ABSTRACT
Chapters 2 and 3 considered the question of urban origins and traced the patterns and processes involved in the development of early cities. This perspective focused upon urban settlements as discrete elements in geographical and societal space. However, as individual cities became less localized in their impact and acquired functions of trade, commerce, industry and communications, urban interdependence increased and networks of towns forming an urban system became functional realities. Throughout the nineteenth century, the urban system of western societies became functionally and formally more complex; population in general, and urban population in particular, was increasing dramatically. Individual cities became functionally more integrated into the wider urban system and through increased physical extension created an integrated and larger economic and social system at the intraurban scale; both systems of cities’ and the ‘city as a system’ became accurate descriptions of urban development.
