I have found myself obliged, and it is not an unpleasant task even if it is time consuming, to develop a course in the history of cities. Now Leonardo Benevelo did this in such an exhaustive fashion that one is inclined to move the other way; when faced with material enough for twenty lectures, to attempt it in three; to make enormous generalisations in the name of our common purpose. So I got it down to the European City, the American City and the Developing City.
I'm not sure about the Developing City yet, but The European City owes, it would seem to me, an enormous debt to the city block, which in turn owes itself to the Roman 'insulae', which itself owes much to the courtyard house. As shown above, the American City owes much to, well, the lift core, and originally the chimney!
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