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?

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.