Discontinuous Evolution of Urban Historical Forms

Abstract

Perhaps more than any other human institution the city reflects the tension between continuity and discontinuity in our social existence. It is simultaneously the vessel of continuity containing the deep structures of the past (symbolized by the longevity of many urban buildings, roads, and other infrastructure) as well as the staging-ground for most of the revolutionary upheavals of human history. This conflict is manifested in the above pair of quotations from Mumford (1961).

“It was in permanent containers that neolithic invention outshone all earlier cultures: so well that we are still using many of their methods, materials, and forms. The modern city itself for all its steel and glass, is still essentially an earth-bound Stone Age structure… With storage came continuity as well as a surplus to draw on in lean seasons. The safe setting aside ofunconsumed seeds for next year’s sowing was the first step toward capital accumulation.” Lewis Mumford, 1961 The City in History, p. 16

“As far as the present record stands, grain cultivation, the plow, the potter s wheel, the sailboat, the draw loom, copper metallurgy, abstract mathematics, exact astronomical observation, the calendar, writing and other modes of intelligible discourse in permanent form, all came into existence at roughly the same time, around 3000 B.C. give or take a few centuries. The most ancient urban remains now known, except Jericho, date from this period. This constituted a singular technological expansion of human power whose only parallel is the change that has taken place in our own time.” Lewis Mumford, ibid, p. 33