agricultural surplus and

comparative advantage can produce direct trade between individuals or
families, but such trade does not require a city. But when trade specialists
can reduce transportation costs by moving things in bulk, it is desirable to
have a central location where the producers’ goods can be exchanged and
then reshipped to consumers. This central location develops into a trading
city because it is a convenient place for trade specialist to reside. The city
does not need to engage in its own production, but other services and small-
scale production usually develop from the need for security, finance, trade
regulation, and other goods and services that support traders.

Suppose there are two agricultural products, bread and wine. People in a
southern region can produce one loaf of bread or one bottle of wine per
hour. People just north of them can produce 2 loaves of bread or 6 bottles of
wine per hour. The opportunity cost refers to the amount of one product
that is forgone to produce a unit of the other. In the south, the opportunity
cost of one loaf of bread is one bottle of wine, and the opportunity cost of
one bottle of wine is one loaf of bread. In the north, the opportunity cost of
one loaf of bread is three bottles of wine, and the opportunity cost of one
bottle of wine is one-third of a loaf of bread. The facts are summarized as:

Output/Hour Opportunity cost

South North South North

Bread 1 Loaf 2 Bottles 1 Bottle 3 Bottles

Wine 1 Loaf 6 Bottles 1 Loaf 1/3 Loaf

2.18
Suppose that both regions are initially producing each product, but they
decide to specialize in one of the goods. Note that the North has an absolute
advantage in production of both goods because it can produce more of
either in a given amount of time. Can it benefit from trade? Yes, because it
has a comparative advantage in production of wine. It only has to forgo
1/3 of a loaf of bread to produce a bottle of wine. Each hour the south shifts
from wine to bread production, its output of wine falls by one bottle and
bread output increases by one loaf. Each hour the north shifts from bread
production to wine production, its output of bread falls by two loaves and its
wine production increases by 6 bottles. Here is what happens when the
north shifts one hour to wine production and the south shifts 3 hours to
bread production:

North South

Bread Wine Bread Wine

Change in production -2 loaves +6 bottles +3 loaves -3 bottles

Exchange 2 bottles per loaf +3 loaves -6 bottles -3 loaves +6 bottles

Net effect +1 loaf 0 bottles 0 loaves +3 bottles

There are benefits to trade, as long as the transportation costs are not too
great. Specifically, if it takes an hour to transport the goods, the opportunity
cost for the north is 2 loaves and it only gains one loaf. No trade would occur.
If transportation takes less than half an hour, then trade is advantageous.
Even so, unless there are economies to trade the north and south will trade
directly without needing a trading city. On the other hand, if there are
economies to trade, middle men could move the goods in bulk at a lower
cost than direct exchange. They would keep some of the surplus while still
leaving the north and south better off.

The traders locate in a common area to minimize their costs of getting to the
market. This drives up the price of land in the vicinity of the market place, so
traders buy smaller lots and the density of settlement increases. Traders
who live further from the market have further to commute, but their land
price is lower. Land prices adjust to achieve an equilibrium with all traders

2.19
equally well off regardless of where they live. Traders may make slightly
more than farmers to compensate them for the inconveniences of city life.

Factory towns

To get production in the city, we need to assume that there are economies
of scale in production due to specialization of labor or other inputs or
indivisibilities of capital. Adam Smith described the economies of scale in a
pin factory, saying that one person working alone could scarcely produce 20
pins a day. By breaking the process up into ten simple steps each performed
by a different person, the output per person exceeded 4,800. Indivisibilities
refer to situations in which production must occur at a minimum scale. In
either case the cost of producing one unit of output decreases as the amount
of output increases.

On the next page, the first graph shows a hypothetical relationship between
the amount of labor required to produce a shirt and the number of shirts
produced. Suppose that there is sufficient demand to produce shirts in a
quantity that requires about one-quarter hour of labor. Home production
requires one hour per shirt. People will buy factory shirts as long as the cost
of making them is greater than the cost of buying them. The price of the shirt
includes the manufacturing cost of a quarter hour labor plus the cost of
transporting the shirt to the consumer. Suppose the transportation costs are
a quarter hour per mile. The second graph shows that the shirts can be
transported 3 miles at a total cost of three quarter hours. The full cost of the
shirts to consumers located 3 miles from the factory is one hour of labor. It
follows that the market area of the factory has a radius of 3 miles. Decreases
in the production or transportation costs expand the market area.

As before, workers will want to locate close to the factory driving up land
prices. Workers close to the factory will buy smaller lots and substitute
other consumption to maintain their utility level. Workers further from the
factory will have lower land costs and higher commuting costs. Higher labor
productivity enables the firm to pay workers more than what surrounding
farmers make. This compensates them for higher costs of city living. In
equilibrium the utility of the workers and farmers must be the same.

2.20
 A Factory Town

hr/yd

Avg cost

.25

hr
Home prod cost

Delivered
cost
Trans
Cost Cost/mile
Prod cost
.25
miles
3 2 1 0 1 2 3

Market Area

2.21
Putting It Together

Do these models help to explain the development of the urban areas in our
brief history of cities? Economists focus on three prerequisite conditions for
the development of trading city: agricultural surplus, economic
specialization and comparative advantage, and economies of scale in trading.
In addition, development of a producing town requires economies of scale in
production. Urban historian Joel Kotkin argues that a viable city needs to
have a religious or ideological foundation, defense and security, and a
functioning economy. I would add a second tier of conditions for viable cities
that may not be distinct from the requirements already listed, but are more
specific characteristics of successful urbanization. These include theatrical
entertainment, spectator sport, transportation, sanitation and water supply,
legal code, education, and a system of writing.

Agricultural surplus began to develop in Mesopotamia within centuries of

the end of the last Ice Age. Among the earliest evidence of permanent human
habitation are building foundations in Jericho dating from about 7000 BC.
Evidence of wall date from about 6000 BC. Similar settlements in
Mesopotamia are called proto-cities. Domestication of animals and grains
developed over this period. By 3000 BC there is good evidence of settled
agriculture and increasing numbers of population centers. Babylon is the
greatest of the Sumerian cities. The map of Babylon and the modern-day site
indicate an extensive system of irrigation ditches. The temples, palaces, and
city walls indicate specialized construction skills. Evidence of trading with
people in the Persian Gulf dates from 3000 BC. The river provided the means
of transportation. Clearly the economic requirements are present. Babylon
also has evidence of the religious, defensive, and economic capabilities that
Kotkin emphasizes. Babylon also has a theater, that would have helped
maintain a common identity. It has canals for transportation and sanitation.
The code of Hammurabi provides law and demonstrates written language,
both of which require education. If you go back and look through the city
maps in this chapter you will find evidence of most of these characteristics
in all of the cities.

2.22