City is densely populated area where residential, commercial and industrial areas are grouped. The meaning of city (urban area, urban environment) is opposed to that of countryside (rural area). City is the seat of the municipality (each autonomous administrative division within a State) the area where there is a concentration of inhabitants.
Each state is made up of a set of cities, one of which is the state capital as it houses the administrative headquarters and is the main center of activities.
A city is characterized by a particular lifestyle of its inhabitants, by urbanization (infrastructure, organization, transport services etc), by the concentration of economic activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors etc. The primary activities (agriculture, livestock) are carried out in rural areas.
A city consists of a population core characterized by a wide space where they occur social, cultural and economic relations and phenomena. There are several city models, with big differences between them, and for this reason it is difficult to arrive at a concrete definition for each of these models.
Several authors claim that the birth of cities occurred when Man stopped being a hunter-gatherer and discovered agriculture. Agriculture allowed man to have an abundance of food, which contributed to sedentary lifestyle. Thus, in the valley of the Nile, the Indus and Mesopotamia the first large urban centers emerged, such as Nineveh, Ur, Thebes. Later, the Greek and Roman civilization, created great cities, and created some basic concepts of urbanism.
The concept of city is very often used in conjunction with other terms, for example:
- Historical city: it is a preserved part of the city where the oldest buildings and monuments are located;
- University City: is a set of buildings for study, sport and leisure, residence and other services for students;
- digital city: means the implementation of different technological resources, such as distributed wireless internet free of charge in various parts of the city, to promote the social and economic development of a community.
