It’s easy to forget that there was a time that some of our planet’s largest cities didn’t exist. Every settlement, village, town, city and global metropolis started out from nothing. Some of these cities took thousands of years to build, some didn’t. And although a couple thousand years sounds like a long time, in the grand scheme of things, it’s no time at all.
If we look at the history of humans as a 24 hour clock, we discovered electricity after 11:59pm and the Iron Age started at 11:57pm. So when you consider that, and that every city we are going to look at in this article was built after those milestones, the relative speed at which they’ve grown is massive!
London
Founded by the Romans, London has grown into a truly global city and it is arguably, the centre of the world. Because of our global history, London is home to Greenwich Mean Time and is found in the centre of most world maps. Around 9 million people call London home and it is 1,572km2.
Before London, the land was occupied mostly of oak forest which would have been hunting grounds for the Celts and tribes here before the Romans.
New York
New York City is a global icon. The city is emblematic of America itself, embodying its lofty ideals. America is a very young country and it is believed the area that NYC is built on was first settled in 1100AD.
Before it was a city, NYC was on a giant sheet of ice roughly 13,000 years ago. It now has a very varied climate, reaching freezing temperatures in winter where snow is quite common, to scorching summers.
Venice
One of the more interesting before and afters for sure. Venice is a gorgeous, romantic city that’s steeped in history. It remains a massively popular tourist attraction. Known as a ‘floating city’, Venice is built over a lagoon and marshland. Over many hundreds of years, it has grown in stature and size to create the iconic and romantic capital we know it as today.
Seeing all that undisturbed marshland really puts the scale of that achievement into perspective.
Dubai
One of the most unbelievable before and after comparisons, where these other cities have had hundreds, if not thousands of years to grow and expand, Dubai was nothing but a fishing village until the 60s. In these 50-60 years, it has grown from nothing to a desert metropolis.
The scale of expansion is almost unfathomable and is a testament to how advanced our building technologies are today compared to previous methods.
Cape Town
Indigenous peoples settled the site of Cape Town up to 15,000 years ago. It wasn’t until the Dutch claimed this territory that Cape Town starts to look like a city as we know it. It was a very strategically desirable position. The Suez Canal did not yet exist, so European shipping routes to Asia had to go all the way around the continent of Africa, the Cape peninsula was naturally a good place to stop and to trade.
First invaded by the Dutch, it was then captured by the British. In less than 500 years, it has grown to one of the largest cities in Africa.
Tokyo
Before 1869, Tokyo was a humble fishing village called Edo. After a 17-year old emperor moved there in 1869, it quickly became the political and cultural centre of the country and has been in a state of constant growth to the global city we know it as today.
Known for its bright neon lights and skyscrapers, Tokyo faces unique geographical challenges as it is an earthquake-prone area.
There’s something very intriguing about what existed in places we all know so well as capital cities and giant towns today. The disruption to our natural habitat is huge as demonstrated in these comparisons. Going back to thinking of how much these cities have grown and developed in a relatively short time, it certainly feels like we’re on the precipice of a decisive moment in our history.
Can these cities grow any more? Should they? How big is too big and is this sustainable? If this is how big these cities are after hundreds of years, what will they look like in the next hundred years with the money, power and technology that is available to us today?
https://www.emeraldhomeimprovements.co.uk/blog/google-maps-of-iconic-cities-before-buildings
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