Why Is It Difficult to Establish a New City?

Let's do some brain training today. Let's build a new city together.

If we want to establish a new city, what should we pay attention to in the place where we will settle the city?

I guess we would like the city, like many beautiful cities, to be on the banks of a river. Maybe it wouldn't be bad by the sea either, or by a lake. So being on a waterfront is a nice feature for cities.

Other? Also, the location must be suitable for trade, so it must be on the road to the surrounding cities. It is also important that there are several cities around it and that it is at an intersection.

If the place we choose was on a very flat area, some things would be easy, especially the infrastructure, but I think it is important that it has a view. I don't think it would be very suitable as there would be no view on a flat place.

The weather should also be good, a mild weather neither too hot nor too cold. I don't think it would be appropriate in a place where it rains all the time.

It must be close to an energy source, I don't know, maybe a dam somewhere nearby would not be bad. Although the energy sources of the future will change a lot, the ways of transporting energy to the city will also diversify, but I think it is important that it is close to the energy source, since it will be more economical to deliver the energy to the city.

It is important that the city has a good oxygen supply, either it should be in a place where fresh air can reach the city with the breeze, or it is important that there is a forest around it, if not, at least near it.

It is also important to be able to produce its own food, so it would be nice to have agricultural lands around it.

In other words, if the place you choose is near the water, on the trade routes, in mild climate conditions, close to the energy source, in forests and has arable land around it, we can say that it is a suitable place to establish a new city.

Do you know of such a place? Of course, there are probably many places in the eyes of all of us in these features that I mentioned.

But why isn't there a city in that place that comes to mind? I guess you haven't thought of a place that is already a city, because I asked the question as the appropriate place to establish a new city. Your answer is that there is already a city nearby, so although the place you can think of is suitable to be a city, a city may not have been established.

The location of most of the cities established in history must have been chosen with these features.

When we scan it as the oldest cities in the world where life still continues as a city, we see the city of Jericho in Palestine, Athens in Greece, Kirkuk in Iraq and Damascus in Syria. Although the exact date of establishment is not known, the history of these cities dates back to BC. It dates back to 8000-9000 years. Many cities in our country are also quite old cities. The oldest is the city of Dülük in Gaziantep, its history dates back to BC. It dates back to 5000 years.

Archaeological excavations continue for the oldest settlement, but the history of Göbeklitepe near Şanlıurfa dates back to the BC. It is said to date back to 11000 years.

Almost all of these cities have the features I mentioned in terms of location. But their main feature is that they are on trade routes. Trade is probably the most important factor for the establishment of a city.

Of course, the foundation of some cities was with the wishes of the rulers. Istanbul is such a city. But still, such cities have the features I mentioned.

Of course, our topic is a new city. We only took a look at historical cities in terms of location selection.

So, what are the essentials in a modern city?

If we are going to build a modern city, the city must have a purpose.

One of the newest cities to be established is Las Vegas. Famous casino city founded by Bugsy Siegel in the middle of the desert. While it was a simple railroad station during the founding periods of the United States, it became a magnificent casino city after the 1940s. Even though it's in the middle of the desert.

Yes, a new city needs such a purpose to be established. For example, if we are going to establish a science center, a city can be organized around it. Or there are mine martyrs. One such city is Noriksk, a very cold northern city where I once worked on a shopping mall project. It was founded by Stalin in 1935 for miners.

Well, if we wanted to establish a regular city, the city of the future, just so that it would be a regular city, with a proper infrastructure from the beginning, could we not do it? Couldn't we just want to build a city where people live in peace, not for a purpose, but with normal city functions? Would that be such a fantastic goal?

Okay, let the city to be established again have a purpose, I don't know, let it be a city where workers will live near a discovered mine. Or a university city that will be built around a big Turcology university that regulates relations with sister countries. Let it be a city with the purpose of a great cultural center that will examine our history, examine our common culture, and work on our language.

Imagine that we do a regular urban planning for such a city. Parks, pools, aqua park, cultural centers, sports facilities, a large stadium, indoor sports halls, swimming pools, a big city square, a square in front of the governor's office and municipality buildings, for example, shopping centers, business centers, parking lots, wide roads, bicycles. Along with its roads, vegetable market, market places, train station, bus station, next to the river a small port for transportation to a river, maybe a small airport somewhere nearby, it would be enough if it were not for such big planes, but for fluttering planes. The settlement is not so high-rise, most of them should be houses with gardens, fruit trees, flowers, everything for a peaceful life should be in their gardens. Apartment-style houses, on the other hand, should be at most four or five-storey buildings, a small city with maybe dormitories for students on the university campus, with schools, kindergartens, all the systems that will be needed. For example, a city of one hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty thousand people. But everything must be planned from the beginning, and it must be a city with a suitable infrastructure for future development. It is a lush city with even a prepared metro. A city suitable for development. Around it are farms, well-planned farms suitable for modern agriculture and animal husbandry. Tidy orchards, greenhouses. A garbage disposal center, as well as a center that can generate energy from garbage. Biological treatment centre.

Isn't there such a project? Seems to me like it would. But it is necessary to make very good analysis. Who will do what, where to work, the capacity of everything needs to be calculated. Yes, you will say that we do not have such money, you will say that this is a very big investment. You are right too. But where does the money go?

Our big cities are not in a planned development, moreover, our country is in an earthquake zone. Moreover, we have started to pay the price for the mistakes we have made in urbanization, especially in recent years, with the effect of global warming.

If we do not want to suffer more from earthquakes, floods and natural disasters, and if we do not want to deal with the management difficulties, turmoil, noise and many other difficulties of big cities, we need to create new living centers, new cities, each of which will be a center of attraction. In this way, perhaps we can prevent our big cities from becoming megapolises out of control.

Planning these attractions properly from the beginning and having comfortable living conditions will make them truly attraction centers for people.

I think we should start planning such long-term project cities before it's too late.

We have cement factories, we also have sand and gravel quarries. We also have factories for rebar. Yes, we buy energy with foreign currency, but we do not need such a large amount of foreign currency for the infrastructure of the city, there is a lot of work we can do with our own money in such a project. It will be very beneficial for the country in the long run.

We also have a lot of idle work force, unemployment is increasing day by day. Yes, in today's economic conditions it is very difficult, maybe even impossible, but it seems to me that most of it can be done with national resources. I think it is not a project that cannot be done with national production and good planning!

Love and regards from Moscow