The WIAS “Megacities of Islam: Jakarta and Cairo” research group held their third seminar of the 2014 academic year on February 12th (Thu) 2015 at Waseda University. A report follows below.
This event featured two presentations, one by So Hasegawa (JSPS Cairo Research Station) and one by Naoko Fukami (OIAS, Waseda University). Hasegawa went first.
Hasegawa’s presentation was titled “Pre-Islamic Cities & Villages: Egypt”.
Hasegawa explained, from religious and ecological perspectives, the rationales behind the structures and locations of pre-Islamic cities and villages. He used the cities of Memphis and Alexandria as examples. The construction in Memphis reflected the polytheistic ideas common in Egypt. The waterfront area, for example, was considered to be a boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. Memphis was situated on the west bank of the fickle Nile river. The city’s interactions with the Nile and nearby lakes varied with repositionings of the city to accommodate residential areas. Alexandria, on the other hand, was a historically massive city. Alexandria’s marine transportation infrastructure allowed foreign governments to expand their rule over the region. It also allowed Alexandria to boom as that era’s connecting point between the Mediterranean Sea and inland areas. So, both Memphis and Alexandria were designed for religious and political intentions. And both were subject to changes in environment. Next, Hasegawa explained how optical measurements taken with satellites are used to determine the locations of ancient villages, and how magnetic measurements are used to determine their interior structures of their ruins. This kind of information is quite valuable in creating archeological reconstructions.
Next was Fukami’s presentation, titled “The Five Types of City and the History of Megacities”.
Fukami classified cities according to time, place, and form (including city walls, city blocks, population density, and multi-story structures). Irrespective of geography, she analyzed 459 cities wherein past research has recorded population statistics pre-dating 1800. She explained the patterns of expansion for large cities and megacities. She found similarities and differences in how megacities grew in time and space. She studied inter-city relations in given regions and changes in cities’ residential proportions up to the present day. In particular, she noted that, unlike regionally similar residential areas, globally similar residential areas see continual urban expansion in megacities.
The Q&A period brought discussion about the significance and difficulties in classifying cities and megacities according to their form. An audience member said that Fukami’s approach of categorizing cities by form does allow for cultural and political factors to be considered. But, these city forms are actually the result of complex interactions between many factors, including geographic and functional (political & commercial) factors. So, her approach might be over-simplistic and limit our precise understanding of these effects. Another issue about classifying cities by form is that, to understand the changing culture and politics of a city over time, we have to understand the effects of both how that city interacts with its surrounding areas and especially how authority is distributed inside the city. These are topics for further investigation. Hasegawa’s discussion of city positioning and urban structures ties into the issues above, and gives us hints about the pitfalls of some approaches to understanding the evolution of megacities and global cities.
Report by Yuta Uchiyama (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature)
