urbanism

Examples of urbanism in the following topics:

• Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization

  • The Indus River Valley Civilization (IVC) contained urban centers with well-conceived and organized infrastructure, architecture, and systems of governance.
  • By 2600 BCE, the small Early Harappan communities had become large urban centers.
  • The quality of urban planning suggests efficient municipal governments that placed a high priority on hygiene or religious ritual.
  • Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, and the recently, partially-excavated Rakhigarhi demonstrate the world's first known urban sanitation systems.
  • The second theory posits that there was no single ruler, but a number of them representing each of the urban centers, including Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and other communities.

• The Caral Civilization

  • This peaceful, urban center yielded several major discoveries, including a method of keeping records known as quipu.
  • The urban complex of Caral takes up more than 150 acres, and holds plazas, dwellings, and a 28-meters-high temple.
  • Its urban plan was used by Andean civilizations for the next four thousand years.

• Archaic Greece

  • The Archaic Period saw the increasing urbanization of Greek communities and the development of the concept of the polis.
  • The Archaic period saw significant urbanization and the development of the concept of the polis as it was used in classical Greece.
  • The process of urbanization known as “synoecism”, or the amalgamation of several small settlements into a single urban center, took place in much of Greece during the eighth century.

• The Crusades

  • In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks.
  • Urban responded favorably, perhaps hoping to heal the Great Schism of forty years earlier, and to reunite the Church under papal primacy by helping the eastern churches in their time of need.
  • Alexios and Urban had previously been in close contact in 1089 and later, and had openly discussed the prospect of the (re)union of the Christian church.
  • In July 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit men for the expedition.
  • Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, where he gave speeches in favor of a Crusade.

• The Fourth Crusade

  • The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in 1095 sermons by Pope Urban II.
  • Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, who needed reinforcements for his conflict with westward-migrating Turks in Anatolia.
  • One of Urban's main aims was to guarantee pilgrims access to the holy sites in the Holy Land that were under Muslim control.
  • Regardless of the motivation, the response to Urban's preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later crusades.
  • According to Benedict of Peterborough, Pope Urban III died of deep sadness on October 19, 1187, upon hearing news of the defeat.

• The Western Schism

  • Urban VI, born Bartolomeo Prignano, the Archbishop of Bari, was elected.
  • Urban had been a respected administrator in the papal chancery at Avignon, but as pope he proved suspicious, reformist, and prone to violent outbursts of temper.
  • Many of the cardinals who had elected him soon regretted their decision; the majority removed themselves from Rome to Anagni, where, even though Urban was still reigning, they elected Robert of Geneva as a rival pope on September 20, 1378.

• Italian Trade Cities

  • While Roman, urban, republican sensibilities persisted, there were many movements and changes afoot.
  • Substantial migration from country to city (in Italy the rate of urbanization reached 20%, making it the most urbanized society in the world at that time)

• The Indus River Valley Civilization

  • The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large, non-residential buildings.
  • Mohenjo-daro is thought to have been built in the 26th century BCE and became not only the largest city of the Indus Valley Civilization but one of the world’s earliest, major urban centers.
  • Located west of the Indus River in the Larkana District, Mohenjo-daro was one of the most sophisticated cities of the period, with sophisticated engineering and urban planning.

• Teotihuacan

  • Its urban grid is aligned to precisely 15.5º east of North.
  • Pecked-cross circles throughout the city and in the surrounding regions indicate how the people managed to maintain the urban grid over long distances.

• Crisis and Fragmentation

  • At the Council of Piacenza in 1095, envoys from Alexios spoke to Pope Urban II about the suffering of the Christians of the East, and underscored that without help from the West they would continue to suffer under Muslim rule.
  • Urban saw Alexios' request as a dual opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the Eastern Orthodox Churches with the Roman Catholic Church under his rule.
  • On 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II called together the Council of Clermont, and urged all those present to take up arms under the sign of the Cross and launch an armed pilgrimage to recover Jerusalem and the East from the Muslims.