ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author proposes two interlocking explanatory theories: the long waves of city development and the ongoing process that he has termed "city dynamics". The model the author wish to elaborate holds, he believes, for most of city development since the emergence of Florence during the Renaissance of the early fifteenth century. Each individual city, moreover, is created in a unique place, that is to say a particular environment with individual topographical and fertility characteristics. With the passage of time, city economic activities can be transplanted into new locations within the city region, opening up new locations to increases in prosperity and value. When walled cities could no longer guarantee protection, markets grew up outside of the city walls, partly to avoid taxes, or else in completely new locations. Over time a strong and or growing city economy develops the skills and the capacity to replace or substitute imports and make these products locally.
