Urbanization: Lisbon, Portugal For most of human

Cities emerged in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece only with the development of a reliable agricultural technology about 2500 B.C. With the growth of shipping and the use of animals for the transportation of people and goods the original urban centers began to expand and form empires based on their superior military technology, strategy, and wealth.

The first foreigners to conquer the indigenous people in what is now Portugal were the Phoenicians, known for their naval prowess (library.mcmaster.ca). The site of what is now modern Lisbon was an obvious choice for a trading station, due to having one of the largest and most beautiful harbours on the Atlantic coast of Europe, into which the Iberian peninsula's longest river, the Tagus (Rio Tejo in Portuguese) flows. Surrounded by seven hills, this scenic and economically advantageous site hosted a succession of foreign peoples over the centuries, including the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Barbarians, Visigoths, an

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t there seem to be far more garden plots and small farms within the greater metropolitan area of Lisbon than in other urban areas û many of them illegal, but officially tolerated for generations. The Twentieth Century was marked by a mass influx of poor, uneducated, and mostly illiterate peasants streaming into the main urban areas of their respective countries in uncontrollable droves. This was as true in Johannesburg, South Africa as in Sao Paulo, Brazil; in Bangkok, Thailand as in Los Angeles, California; and in Lisbon, Portugal as in Buenos Aires. The reasons are simple. Whereas most economies throughout the world were primarily agricultural until the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, the advent of manufacturing technology changed the fundamental balance of economic power between urban areas and the rural agricultural economies. And in the late 20th century a new social, cultural, technological, and economic force was added to the mix: globalization, which can be seen in part as the successful attempt by capital to exploit and maintain world poverty for its benefit by paying the lowest wages possible to its workers, and thereby deriving a competitive advantage over its competitors. In order to be profitable the
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Approximate Word count = 1895
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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