CityReads│How Geography Determined the City Origin?
How Geography Determined the Origins of European City System?
This paper empirically disentangles the different roles of geography in shaping the European city system over the period 800-1800. First nature geography was the dominant determinant of city location during the early formative stages of the European city system. Only in the later centuries does second nature geography become an important positive determinant of city location.
Maarten Bosker, Eltjo Buringh, City seeds: Geography and the origins of the European city system, Journal of Urban Economics, Available online 11 September 2015, ISSN 0094-1190, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2015.09.003.
Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119015000613
Picture source: http://blogs.ft.com/photo-diary/2014/10/europe-seen-from-space/
Today the European landscape is dotted with cities. Historically this was not always the case. In the early medieval period Europe only knew a handful of cities. Following the eclipse of the Roman empire, cities in Europe withered. Over the next millennium, Europe witnessed an unprecedented revival of urban activity and the establishment of cities on a scale not seen before. Figure 1 and A1 shows that whereas in 800 we only find a few scattered cities in mainly Spain, France, Germany and Italy, in 1800 they can be found all over the continent.
The importance of cities in the development process makes understanding their origins of great interest. Cities do not develop everywhere. The question ‘why they form in particular locations, and not, or only much later, in others that often appear equally viable city sites’ lies at the heart of this paper. This paper empirically uncovers the role(s) of geography, widely viewed as the most important determinant of a location’s urban chances, in ‘sowing the seeds’ of the European city system.
Geography as Determinant of a Location’s Urban Chances
Many authors, in both the narrative urban (economic) history , the economic geography , or the more recent urban economic and geographical economics literature stress two important, but very different, roles for geography in the origins of an urban system.
The first is in determining a location’s physical, or 1 st nature geography, characteristics. These determine a location’s agricultural potential, its transportation possibilities and its defensive advantages, that all have been noted as important city seeds.
The second stresses the importance of a location’s position relative to the rest of the (potential) urban system, its 2nd nature geography, for its urban prospects. For example, some locations may be well suited for urban development based on their own characteristics, but “situated too far from the great highways of communication, […] they remained sterile, like seed fallen upon stony ground.”
The debate on the relevance of the two different roles of geography in determining cities’ origins has up to now largely taken place without using any empirical evidence.
According to Economic geography, trade costs are vital to a city given that it relies entirely on exchange with its hinterland to meet its own demand for agricultural produce. When the cost of transporting these agricultural goods are very high, this results in the so-called tyranny of distance and cities only form in locations offering good 1st nature geography conditions. However, when trade costs diminish due to e.g. improvements in transportation technology or lower trade barriers. The tyranny of distance is alleviated and the (relative) importance of 1st nature geography diminishes.
Even with a diminishing importance of 1st nature geography, not all locations become equally viable future city sites. This crucially depends on their 2nd nature geography characteristics. “no city is ever an island existing in and of itself”. Already-existing cities influence the urban chances of their surroundings. Therefore, to answer the where-do-cities-form question, we should treat the existing city locations as endogenous variables.
Figure 2 illustrates how an already existing city affects the urban chances of other locations. It depicts so-called market potential curves. Whenever a location’s market potential exceeds 1, it is in principle a viable new city location. Whether or not this is the case depends first and foremost on a location’s distance to the already existing urban center. Locations too close to an already existing city face too strong competition with that city. On the other hand, locations too far from an already existing city can not take full advantage of (cheap) trading possibilities with the already existing city. This leaves locations at medium range from existing cities as preferred new city locations.
The debate on the relevance of the two different roles of geography in determining cities’ origins has up to now largely taken place without using any empirical evidence. Instead, it relies on historical narratives, largely descriptive accounts of European urbanization, and detailed case studies looking at one particular city or region only.
This paper fills this gap. Using a large, and for a substantial part newly collected, data set on (potential) city locations in Europe over the period 800 – 1800, we empirically uncover the (relative) importance of 1st and 2nd nature geography in determining city location.
Data and Descriptives
We focus in turn on our choice of potential city locations, the city-definition that we employ, the 1st and 2nd nature geography variables we are considering, and, briefly, some additional non-geography related control variables that we include in several robustness checks.
This paper define a city as an agglomeration of at least 5,000 inhabitants. This is also because the margin of error for the number of people living in cities 2,000 – 5,000 people is much greater than that for the number living in cities of more than 5,000 people. And it is also more operational.
In order to empirically study the rise of cities in Europe, the first important choice to make is what locations to consider as potential city locations. They are based on fulfilling one of the following two criteria. The first group of potential city locations comprises all locations documented in Bairoch et al. (1988). This gives us a total of 1,588 potential city locations. The second base on history literature and found 456 (arch)bishoprics in 600. This is in consider that Church played an important role in maintaining some urban continuity following the collapse of the Roman urban system in Europe during the early Middle Ages. On the basis of our two main selection criteria, we obtain a total number of 1,784 potential city locations (those depicted in Figure 3).
To capture a location’s 1st nature geography , we use a set of dummy variables that indicate:
Transportation possibility: whether or not it has direct access to the sea, to a navigable waterway, or to the former Roman road network.
Accessibility: elevation and ruggedness
Agricultural conditions: climatic conditions and soil quality.
A novel way is proposed to uncover the effect(s) of 2nd nature geography, we first draw three concentric circles around each potential city location at ever further distance. Next, we construct three dummy variables that indicate whether or not we find at least one already existing urban centre within each of the three constructed distance bands. Moroever, to capture possible competition effects between different potential city locations, we also create three dummy variables that indicate whether or not we find at least one other potential city location within each of the distance bands. As showed in figure 4.
This study also includes some other non-geography related variables. These concern the political, religious and educational characteristics of a location. We know for each location in each century whether or not it was home to an archbishop, whether or not it was the capital of a large political entity, and whether it had a university or not.
Results
The empirical model results showed that:
1st nature geography is very important in determining a location’s urban chances. Especially preferential location for river-based transportation substantially increases a location’s probability to become a city. Location at (a hub of) overland transport routes does not carry such positive effects. Favorable location in terms of agricultural possibilities also contributes positively to a location’s urban chances, but especially so at the beginning of our sample period (a reflection of both gradually improving agricultural production techniques as well as better possibilities to import food grown on farther fields). Finally, we find that better accessible places, located in less rugged terrain, do have better urban chances.
2nd nature geography is also important, but to a lesser extent. What is very interesting however, is that our flexible modelling strategy uncovers almost the exact prediction made by new economic geography theory. Locations at medium range (20-100km) from already existing cities have significantly better urban chances. They have about a 1 ppt higher probability to become a city than locations located closer to or further away from other already existing urban centres. On the contrary, competition with other potential city locations is fiercest at close range. Only a competitor within the nearest 20km significantly diminishes a location’s urban chances by about 1.5 ppt.
Conclusion
This paper empirically disentangles the different roles of geography in determining the location of European cities. Results shows that hold up to a wide-variety of robustness checks, show that both 1st and 2nd nature geography played an important role in sowing the seeds of European cities, but very differently so. Most importantly, we find that their (relative) importance changes substantially over the centuries.
First nature geography is the dominant geographical force during the early stages of the formation of the European city system. Locations that are favourably located for water- or land-based transportation, as well as those with excellent agricultural possibilities and good accessibility, have the best urban chances during the Middle Ages. But, this dominance of 1st nature geography gradually decreases over the centuries. Only favourable location for water-based transportation remains an important determinant of city location during the later centuries. Combined with the decreasing importance of location at a hub of overland trade routes, this reflects the increasing importance of water- over land-based transportation. Also, a location’s accessibility and the agricultural potential of its immediate hinterland loose their significance as a city seed during the later centuries. The latter a reflection of both improved agricultural production techniques as well as better (and cheaper) possibilities to transport food over ever larger distances.
Second nature geography instead gains in importance over the centuries. In the earlier centuries of our sample we only find evidence of (negative) competition effects with a limited spatial scope: being located too close to an already existing city, or to another competitor potential city location, decreases a location’s own urban chances. By contrast, in the later centuries we start to find strong empirical evidence of a positive effect of being located at medium distance from an already existing city. This finding is consistent with predictions from economic geography theory. With trade costs falling, the advantages of co-locating in cities increasingly outweighing its disadvantages, and overall population increasing due to improvements in agricultural productivity, locations at medium distance from existing cities become preferred city locations. They combine the advantage of cheaper trade with existing cities compared to locations at further distance, with that of weaker competition with existing cities compared to locations at closer distance.
Overall, first nature geography was an especially important determinant of city location during the early stages of the formation of the European city system. Only from about the seventeenth century onwards, and as a result of falling trade costs and increasing net benefits of co-location, does 2nd nature geography become an important positive determinant of city location.
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