Reading Ielts 1

Text: Location is everything
Location is everything
The estate agent's advice dates back to 3500вс when the first city of trade took off
Our distant ancestors led pretty simple lives. Until around I0,000 BC, all humans were
hunter-gatherers and lived a s nomadic life, searching endlessly for food. It was the
development of agriculture that enabled humans to settle down and live, first as farmers
and then as villagers. Around 3500вс, small towns began appearing in Mesopotamia,
surrounded by defensive high walls and irrigated fields that fed the town's population.
In the thousand years that followed, и when agriculture had become more of a science
and crop yields had risen, fewer people were needed to produce food. People took other
jobs, became wealthier and more and more chose to a live in towns close to shops and
markets. This worked well for centuries. Towns flourished and eventually one of the
grandest, Rome, became the world's first city of more than one million s people around
100 AD.
Although the fertile lands surrounding Rome could have adequately fed the city, the
Roman people began importing food and a became reliant on long supply chains. When
Gaiseric the Vandal began withholding vital North African grain supplies from Rome in
455AD, the city's went into steep decline. The Dark that ensued saw people deserting
cities across Europe and returning to the countryside.
Make it accessible
It was not until 1200AD that people began flocking back to the cities, a trend encouraged
by the growth of iron technology and further improvements in agriculture. Cities and towns
began to spring up across Europe and Asia.
The main factor which determined where a city was founded, according to Derek Keene,
Director of the Centre for Metropolitan History at the University of London's Institute of
Historical Research, was simple geography. "Was it accessible to people who wished to
trade there or bring in supplies?"
However, there were other important considerations. "A city might be successfully
founded in a desert if there was a need for a staging post or an interchange on a trade
route," he says. Then there were the simple demands of a ruler's ego, or a need to defend
people against invaders. Finally, there was one other major motivating force: religion. "A
sacred site attracts many visitors who require service," Keene says.
In medieval times, cities grew to exploit trade routes. Bruges in Belgium became rich by
weaving wool from Britain. Florence, too, prospered from its wool industry until banking
came to dominate its economy.
Constantinople became by far Europe's largest city and premiere trading centre, the true
heir to the Roman legacy during the Middle Ages. The gateway between the Eastern
Mediterranean, India and Africa on one side and Europe on the other, Constantinople
played a crucial role in the trade of Eastern riches for Western wool and heavy iron
products.
At the same time, Venice was prospering thanks to trade, its proximity to the sea, Africa
and the treasures of Persia The city-state traded luxury goods such as precious stones,
spices,
silks and ivory.
Cities that broke the rules

The lure of trading riches has encouraged the growth of cities in unlikely locations. When
the East India Trading Company needed a base with so good access to the Ganges
Valley, it founded Calcutta on swamp land. The site was the furthest inland point that
could be reached by ocean-going ships. and the city has grown to a population of 15.5
million today.
The most ludicrously located city has to be St Petersburg, built as the capital of a vast
empire by Peter the Great. Thousands of slave labourers died during its construction, and
he had to force people to live there.
Other major world capitals had no such problems. London, founded in 50AD, grew
steadily and is the least planned world city, with snobbery playing a large part in
determining its layout. Mainline stations are dotted around the periphery of inner London,
as wealthy I9-th-century residents no refused construction of a giant central London rail
terminal.
By the 1930s, US architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was arguing that city size should be
limited. But as Wright's us treatise was published, New York was becoming the world's
first city with a population of ten million, and cities have since grown at an astonishing rate
- Mexico City is home to 16.5 million people and 26.9 million now live in Tokyo.
Questions
Look at the following descriptions (1-8) and the list of cities below. Match each description
to one of the cities in the text .
1- became an important centre for banking

2- was the largest city in the world in the 1930s
3- had one main industry, weaving, in the Middle Ages
4- was built on unsuitable land but has developed into a major world city
5- was Europe's most powerful city in the Middle Ages
6- has inconvenient rail connections
7- lost its power and influence rapidly when it suffered food shortages
8- cost many lives to build
9- grew into a successful trading city because of its location close to the sea
A- Bruges
В- Calcutta
С- Constantinople
D- Florence
E- London
F- New York
G- Rome
H- St Petersburg
I- Venice

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Text: Location is everything

Cities that broke the rules

1- became an important centre for banking

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