This is some cool information I put together, which illustrates the step-by-step process whereby a city might develop naturally. I doubt any political leaders in ancient times held Alain de Botton’s opinion on how to make an attractive city, so settlements that evolve naturally end up reflecting the necessities that influenced their development, like the availability of water, arable land, timber, etc. Most major towns in my setting will be developed this way.
Early humans were nomadic in a sense (the correct term is transhumance), which basically just means we were similar to migratory birds, moving seasonally from one place to another to hunt and gather, sometimes bringing a large herd of animals along with us. Evidence for such behavior is abundant in many places including most of Neolithic Europe. Settlements started out as either seasonal hunter-gatherer lodges, or small farms during the agricultural revolution. The ancient Syrian settlement of Tel Abu Hureyra is a perfect example, because the site shows the transition from traditional hunting and gathering to full-time farming. The inhabitants of Tel Abu Hureyra also happen to be the earliest known humans to become farmers.
Farming essentially equals settlement, so then it’s time to throw up some huts or carve out some caves, depending on where you live. Shelter is a prime concern. The other primary concern is water. Most ancient cities started beside rivers, but not always.
So your little village is now sedentary, after a while the farmer and his friends’ families all grow and the farm gets expands to the point where there’s enough spare people and food for some to sit around and do other cool, really exciting activities like invent cheese or mine copper. Nine out of ten times the settlement is near a river, at least within a dozen miles or so. Flat land is always nice too, but as long as plants grow and there are trees nearby for lumber, you can sustain a settlement. Athens is an interesting exception to this rule; there are rocks everywhere and you can’t grow cereals properly, but you can grow olives, which are quite nutritious with a decent calorie count.
If you have particularly bountiful farmland, multiple tribes will set up villages in close proximity to each other, and eventually this can progress into a small country or chiefdom, if someone unites and centralizes the villages. It is very possible for a small country like this to effectively manage a surplus or resources, and in order to defend against rival tribes and raiders, they might decide to put up a wall of palisade or mudbrick, or build sturdier houses with less distance between. These little towns will accumulate around the resources, and if the land has sufficient capacity to sustain humans, they either expand to accommodate more people from all the shagging, or they merge with other nearby towns to create something large enough to be called a city. You cannot have a fancy, artistically or progressive civilization without a surplus. You need spare food and supplies to feed specialists, who build funny little things like wooden horses and make paper and works of art and knowledge. By this point, a wall becomes even more necessary, as your little slice of countryside will be looking mighty attractive to prospective raiders and neighboring chiefs. After building a wall, you can expand even further beyond the walls, and sow the farmland there. Then the process can repeat, whereby another wall is built, or you end up with a city-state.
A little bit about geography and settlements
Hills: Popular as central to a settlement or as a defensible position, so there will probably either be a military installation, a tomb or crypt, or some kind of religious monument. Some cities spread out from the top of a Hill and are centered on them, where others simply subsume hills due to expansion.
Rivers There will be one nearby. Water equals flora, therefore animals for hunting, and land for farming. There are exceptions, some cultures are just stubborn or clueless and decide to live in stupid places.
Mountains: Usually the refuge of people fleeing civilization. Perhaps there’s a few luddites who eschew farming and think of it as a shitty idea. However, Mountains often mean metals, thus mining colonies, thus cities. Some cultures may also build their civilization on a mountainside for defense, or metals, or maybe the view. Just as long as there is food there. Olive Trees grow well on rocky land, making possible the Polis of Athens and all it’s tributary cities nestled beside mountains. Mountains are also amazing for defense, so a culture may deliberately settle themselves on one side of a mountain range to make it harder to invade them.
Forests: Great for hunting, but can get in the way of farms, thus deforestation to make fields, and for timber to make buildings will be common and frequent, unless you want to be create a culture that live in the trees, which would minimize the amount of deforestation, but force them to sustain themselves by farming things that grow well in dappled lighting. All cities should be built near a source of timber.
Valleys: Amazing farmland in temperate climates, rapid population growth, easy to defend if walled off properly and guarded.
Food: A settlement will grow as long as there is food, it will stop and die when there isn’t. Beyond a certain point, imports from other cities or countries may become necessary.
And another thing… While early cities will be formed like this, later cities can be built purely off the surplus of a pre-existing culture. Check out the ancient Egyptian village of Deir El Medina for example. The Town is situated in a valley in a dry desert, but everyone is fed, watered, and provided for by the lavish surplus of the Egyptian Nile. Why? Because some Pharaoh wanted his Tomb built there, so he uses wealth to support a town where it normally couldn’t exist. This can be a fun and interesting tool for creating cities that need the help of another city to not die.
