Cities of France

French cities can be explored endlessly without being saturated with their beauty, unique atmosphere and absolutely stunning architecture that delights even the most indifferent. Paris, it seems, will never get bored, Nice and Cannes will always attract lovers of chic, and Strasbourg and Reims will amaze you with the number of historical sites included in the UNESCO list.

But in France there are still charming little communes where the streets are buried in flowers, the owners of the restaurants greet guests as relatives, the stone squares still remember the rulers of the Carolingian dynasty, people still live in the houses of the 14th century. I can’t even believe that such places are not the scenery for any historical film.

Paris

The incomparable and grandiose capital of France has always attracted tourists from all over the world. This is a real treasury of world culture: the Louvre, Notre-Dame-de-Paris, the Center Pompidou, the Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles - these sights are heard by every traveler. And even huge queues of people eager to touch Parisian chic do not stop people who come to visit this city every year in millions.

Lyon

A city of museums, gourmet restaurants, green parks and charming promenades. Many architectural objects located in the historical center are listed by UNESCO, which by itself speaks of their historical and cultural value. Also in Lyon, party-goers and tourists who don’t think of a good vacation without quality shopping will like it: there are many entertainment venues and shops with quality products in the city.

Nice

Holidays on the Cote d'Azur have long been associated with luxury, impeccable service and spending a huge amount of money, which not all travelers can afford. That is why the rich and famous prefer to come here. Nice is one of the region’s most popular resorts, its unofficial capital and the place where important social events take place. It is often called the aristocratic city, implying, of course, the local public.

Chamonix Mont Blanc

Located in the picturesque Alps, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is a first-class ski resort, whose history began back in the 19th century, when the first tourists arrived here. By the middle of the 20th century, local residents abandoned traditional agriculture and reoriented themselves to the tourism sector. In Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, there are more than 100 tracks of different difficulty levels and excellent conditions for different types of winter sports.

Monte Carlo

The famous resort center located in the Principality of Monaco. Known for its casino with luxurious interiors, a chic harbor, where the world's most expensive ships belonging to celebrities and powers of the world, as well as an incredible number of cars of the rarest and exclusive brands moor. In a word, Monte Carlo is a territory of success, luxury and big money.

Strasbourg

The completely German name of the city confuses those tourists who are not particularly strong in geography. But Strasbourg belongs to France, being at the same time one of the most picturesque places in the country. Two cultures, two ways of life and thinking were mixed here. Even UNESCO recognized it as a world heritage of mankind. And Strasbourg is an important administrative center: the European Parliament and the Council of Europe sit here.

Bordeaux

The history of Bordeaux began in the 1st century BC, in the era of the Roman Empire, it was the center of the province of Aquitaine Gaul, in the Middle Ages for some time belonged to England. For a long time, winemaking has been developing in Bordeaux - the city is famous for its excellent drinks and fans around the world. About 3 million tourists visit it annually; cruise ships stopping at the Garonne from the Atlantic Ocean stop here.

Marseilles

The classic port city of the Mediterranean is colorful and noisy. He is known to the Russian tourist largely thanks to the adventure novels of the French classics. People come to Marseille to sunbathe on the beaches, get acquainted with its priceless architectural heritage, cruise along the coast and admire the picturesque bowers, as well as If Castle, the place where Edmond Dantes (Count of Monte Cristo) is imprisoned.

Aix-en-Provence

An old Provencal town with palaces of the 17th-18th centuries, built in the style of luxurious Italian baroque. It is famous throughout Europe for its flea markets where you can buy unique antiques. Collectors from all over the world come here to pick up another masterpiece for their private collections. Tourists will be primarily interested in the Old Town, the plane-tree Mirabeau Boulevard and small squares decorated with copies of Rubens' paintings.

Cannes

In the XIX century, Cannes from an unremarkable fishing village turned into a fashionable resort of the Cote d'Azur. The first tourists appreciated the magnificent climate, comfortable beaches and picturesque panoramas of the bay. Frequent guests of Cannes at that time were Russian and English aristocrats. After the end of World War II, the city gained well-deserved fame thanks to the Cannes Film Festival, which is held here every year.

Toulouse

An original and vibrant city in the south of France, where the traditions of different peoples mixed. The nickname “Pink City” is firmly entrenched in Toulouse thanks to the red brick from which the houses of the historical center are built. Many buildings were intentionally erected in the pseudo-Romanesque style in order to maintain the continuity of eras. Toulouse is also an important scientific and industrial center of the country.

La rochelle

The city was founded in the X century, and a century later it turned into an important port controlled by the Knights of the Knights Templar. La Rochelle is mentioned in the novel The Three Musketeers. Tourists will need at least a week to see all the sights: medieval architecture and modern (sometimes even obscure) collections in museums are presented here. Perhaps the most famous place in the vicinity of La Rochelle is the legendary Boyard Fort, where they filmed a popular television show. Full list of the cities of France must-see.

The most convincing definition-municipal theory is undoubtedly 5) -economic theory, which seeks to substantiate the concept of the city not on external, formal or abstract-social grounds, but on a strictly scientific basis. Indeed, although the urban dormitory is primarily a social phenomenon, the latter should be approached with economic analysis. It is known that people usually choose a place of residence and a way of life that allows them to fight for their material existence in the most advantageous way with this technique. The very possibility of densely settling in a relatively small territory depends on the existing conditions of production and exchange, and in general the “problem of the city” in all its parts is closely connected with economic relations, without which it cannot be resolved. In particular, the methodological difficulty of the definition problem is reduced to the ability to put forward the economic sign that would be most convenient for characterizing the city as a social phenomenon.

In economic literature, the definition is very widespread, according to which “a city is a settlement of people practicing the intensive division of labor”. However, firstly, cities existed under subsistence farming; secondly, in many modern industrial villages, the division of labor can be recognized as intense, and finally, the very boundary between the intensive and non-intensive division of labor has not been established, so that the distinction between the city and the rural settlement remains unclear.

Max Weber and his followers put forward a very interesting economic sign, arguing that "the city is such a settlement, the land ownership of which is regulated by a special basis of profitability, namely home ownership, in which the rest of the land is only an appendage."

Werner Sombart is much closer to reality when he says that “the city is a large settlement of people that uses for its maintenance the works of other people's agricultural labor”. It correctly emphasizes the isolation of the vast majority of cities from agriculture, as a typical rural activity. However, there are significant flaws in the definition of Sombart. Firstly, it is built on a purely negative point and does not positively indicate the characteristic types of labor of the urban population. Secondly, being true for medieval craft and trading cities and for typical modern cities, it does not at all cover the cities of those eras and countries that lived in subsistence farming, with a little developed exchange and an insignificant division of labor. In particular, it is not applicable to the Russian so-called “agricultural” cities, which, as statistics show, continue to be maintained at the expense of “intracity” agriculture. Finally, according to Sombart’s definition, many large holiday villages with their temporary, but purely “consuming” populations will also be included in the category of cities.

M. Kovalevsky is even closer to the goal when, contrasting two worlds, urban and rural, he characterizes “The city as a settlement with a strong differentiation of occupations, mainly industrial, commercial and credit,” but this characteristic is also incorrect and too narrow, since it claims to apply to all cities, starting with Babylon.

If we carefully look at the cited definitions, we will see that their failures stemmed mainly from the fact that the researchers, trying to find real signs for the simultaneous characterization of cities of all types, countries and eras, were essentially setting an impossible goal. A uniform social and economic law for all ages, as Karl Marx and his like-minded people convincingly found out, cannot exist. The city hostel, like any other social phenomenon, should be considered on the basis of the economy typical of this era. Therefore, those economists (Marx, Engels, Mehring, Bogdanov, Rozhkov) who correctly refuse to give a uniform definition for cities of all epochs and speak only of a typical populated center of a particular epoch most correctly act.

According to a similar definition by N. A. Rozhkov, “a city is a settlement whose inhabitants are engaged in either trade or manufacturing, which, moreover, is their main, main occupation, and not secondary fishing.” At the same time, Rozhkov makes a reservation that his definition cannot refer either to the ancient “fortress cities” or to those official “cities”, which, from a scientific and economic point of view, should be referred to as a village.

And so if we want to give a formal or, rather, nominal definition for a “nominal” or “legal” city and thereby explain and justify the most common word “city” for all cases, countries and eras, then, summarizing all that has been said, we can this can only be done in such a vague and essentially insignificant formula: City- is such a legally isolated settlement from the village, which is a more or less significant and prolonged concentration of people in a more or less limited territory.

This resolves the definition-municipal problem. It goes without saying that the theories and examples cited far from exhaust the richness of the definitive literature on this subject. Among the authors not touched by us, some more or less closely adjoin the stated views or combine them

2. GENESIS OF THE CITY

Even more disagreement in the scientific literature caused the problem of the genesis of the city - the origin and origin of the city. And here all attempts to justify the “law of the formation of the city”, which is the same for all eras and countries, failed. The theory of the emergence of a city by 1) - the individual will of its founder, 2) - the theory of a free contract, 3) - the theory of social protection (fortified, fenced or garrison point), 4) - the theory of the market, 5) - the theory of the natural development of rural settlements, - all they should be taken into account when explaining the genesis of the city in a particular era, but they are untenable and easily refuted when they are distributed to all epochs and cases.

The emergence of the first cities is lost in deep, prehistoric antiquity. However, it is clear that the city could not have arisen either in the era of primitive communism or in the era of the primitive clan community, since the primitive technique, the absence of settled agriculture, the ever-nomadic and robber life of the most ancient hordes did not allow a long crowd of people in one place. On the contrary, ancient feudal relations and despotic systems of the East already provide sufficient economic and political prerequisites for the formation of cities.

The most ancient human civilizations developed in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a little later - in the valleys of the Indus, Ganges and Yellow River. The economic basis of their existence was agriculture, which, in accordance with local environmental conditions, could not exist without the construction of significant irrigation systems.

PS The ancient Egyptian kingdom was formed in the XXX century. BC e. and existed until the XXIII century. BC e. Its capital was the city of Memphis, located near the place where the relatively narrow Nile Valley passes into a wide delta, i.e., near modern Cairo.

In the period of the Middle (XXI-XVIII centuries BC) and the New (XVI-XI centuries BC) Egyptian kingdoms, the capital was Thebes, located about 500 km upstream of the Nile from Memphis. The general planning principles and functions of this city remained the same as during the period of the ancient kingdom. First of all, it was the main administrative and religious center of Egypt, the most important buildings of which were attached to the Nile. Only instead of the pyramids, huge temple complexes were built here, including cave temples and tombs, which were also designed to suppress man. Moreover, from the point of view of the convenience of relations with other states of that time, Thebes was located much worse than Memphis, which became one of the main reasons for the slowdown in social development and the subsequent decline of Ancient Egypt.