Some observations. New York has so much traffic it needs three major airports plus three smaller. Washington area has three.
Heads of water can move due to technology and politics.
Québec City was a major port in the XIXth century but it was a french speaking city. The canadian government dredged the St-Lawrence river to Montréal. Still too french. So the St-Lawrence Seaway was built to bypass Montréal. But Malcolm McLean invented the container ship, removing the size constraint from cargo ships. Good luck blasting hundreds of kms of granite to let the new humongous ships pass, so Montréal instead of being replaced by Toronto, became the container port for the Great Lakes area.
But the Cdn government succeeded in demoting YUL in favor of YYZ as Canada's primary airport.
Chicago actually has 2 major airports: O’Hare and the older Midway. O’Hare is a hub for United and American but Midway is a de facto hub for (heavily-domestic) Southwest.
"Nature's Metropolis" by William Cronin is a great book about why Chicago exists and reinforces many of the themes you mention. Interesting evolution from water to rail to air evolution while remaining a transportation hub
1. It’s interesting to think about cities that have more than one airport. The value of the airport has two levels:
Lvl 1: connect it to other cities
Lvl 2: become a hub to connect any 2 cities
But if you split your traffic across airports, the hub factor disappears. Which might be one of the reasons why Chicago and Atlanta have more traffic than NY
Heads of navigation —> fascinating, had no idea! Yet another transportation tech that defined the world, containers.
In Spain, Córdoba was originally the head of navigation of the Guadalquivir, then Seville. As such, it was the capita of American colonization. As tech improved, ships were deeper, and couldn’t make it to Seville. Cadiz, on the sea, became the head of navigation for the Americas. Here, pure tech, not a political factor. I wonder what other political examples there are.
Great article! Very educative! Thanks! That's what explains the importance of Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. It is the biggest city in the region and as it happened, this region is stretching as far as the borders of the country. Ljubljana is located on a plain close to the river. Surprisingly or not, in the very heart of the city, one can even find a little hill with a castle positioned on the top. However, due to its closeness with Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, it has not a potential to become the administrative centre of Northern Balkans (Zagreb also has bigger and more important airport with worldwide connections).
P.S. This perfectly explains the rise and fall of Yugoslavia as well as its consequences.
What is more, if you look at Trieste on the map, once by far the largest and most important port of the Habsburg Monarchy (the gates to Central Europe), you will notice that while being a part of Italy, it completely lost its importance as it cannot really compete with other Italian ports such as Genoa or Bari. Isn't it interesting? We can talk about cities in terms of all three sociological theories!
When it comes to seaside ports, you mention vulnerability to attacks from maritime raiders, but I wonder, too, how much nature plays a role, specifically with storms. Take the example of Houston. Founded in 1836, it was very much a backwater, 50 miles inland (30 miles up Galveston Bay, to the San Jacinto estuary, then another 12 or so miles up Buffalo Bayou) from the coastal city of Galveston (on a barrier island) which was the most important city and port in Texas. By the late 1800s efforts had been made to build a port in Houston and to dredge a more navigable pathway, but it wasn't until the massive 1900 hurricane nearly destroyed Galveston that people began to consider that a port in Houston would be a safer investment. The Houston Ship Channel was dredged, completed in 1914 just in time to connect the growing Houston-area petrochemical industry with a world at war hungry for petroleum products to serve their logistics needs.
Very interesting as always. A couple of thoughts based on the sea travel.
A strong, reliable sea breeze enables easy travel up a river. In many cases towns seem to be within the range of the seabreeze. They can be used to sail up the river during the afternoon, and back out to sea in the early morning.
Strong tides also give similar options to get back upstream. Cities often seem to form at the upper reach of the tide flow. With smaller fishing villages at the mouth. Now we see port cities forming at the river mouths due to the costs of getting big ships up small rivers. Eg Europort.
Seasonal winds also help. If the prevailing wind cycle enables ships to get easily sail up or down the river by waiting a few days for the winds to change.
It seems to me flooding potential and tropical revolving storm frequency would also play a big factor.
Big History (look up on line) at Renaissance Society, learning in retirement at CSU, Sacramento.
FYI, some of your articles would be just great in Big History and for Kurgesagt videos. I love your stuff & will include a link in the presentation when finished. Thanks so much!
Great article! Are you interested in speaking via Zoom to the CSUS Renaissance Society (lifelong learning for the older adult) on a Monday at 10 to 11:30 am between Feb. 13 to May 1? This is the type of topic we like to learn about.
Would it be Ok with you if I were to copy and paste your material into some pptx presentations and present them to our group in the next few semesters? Each would be about a hour long, maybe 3-4 presentations following your articles. You would be given credit for the information, of course.
Oh, this post reminded me so much of Parag Khanna's Connectography (fun book) about the resilience of cities and also the connectivity and infrastructure plays a key role in its development and survivability. Fun read :)
The Growth is also linked to the supply and demand side. e.g Greece and Rome were citadels of trade that has many references in South asian literature. But once their supply side went down due territorial expansionist adventures, the demand side fell and they lost their importance.
While the navigation did play a major part, I think it is the ability to transform or sustain its position what makes cities ticking long. eg Kolkatta in India, an oce major port and centre, lost its vibrancy post shifting of the capital to Delhi. But the decay was accelerated by the Industrial revolution, which the city never catered to.
Thirdly, in the present context, the cosmopolitanism and acceptance of multi-cultural ethnicity plays a significant role and this is where NYC or Mumbai or London or Dubai scores and to a lesser extent singapore too. Paris is the opposite and so it is likely one see its diminishing staus if one removes the tourism part.
By way of e.g, Spices were the favoured commodity for the middle east and afar in Greece and Rome in ancient times. So the demand in turn created the fastest supply route to be discovered and the supply side through the ports of Surat, Kochi, Poompuhar as ports of call being closest to the production centres (Supply side)
Once the land route via Syria, Iraq and Iran was discovered, the trading centres shifted, thereby these port cities lost their prominence.
All port cities lose their preeminence, if either of the supply or demand linkages or in some case both is disrupted in some form that it became difficult to recover thereby losing the once glory days.
Seems like it might be true in the small as well as the large, i.e. there must also be some very old spots that never grew to mega-cities, but nevertheless stayed around and were more or less stable. I would guess that a lot of these were somehow dependent on the major cities - centers of religion like Chartres in France, Hamar in Norway, Machu Picchu in Peru - but maybe not always?
Also would be interesting to focus on why some of the big cities fell into decline - because that has certainly happened as well - Palmyra in Mesopotamia, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in India, etcetera. I'm sure that's been written about extensively too, but it is the other side of the coin to the seemingly everlasting nature of many of the places you write of.
As another commenter pointed out, climate change has the scope to dramatically alter the situation.
The little I know about the Harappa and old Mesopotamian civilizations that disappeared points indeed at climate change. The cities became too dry, or the rivers moved to flow somewhere else, and the cities disappeared.
The other cases you mention sound super interesting. I’d be curious indeed to know more about Chartres, Hamar, or Machu Picchu. Do you know anything about them?
Unfortunately not enough to be scholarly ! Only from consulting the Oracle (aka Wikipedia), being a tourist, literature references, and being able to google with the best of them :)
The more I think about it though, especially from literature references (books either from classical times or about them, or both, mostly European history), there are actually quite a lot of very old places around today that never became big cities, but managed to retain some of their old magic or whatever you want to call it.
I guess the big question is to what extent they existed and exist independently of the big cities, or if they are generally dependent. I would guess the latter, but I don't really know.
You have not mentioned the Gorilla in the room of climate change
The drying of lakes and rivers with loss of transport abilities agriculture productivity The rise of Sea level on costal areas with intrusion of salt into fresh ground water
Heat related effects on workers and maintenance personnel as well as warriors
Yeah I will cover it in a future article. A couple of thoughts:
- understand the past to predict the future. I’m focused on understanding the past in this article.
- climate change won’t change these forces. It might just change the places that benefit from them
- tech evolution is faster than climate change. I believe society will change faster than climate change, and even then, climate change is now unlikely to cause the major fears we had (Bangladesh disappearing under the sea and the like). So it is more urgent and important to understand how TECH will change these forces, rather than climate.
Tech can help in adaption to climate alteration in areas that can afford the tech. But can countries that are already underdeveloped and underfunded adapt ? Half of Pakistan was under flood conditions.
Island nations coral reefs fish stocks etc
Lots of tech challenges will need funding and I think that will mean adaption to the forces rather than reversing them
In the USA we have not even funded repair and replacement of our aging current infrastructure yet.
I agree with your historical presentation but less confident in tech
A great article Tomas Pueyo, without a doubt it is a pleasure to read your writings, you see them from a more analytical perspective and fully broken down what it does for me, have a clearer understanding and easier to understand. A big hug from Argentina.
Some observations. New York has so much traffic it needs three major airports plus three smaller. Washington area has three.
Heads of water can move due to technology and politics.
Québec City was a major port in the XIXth century but it was a french speaking city. The canadian government dredged the St-Lawrence river to Montréal. Still too french. So the St-Lawrence Seaway was built to bypass Montréal. But Malcolm McLean invented the container ship, removing the size constraint from cargo ships. Good luck blasting hundreds of kms of granite to let the new humongous ships pass, so Montréal instead of being replaced by Toronto, became the container port for the Great Lakes area.
But the Cdn government succeeded in demoting YUL in favor of YYZ as Canada's primary airport.
Chicago actually has 2 major airports: O’Hare and the older Midway. O’Hare is a hub for United and American but Midway is a de facto hub for (heavily-domestic) Southwest.
Ah I didn’t realize! Interesting.
"Nature's Metropolis" by William Cronin is a great book about why Chicago exists and reinforces many of the themes you mention. Interesting evolution from water to rail to air evolution while remaining a transportation hub
I had no idea. I’m looking into this. Fascinatingly good example!
Super interesting points. A few reactions.
1. It’s interesting to think about cities that have more than one airport. The value of the airport has two levels:
Lvl 1: connect it to other cities
Lvl 2: become a hub to connect any 2 cities
But if you split your traffic across airports, the hub factor disappears. Which might be one of the reasons why Chicago and Atlanta have more traffic than NY
Heads of navigation —> fascinating, had no idea! Yet another transportation tech that defined the world, containers.
In Spain, Córdoba was originally the head of navigation of the Guadalquivir, then Seville. As such, it was the capita of American colonization. As tech improved, ships were deeper, and couldn’t make it to Seville. Cadiz, on the sea, became the head of navigation for the Americas. Here, pure tech, not a political factor. I wonder what other political examples there are.
Great article! Very educative! Thanks! That's what explains the importance of Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. It is the biggest city in the region and as it happened, this region is stretching as far as the borders of the country. Ljubljana is located on a plain close to the river. Surprisingly or not, in the very heart of the city, one can even find a little hill with a castle positioned on the top. However, due to its closeness with Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, it has not a potential to become the administrative centre of Northern Balkans (Zagreb also has bigger and more important airport with worldwide connections).
P.S. This perfectly explains the rise and fall of Yugoslavia as well as its consequences.
Interesting. I didn’t know this about the Balkans!
What is more, if you look at Trieste on the map, once by far the largest and most important port of the Habsburg Monarchy (the gates to Central Europe), you will notice that while being a part of Italy, it completely lost its importance as it cannot really compete with other Italian ports such as Genoa or Bari. Isn't it interesting? We can talk about cities in terms of all three sociological theories!
I see it now.
Ljubljana is in a good valley, it Zagreb’s is clearly bigger.
And trieste’s position makes sense with what you say
This is an outstanding article on one of my favorite topics: Why cities grew in a specific location?
Reverse engineering the present helps you understand the past.
By the way, I like it so much that I cross-posted the article to my Substack column. I hope that you get some new Subscribers out of it!
Thank you!
When it comes to seaside ports, you mention vulnerability to attacks from maritime raiders, but I wonder, too, how much nature plays a role, specifically with storms. Take the example of Houston. Founded in 1836, it was very much a backwater, 50 miles inland (30 miles up Galveston Bay, to the San Jacinto estuary, then another 12 or so miles up Buffalo Bayou) from the coastal city of Galveston (on a barrier island) which was the most important city and port in Texas. By the late 1800s efforts had been made to build a port in Houston and to dredge a more navigable pathway, but it wasn't until the massive 1900 hurricane nearly destroyed Galveston that people began to consider that a port in Houston would be a safer investment. The Houston Ship Channel was dredged, completed in 1914 just in time to connect the growing Houston-area petrochemical industry with a world at war hungry for petroleum products to serve their logistics needs.
It was absolutely a major reason
Very interesting as always. A couple of thoughts based on the sea travel.
A strong, reliable sea breeze enables easy travel up a river. In many cases towns seem to be within the range of the seabreeze. They can be used to sail up the river during the afternoon, and back out to sea in the early morning.
Strong tides also give similar options to get back upstream. Cities often seem to form at the upper reach of the tide flow. With smaller fishing villages at the mouth. Now we see port cities forming at the river mouths due to the costs of getting big ships up small rivers. Eg Europort.
Seasonal winds also help. If the prevailing wind cycle enables ships to get easily sail up or down the river by waiting a few days for the winds to change.
It seems to me flooding potential and tropical revolving storm frequency would also play a big factor.
Wow fascinating. Where can I read more?
Big History (look up on line) at Renaissance Society, learning in retirement at CSU, Sacramento.
FYI, some of your articles would be just great in Big History and for Kurgesagt videos. I love your stuff & will include a link in the presentation when finished. Thanks so much!
Absolutely fantastic article - thank you
I’m glad to hear!
Great article! Are you interested in speaking via Zoom to the CSUS Renaissance Society (lifelong learning for the older adult) on a Monday at 10 to 11:30 am between Feb. 13 to May 1? This is the type of topic we like to learn about.
Hi Ranny. I love this type of stuff unfortunately I am tapped out.
Would it be Ok with you if I were to copy and paste your material into some pptx presentations and present them to our group in the next few semesters? Each would be about a hour long, maybe 3-4 presentations following your articles. You would be given credit for the information, of course.
Go for it!
What group is this?
Oh, this post reminded me so much of Parag Khanna's Connectography (fun book) about the resilience of cities and also the connectivity and infrastructure plays a key role in its development and survivability. Fun read :)
Good to hear. I love Parag. never read connectography though. Sounds like it would be a good read!
A great post. I have few observations.
The Growth is also linked to the supply and demand side. e.g Greece and Rome were citadels of trade that has many references in South asian literature. But once their supply side went down due territorial expansionist adventures, the demand side fell and they lost their importance.
While the navigation did play a major part, I think it is the ability to transform or sustain its position what makes cities ticking long. eg Kolkatta in India, an oce major port and centre, lost its vibrancy post shifting of the capital to Delhi. But the decay was accelerated by the Industrial revolution, which the city never catered to.
Thirdly, in the present context, the cosmopolitanism and acceptance of multi-cultural ethnicity plays a significant role and this is where NYC or Mumbai or London or Dubai scores and to a lesser extent singapore too. Paris is the opposite and so it is likely one see its diminishing staus if one removes the tourism part.
Enjoyed reading it. keep us engaged more. thanks
Not sure I understand the supply and demand part?
By way of e.g, Spices were the favoured commodity for the middle east and afar in Greece and Rome in ancient times. So the demand in turn created the fastest supply route to be discovered and the supply side through the ports of Surat, Kochi, Poompuhar as ports of call being closest to the production centres (Supply side)
Once the land route via Syria, Iraq and Iran was discovered, the trading centres shifted, thereby these port cities lost their prominence.
All port cities lose their preeminence, if either of the supply or demand linkages or in some case both is disrupted in some form that it became difficult to recover thereby losing the once glory days.
Interesting & insightful.
Seems like it might be true in the small as well as the large, i.e. there must also be some very old spots that never grew to mega-cities, but nevertheless stayed around and were more or less stable. I would guess that a lot of these were somehow dependent on the major cities - centers of religion like Chartres in France, Hamar in Norway, Machu Picchu in Peru - but maybe not always?
Also would be interesting to focus on why some of the big cities fell into decline - because that has certainly happened as well - Palmyra in Mesopotamia, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in India, etcetera. I'm sure that's been written about extensively too, but it is the other side of the coin to the seemingly everlasting nature of many of the places you write of.
As another commenter pointed out, climate change has the scope to dramatically alter the situation.
The little I know about the Harappa and old Mesopotamian civilizations that disappeared points indeed at climate change. The cities became too dry, or the rivers moved to flow somewhere else, and the cities disappeared.
The other cases you mention sound super interesting. I’d be curious indeed to know more about Chartres, Hamar, or Machu Picchu. Do you know anything about them?
Unfortunately not enough to be scholarly ! Only from consulting the Oracle (aka Wikipedia), being a tourist, literature references, and being able to google with the best of them :)
The more I think about it though, especially from literature references (books either from classical times or about them, or both, mostly European history), there are actually quite a lot of very old places around today that never became big cities, but managed to retain some of their old magic or whatever you want to call it.
I guess the big question is to what extent they existed and exist independently of the big cities, or if they are generally dependent. I would guess the latter, but I don't really know.
Oh you will love the upcoming articles in the series!
You have not mentioned the Gorilla in the room of climate change
The drying of lakes and rivers with loss of transport abilities agriculture productivity The rise of Sea level on costal areas with intrusion of salt into fresh ground water
Heat related effects on workers and maintenance personnel as well as warriors
You began with after the ice age …
Like to hear your thoughts
Yeah I will cover it in a future article. A couple of thoughts:
- understand the past to predict the future. I’m focused on understanding the past in this article.
- climate change won’t change these forces. It might just change the places that benefit from them
- tech evolution is faster than climate change. I believe society will change faster than climate change, and even then, climate change is now unlikely to cause the major fears we had (Bangladesh disappearing under the sea and the like). So it is more urgent and important to understand how TECH will change these forces, rather than climate.
Does this make sense?
Tech can help in adaption to climate alteration in areas that can afford the tech. But can countries that are already underdeveloped and underfunded adapt ? Half of Pakistan was under flood conditions.
Island nations coral reefs fish stocks etc
Lots of tech challenges will need funding and I think that will mean adaption to the forces rather than reversing them
In the USA we have not even funded repair and replacement of our aging current infrastructure yet.
I agree with your historical presentation but less confident in tech
Culture beats strategy in many cases
I meant that tech will influence CITIES faster and more intensely than the other way around.
Since we’re on the topic, I also think tech will do something similar for climate change, but I acknowledge this needs proper backing
A great article Tomas Pueyo, without a doubt it is a pleasure to read your writings, you see them from a more analytical perspective and fully broken down what it does for me, have a clearer understanding and easier to understand. A big hug from Argentina.
Gracias!
What mapping software do you use to get those cool topographic maps?
It’s all very manual! I just take pics and edit on top of them!
oh well it looks amazing!!
That’s kind, thank you!