This chapter analyzes the production and construction of space in third-millennium cities of Upper Mesopotamia. I argue that space is constructed at multiple levels, including city or state government, institutions, developers, and households. Past planning episodes structure future life in the city, but are also modified to meet the needs of later residents. Within this process, I identify several characteristics of Mesopotamian city space, including a high level of nucleation, multiple centers within the city, defensible spaces such as culs-de-sac, conservative use of space, anD linkage of key features into a system of armature. These features demonstrate how the social needs of residents are expressed in the fabric of the city. In these features, we see urban planning that is not strictly top-down or bottom-up, nor solely planned or organic.
In this chapter, I explore several aspects of urban space in third-millennium Upper Mesopotamian cities. These cities developed between 2700-2200 BC when a second wave of urbanism spread cities and city-states across Upper Mesopotamia (Figure 2.1) (for a fuller discussion of the city-state system, see Nishimura, Chapter 3 In this volume).1 The size of these states is variable, but based on some of the better-known examples, they may have had core territories2 of approximately 1,000 km2 and extended political territories up to 5,000 or 10,000 km2. The largest urban centers were 35-125 ha and hosted 10,000-25,000 people.3 The primary subsistence base of these polities was dry-farmed barley supplemented by milk or meat from sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Production of textiles and metals, along with trade, were also important parts of the economy (Stein 2004). Urban administration consisted of palace and temple households, as well as city councils comprised of elders or other representatives of various groups within the city. The degree of power sharing among these groups is unclear and may have varied over
Figure 2.1 Topography, rainfall isohyets, and selected third-millennium sites in Upper Mesopotamia. 1-Titri§, 2-Kazane, 3-Banat, 4-Sweyhat, 5-Umm el-Marra, 6-Ebla, 7-Al-Rawda, 8-Bi'a, 9-Chuera, 10-Beydar, 11-Mozan, 12-Brak, 13-Leilan, 14-Hamoukar, 15-Taya. (Modified from Creekmore 2010; for a fuller list of cities, see Nishimura, Chapter 3 in this volume, Figure 3.1).
Time (Cooper 20o6b:63-66; Durand 1989; Fleming 2004). An analysis of urban space provides insight into how these groups negotiated the complex process of making cities.
I examine several features or factors in the generation and use of city space, including city shape, accessibility, nucleation, multiple centers, conservative development, defensible space, parceled lots, and armature, or the linkage of important monuments across a city (MacDonald 1986:5). My goal is to broaden our understanding of how these cities form and the roles of different social groups in making cities. Accordingly, I review specific cities that serve as examples of each feature or factor and infer the motivations behind the creation and use of different kinds of city space. I argue that the process of urbanization is best understood through a life-history approach that considers the social production and construction of space. As defined by Setha Low and employed by many scholars, the social production of space includes the processes that generate the tangible portions of city-space, such as buildings, streets and other physical features whereas the social construction of space is human behavior that transforms space into historically contingent place through the actions of people in their everyday lives, often over long periods of time (Anderson and Gale 1992:4; Gillespie 2000; Hodder 2007:22; Low 2000:127-128; Tringham 2003:94-95; Pred 1984:279; Rodman 1992; Verhoeven 1999:20). These concepts describe the urban process that forms the life history of a city, and acknowledge that cities are not static or fully formed, but always in motion, changing over time through dynamic human activities (Soja 2000:9). By examining the production and construction of urban space, we can identify vectors of growth and decline and the structuring impact of past spatial decisions on future residents. This approach views cities as "lived spaces" from which we can compose stories or histories (Soja 1989:14, 2000:11; de Certeau 1998:142). Over time, local planning episodes, combined with mid-level and centralized planning, create a collage of urban spaces.
World History
