A millennium ago Europe began its journey towards becoming Urban. In fact, possibly half of Europe’s population, today, live in massive towns or large sets, although two or three out of ten experience a life that could only be called urbanized.
Having found most of the essential towns in Europe today in 1300, we are required to study the advancement of urban Europe over the years to look back into it very thoroughly and lengthily.
Separated cities have had lengthy and lavish histories during past times.
For example, Vienna, a city located at an important crossing point in Danube which is Europe’s second longest river, had become a strengthened town and one of the important markets for merchants coming from southern and eastern Europe during the twelfth century.
The city also grew in its political importance thanks to its residence near the Babenberg and Habsburg families.
By the 18th century, Vienna has become the capital of a multicultural empire, a remarkable city of baroque buildings, parks, and suburbs.
During the time where the saga of Vienna is notably vivid and dramatic, each of Europe’s cities has its own unique and extraordinary history.
Urban histories are vital for the histories of the economic, social, and political systems of which they are a part of. Therefore, one has to study urbanization to be able to study cities effectively.
The study of urbanization leads geographers to analyse the dynamic distribution of populations, productions, and networks of exchange.
Scholars studying cities did so through covering several points. One of them focuses on the beginning. How and why did cities originate, and what characterized their early development?
Most answers are often theoretical in regard of the lack of written documents in ancient cities, and archaeologists’ digs reveal only a fragment of the material that is essential in order to re-establish the expansion of a complex community.
A second major interest overseeing the study of urbanization is in the activities situated in cities, specifically those economic and demographic mechanism that portrays urban populations. For many scholars, these topics help to differentiate some of the most extraordinary and extensively encountered qualities of European cities in the past, and they proportionately give them much significance.
A third major interest of urban scholarship arises from awareness of the social consequences of urban life. The identification that cities alter from rural communities has formed an immense literature tracing of psychological and cultural effects of urban living. Either they picture cities in negative, positive, or mixed terms, analysts generally agree on the importance of cities in shaping the mental and life-styles of their inhabitants.
