Abstract
I explore the ramifications of applying some recent research on cities, built on the work of Jane Jacobs, to early city development. A communications approach to ‘city ness’ is offered as a way of understanding early cities as qualitatively new social worlds enabling world-changing processes. Returning to Jacobs’ use of Çatalhöyük to push back the timing of the first cities, I review recent work on the site to support her thesis. In the process I also argue in favour of her controversial thesis of cities inventing agriculture using Sahlin’s ‘stone age economics’. Further, and going beyond Jacobs, I argue that states were also invented in cities and harness evidence for this in Mesopotamian studies. In both cases I provide generic conclusions that briefly indicate examples from other parts of the world.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 415-447 |
Journal | International Journal of Urban and Regional Research |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2012 |