Cities in Hindsight

Roey Sweet

Centre for Urban History

www.le.ac.uk

Cities in hindsight

• What is a city?• Cities perceived • Challenges and the response:

– Migration– Environment – Decline

Largest cities in Europe in 1700 and 1900City Population

(1000’s)City Population

Constantinople 700 London 6,480

London 550 Paris 3,330

Paris 530 Berlin 2,424

Naples 205 Vienna 1,662

Lisbon 188 St Petersburg 1,439

Amsterdam 172 Manchester 1,225

Rome 149 Birmingham 1,248

Venice 144 Moscow 1,120

Moscow 130 Glasgow 1,072

Milan 124 Liverpool 940

Piero della Francesca, The Ideal City (c. 1470)

Paul Sandby, ‘The Mackerel Seller’ and the ‘Stocking Vendor’ from the Cries of London (1760)

William Hogarth, Gin Lane and Beer Street (1751)

Gustave Doré ‘Over the city by railway’ by from London: A Pilgrimage (1872)

George Cruikshank Salus Populi Suprema Lex (1832)

J MW Turner, Venice (1840)