The growth of cities and their past Research Paper

The growth of cities and their past - Research Paper Example This research will begin with the definition of urban growth as the process of expansion of economic agglomerations. Urbanization, structure of cities, organization of economic activities and overall economic growth of a country are important determinants of this expansion. The past always forms the foundation for the future and this is true to the growth of cities as well. The present research has identified that Venice, one of the oldest cities in the world had centered the planning of its transport system on water-ways that are in use to this day. This transport system was not only efficient but also safe in the modern context of carbon emissions. It did not occur to the planers of the city at the time but present inhabitants of Venice have one of the least carbon emission modes of transport in the world with human navigated boats forming a significant fraction of the transport vessels. From the planning of Venice, modern cities have an opportunity to gather new ideas on having du rable, low carbon emission transport networks. This paper illustrates that the 21-century cities may not have waterways but could come up with systems founded on the concept of the waterways of Venice. The high-speed rail network, for example, is an improvement of 18th century rail networks that presently solve most cities’ transport problems but were developed from these early transportation rail networks that were not very fast at the time of their initial use.