The development of communities

Why do you think the first communities started to develop?

• The first humans probably stuck together in family groups. This was the primitive « community »

Why do you think they stuck together?

• It’s good for hunting big game.• Good for protection.

At the beginning, humans were hunters and gatherers. This is why they had to move around a lot; they were always

looking for food. With a growing population, more and

more people were in contact with eachother, but humans didn’t start big

communities until which big advancement?

AGRICULTURE• Why did this make such a big change?• People didn’t have to move around to find

food.

The importance of agriculture

• You don’t need a lot of hunters• You don’t need a lot of gatherers, so people

were free to create other jobs (ex. making guns, cutting trees…)

• The creation of commerce between communities (now communities were inter-dependant. They exchanged goods and services)

After the invention of agriculture, communities started becoming permanent (one site).

Site characteristics became very important (drinkable water, fertile soil)

Was it important to be close to other

communities?When trading started, yes it was, so you could

walk to exchange products.

Sites• River or coastal sites : Good for fishing,

drinking and transportation• Resource sites : The majority of communities

developed close to resources. For example, there are a lot of fishing communities or mining communities (gold, coal…).

• When these resources are used up, the cities are basically abandoned

• Distance from borders : normally, capital cities were constructed far away from borders. Why?

• Distance from other cities : If you want to provide a service for a lot of communities, you have to be in the center of them. Chicago is a good example.

Site Modification• Why would you want to modify a site?

– It has a lot of great characteristics, but something is missing

– Examples? New Orleans – A coastal city, but it’s under sea level.

– What did they do? They modified the coast by constructing dams

Urban or Rural??• Statistics Canada classifies sites into 4 groups : Terms # of people• Hamlet < 100• Village 100 – 1000 • Town 1000 - 10, 000• City > 10, 000

• *** Different countries classify their cities differently, so be careful when you are comparing « cities ».

• Metropolitan : When a city has more than 100 000 people and the surrounding areas depend on that city.

• Megalopolis : An urban place which has more than 10 million people (often when cities close together make up one big city)

Urban Urban SprawlSprawl

Seoul, South KoreaSeoul, South Korea

“The spreading of urban developments (houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city”

“The growth of neighborhoods where people live and shop.” - Mr. D. Smith

Problems• can weaken or destroy the vitality of downtowns

•Limits the supply of inexpensive housing

Sao Paulo, Brazil

• paralyzes the roads with cars

• cars – traffic congestion, pollution, roads consume land, fuel usage

• makes people dependent on their cars bussing, walking, cycling become almost impossible

•scars the landscape – asphalt, plastic signs, ugly buildings

• eats away at safe drinking water supplies, increased water pollution

Solutions• Higher density housing

•Improve and encourage public transit,cycling, and walking

• “Green-up” parks libraries, ban new highways

Victoria, BC

• Co-housing – reduces cost and keeps people in the city

• Build up instead of out to provide inexpensive housing

• Mixed activity areas houses, shops, businesses, offices