The first human settlements... before the bronze age, before the iron age and even probably before the stone age, didn’t happen because people liked each other’s company. "As the old saying goes, there's safety in numbers... and fortifications. "If you have any doubt about how wood, stone and later even steel walls helped shape human civilization, all you need to do is take a close look at most of our cities, especially the older ones."
posted by Effigy2000 on Jul 18, 2009 - 38 comments

Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application - "His economic theory of history explains phenomena such as the constant improvement of the human standard of living by looking primarily at just two forms of innovative ideas: technology and rules." (previously, via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jul 3, 2009 - 11 comments

Photographs of American Cities from the middle of the 20th Century.
posted by jonson on Sep 29, 2007 - 37 comments

Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House and Its Neighbourhoods 1889-1963. Scholarly urban history project.
posted by plep on Feb 19, 2005 - 7 comments

Old Istanbul Postcards. If you have any fondness for old city views, this is irresistible. Here's a look at the Old City of Istanbul a hundred years ago (Hagia Sophia is just left of center), and here's the gate of the Ottoman War Ministry, now Istanbul University (map). There's lots more where those came from. (Via Desultory Turgescence.)
posted by languagehat on Dec 3, 2004 - 14 comments

Historic cities - images and maps. [via monkeyfilter]

Also - historic maps of the UK, and many more. Map overload may occur.

posted by jb on Sep 29, 2004 - 8 comments

The New York City I first saw in 1985 has partially disappeared, and vanishes more everyday. The New York of 50 years ago, the veneer of daily life in the city, is but a memory. The city of 100 years ago is a shadow, remembered by no one. But the past remains, if not in direct human memory, in "lampposts, advertisements, bridges, buildings, signs, and things you pass every day in the street that bear silent witness to the NYC that once was." What lies forgotten below the streets? The decaying splendor of an bygone age, as well as the deep roots that have sprouted and nourished the present, living city...
posted by evanizer on Mar 22, 2002 - 37 comments