Building the World

New Cities

Boston skyline, from nationalgeographic.com.

 We could raise prodigious cities and create nations, and explore the universe.
~ Jose C. Orozco

Cities may contain the essence of what we call civilization. Throughout the course of history, new cities – especially new capitals – have been built as the centers of culture, education, and government. In ancient times, the city-state of Cyrene, expanded the reach of Greece to nearby Libya; Baghdad, new capital of the Abbasid Dynasty, was the result of a vision. In later times, St .Petersburg and Washington D.C. were designed by heads of state to mark a turn in their respective nations.  Brasilia, was the first city designed to be seen from the air. As Toynbee observed, cities may be the unique way a culture fulfills its destiny.  What can cities of the past reveal about the quintessentially human achievement of the gathered community?

 

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Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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