Ever since there have been cities, people have been celebrating them. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese writers ranked city life above country life. Cities were portrayed as sites of learning. Meanwhile, the countryside was seen as uncivilized. However, many writers also noted the problems of city life.

For almost 6,000 years, people have divided their world between the urban life of the city and the rural life of the country. Life in the city is seen as civilized, but also immoral. Life in the country is seen as uncivilized, but also unspoiled. Today in the United States, people still often talk about a “rural-urban divide.” Country people are considered to be very different from city people.

In 3000 BCE, the largest city in the world was the Mesopotamian city of Uruk. It had a population of about 50,000 people. Today, there are almost 50 cities in the world with more than 10 million people. Over time, cities have spread everywhere and have grown enormously. They have profoundly changed human society and the ways we live together.

The First Cities

The world’s first cities sprang up in Mesopotamia and Egypt around 6,000 years ago. Then came cities in China, India, and Southeast Asia. These first arose 5,000 years ago. Another wave of urbanization began around 4,000 years ago. It led to cities in Mesoamerica, South America, and sub- Saharan Africa.

There was no single cause that made a city develop. However, location certainly mattered. Cities developed in areas that were well-suited for farming or trade. Or, they arose in places that were easy to defend from enemies.

Cities were more crowded than the countryside. As a result, diseases spread faster in cities. On average, people in cities died earlier than those in rural areas. So why would anyone choose to live in a city? There are a few reasons. Apart from diseases, cities provide safety. Walls and soldiers protected people from enemies, bandits, and wild animals. Like today, young people moved from rural areas to cities in search of money or jobs. Rural communities offered little work other than farming.

Around the world, cities only kept growing. By 1200 BCE, China had some of the world’s largest. Anyang in China’s Yellow River Valley housed as many as 200,000 people. By 100 CE, Rome was the largest city in the world, with over a million people.

Urban Hierarchy: Organizing Cities

Hierarchies were a key part of city life. A hierarchy is a social system in which people are ranked into different levels. The hierarchies of cities placed rural people below city people. But inside a city, there were far more levels. Complicated social hierarchies kept things running smoothly. They helped to ensure that people would do their jobs. Priests convinced people that the gods wanted the king to be king. Soldiers enforced the king’s decisions.

The growth of cities led to many new inventions. With more people living together on less land, city-dwellers needed new ways to feed everyone. They needed to be able to store food, defend the city, and keep it clean. People developed new kinds of buildings. They built sewers and even installed running water. Canals and irrigation improved transportation and farming. Aqueducts and underground water tunnels brought clean water from distant mountains.

Division of Labor: Job Specialization in Cities

Every city ever built needed to have enough available food. If a society can’t produce enough food, it can’t support a large number of people who don’t farm. Farmers need to produce a surplus of food. In other words, they have to produce more food than they and their family need. Having a surplus of food frees up some people from farming. It allows them to take up other jobs. This is how you get laborers, writers, soldiers, and kings.

In a city, everybody needs other people in order to live. This connects people to each other. A shoemaker, for example, needs leather from cowherds, protection from soldiers, and merchants to distribute his product. On the other hand, all those people need shoes from the shoemaker.

However, cities also depend on farms and villages. As cities grew, the rural areas around them were forced to produce more food. Often, rural areas were conquered by cities just so more food could be grown. This meant people in the city could have steady access to food without having to grow it themselves. They could focus on new jobs and building trade networks.

Urban Archipelago: Cities Build Networks

Cities connected the world. As some places got better at producing particular things, cities traded more with each other. Different crops and animals were found in different places. If your city had too little wheat, you could trade some of your wool for another city’s surplus of food. Luxury items were also traded. Consider, for example, the Standard of Ur in the picture below. It was made sometime around 2500 BCE in the Sumerian city of Ur. It shows just how far ancient trade routes stretched. The artist used materials from all over. The lapis lazuli was from Afghanistan. The red marble was from India. The seashells came from the Persian Gulf.

Conclusion: Rural-Urban Divide?

Ancient and modern writers all talk about urban and rural life as though they were two completely separate things. But is this really true? If you’ve been reading this article carefully, you might already be questioning that view. The truth is, city and country have always been deeply connected. Each has always depended on the other. Each is part of the same system.