Skills

8C

142

Unit 8

Cities

Reading

1

Warm up

What do you find in a modern city? Work in pairs. Brainstorm ideas.

Write them in your notebook. Think about:

2

Work in groups and compare your ideas. Then discuss these questions.

How many of these things were found in ancient cities? What was different about ancient cities?

3

Read the article. Match the headings with the paragraphs.

buildings

transport

shopping

entertainment

tall buildings

museums

1 The world is changing very fast. 200 years ago, almost all the

people in the world lived in the country. Today, over 50 per cent

of people live in cities. In 1950, there weren’t very many big

cities. Only 83 cities in the world had a population of over one

million. Now there are nearly 500!

2

The twenty-first century is the age of the ‘megacity’. Megacities

have a population of over ten million people. There are now

21 of them from Moscow and Beijing to Cairo, São Paulo and

Mexico City. Tokyo’s population of 35 million is larger than the

population of Canada!

3

The first cities developed when farmers in villages produced

more food than they needed. This gave some people free time.

They started making things, selling things and building better

houses and public buildings. Groups of people lived and worked

together, often in safe places such as on a hill. Other cities, such

as London and Paris, were built around the narrowest part of a

river where it was easy to cross.

4 So cities aren’t a modern invention. In fact, Jericho is possibly

the oldest city in the world. It was first built 11,000 years ago!

The earliest cities developed in what is now Iraq (Babylon and

Ur), China, Pakistan, Egypt (Thebes) and Greece. Rome was the

first great city in the world. In the third century AD, its population

was more than one million!

5

Now let’s travel back in time to visit one of the great cities of the

past. The year is 1600 and this is Shakespeare’s London. It was

very different from a modern city. First, you entered it through

gates in high city walls. When you were inside, you experienced

four things: the narrow roads, the smell, the noise and the

number of animals. It was a dangerous place, too, because rats

and insects caused diseases. Today’s cities are much bigger,

faster and safer to live in. However, they still suffer from similar

problems such as pollution, noise, traffic and dirt. But perhaps the

biggest difference between old and modern cities is light. Modern

cities are never dark. At night, you can even see them from space!