Cities of Europe

Political-administrative theory (Wright, Renoir) approaches the concept of a European cities from a legal point of view and recognizes “a city is a settlement with a certain territory that has been given special administrative rights by the state power or a legal and taxable position different from the village”. The main point in the formation of the city in this theory is the corresponding act of state power.

The mentioned moment really delimits any official “city” from the village in a clear and indisputable way: of course, governments of all ages had at their disposal registry lists of both cities and villages, and applied to cities, unlike the village, these or those rules and special administrative and tax policy. However, the theory under consideration has the serious drawback that it makes this distinction purely formally and, so to speak, mechanically. For us, it is not so much the fact of state classification of the existing settlements that matters, but an understanding of the essential features of the settlement for which it is carried out. Meanwhile, it is known that these signs were far from homogeneous in different cases: the authorities recognized the settlement as a city either on the basis of “humanity”, or on strategic, political, financial, religious and even purely random reasons, such as, for example, due to the choice of residence or an influential administrator, and in pre-revolutionary Russia - sometimes as a result of petitions, patronage, and even a bribe. The well-known geographer V. Semenov-Tian-Shansky in his work “City and Village in European Russia” thoroughly found out on what precarious grounds the official terms “city” and “village” were built and how many public interests suffered from this. Only since 1924, in connection with the new law on urban and rural settlements and towns and with the district reform, the foundation was laid for the elimination of many obvious inconsistencies in this regard.

Conscious of the noted drawback of the previous point of view, 3) -social theory adds to the formal-political moment a more significant moment - the internal social structure of the city. According to this theory, which was successfully formulated in the work of N.P. Antsiferov, "The city is a place adapted for a hostel of a social group of a complex nature, internally differentiated and received a certain legal form." This theory has the advantage that it puts forward not only a formal, but also a social sign, which is truly characteristic of most modern cities.

However, it cannot always be applied even to the modern era, since in our time there are cities predominantly inhabited by people of not only one class, but also of one profession, and on the other hand, villages with a very differentiated composition of the population are observed. In general, the degree of differentiation of the population, as statistics show, can by no means always serve as a reliable criterion for distinguishing between a city and a village.

Although this definition puts forward a very important and influential feature of a city, which generally distinguishes a huge mass of cities of various types from rural settlements and really explains many of the features of a municipal economy, it cannot satisfy us for two reasons. Firstly, quantitative, i.e. external, the sign does not give a real idea of ​​the essence of the city, and, secondly, it alone can not always establish the real line between the city and the village. The official practice of various states in this regard is not homogeneous. German statistics consider any settlement of over 2,000 inhabitants to be a city; in France, every center of an administrative district is recognized as a city, regardless of population and, in addition, any settlement of more than 5,000 inhabitants, regardless of its administrative significance; in the United States, a settlement of over 8,000 inhabitants is already considered to be a city; in Russia, more than 12,000 inhabitants, and in pre-revolutionary Russia, any settlement governed by its urban location, regardless of population, was recognized as a city, and, on the one hand, there were cities with a population of less than 1,000 inhabitants and on the other (until 1910) - villages, towns, mine estates with a population exceeding 10 thousand inhabitants. Similar examples indicating the precariousness of a quantitative attribute ..

There are settlements on our planet, the history of which has more than one millennium. The walls of these cities remember many rulers and wars of conquest. Many of them have retained their original appearance to the present day and are still inhabited by people. Travelers from around the world seek to get here to touch the most ancient monuments with their own hands. Most of these cities are located in the countries of the Middle East, Egypt and in the territory of modern Greece, since the first civilizations arose on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the majestic rivers Tiger, Euphrates and Nile.

Cities of Europe. The ancient Lebanese city of Byblos is now known under a different name - Jebel. It is located on the Mediterranean coast, 32 km from Beirut, the modern capital of Lebanon. Now about 20 thousand people live in it. This ancient Phoenician city was founded in the 4th millennium BC and was once considered one of the largest port cities in the Mediterranean. Its inhabitants worshiped the omnipotent Phoenician deity Baal - the supreme god of the Sun. The monuments of the Phoenician writing have not been deciphered to this day, since the proto-biblical writing was extremely unique.

Hearing about the name of the city, ignorant people will think that it is connected with the Christian Bible and will be wrong. There are 2 versions of the origin of the name of the city. According to the first version, it came from the name of the girl Biblis, in love with her sibling. To prevent incest, the girl’s brother, Kavn, left the city, and his sister died of grief. From her tears a source formed that nourished the city. The second version says that the ancient Greeks called Byblos the papyrus produced in the city. By the way, before becoming a Bible, the city bore another name - Gibal.

The Syrian city of Aleppo began to count its history from 4300 BC. He remembers the crusades of European knights and the invasion of the Mongols, who could not bring the inhabitants of the ancient city to their knees. Before the outbreak of hostilities of the 21st century in Syria, Aleppo was one of the most densely populated cities in the country - more than 4 million inhabitants, many of whom were forced to become refugees, lived in it.

The ancient Iranian city of Susa was founded in 4200 BC, and today it is known as Shush. In different centuries it was inhabited by Assyrians and Persians, and during the years of belonging to the Elamite empire, Susa was its capital. Modern Shush is inhabited by almost 65 thousand people. Surprisingly, the main attraction of the city is considered to be a fortress of French origin dating from “only” the 19th century.

Bulgarian Plovdiv by its degree of antiquity has bypassed Rome and Athens. In the 4th millennium BC, he bore the majestic name of Eumolpiad, and after the capture of the legendary Alexander the Great by his father, Philip, he was called Philippopolis. Over the long years of its existence, the city became part of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Due to its rich cultural heritage, modern Plovdiv is known as the second most important, after Sofia, cultural center of Bulgaria.

The age of the Egyptian El Fayyum totals more than 6 thousand years. It was founded on the banks of the Nile by the ancient Egyptians and was called Shedit. The Greeks called the city Crocodilopolis, for the commitment of local residents to the god Sebek, whose head was like a crocodile. At that time, the crocodile was revered as a sacred animal. Today El Fayyum attracts tourists with ancient funeral portraits, most of them are exhibited in many famous museums around the world.

The Lebanese capital Beirut was founded 5 thousand years ago by the ancient Phoenicians. During the reign of the Roman Empire, the city gained the greatest fame. It was here that the world's first law school was opened. In modern Beirut, adherents of Islam, Christianity and Judaism peacefully coexist.

What happens if such an increase was given? Many regions with a high population density will be flooded; Some areas of the Netherlands, India and Bangladesh are just three examples of potential victims of this massive flood. If, on the other hand, the sea level rises two meters, the scale of the disaster will be much larger, so much so that it will turn New York, Miami, Alexandria and Bombay, among other things, into the new Venice, which will lead to terrible consequences on the plane. economic and with a balance of more than 250 million homeless people who can no longer return to their own people, for which they inevitably need to be resettled.

Given these frightening data, an architect of Franco-Belgian descent named Vincent Callebau created a floating city called Lilipad, which promises to be clean energy and self-sufficient. One of its goals is to expand the territory of coastal countries, a task that some artificial archipelagos are currently performing; on the other hand, it will serve as a new home for millions of climate refugees.

Each Lilypad will be able to accommodate more than 50 thousand people and will be built around a flooded lake, which will be supplied with rainwater. This would lead to the creation of private homes, offices and even shopping centers; all aboard the island, the course of which will be determined by the wind and sea currents.

On the other hand, the three ports will keep in touch with the rest of the world, and the gardens and pendant gardens that cover it will allow food to be grown, providing its inhabitants with sufficient resources to spend their whole lives there.

Finally, its name comes from the English language and refers to water lilies, which also have an appearance, the size of which is 250 times larger.