Richardcyoung.com

  • Home
  • Debbie Young
  • Jimmy Buffett
  • Key West
  • Your Survival Guy
  • How We Are Different
  • Paris
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • Dick Young
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool
  • Anti-Gun Control
  • Anti-Digital Currency
  • Joel Salatin & Alfie Oakes
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • Fidelity & Wellington Since 1971
  • Hillsdale College
  • Babson College
  • Artificial Intelligence Opposed
  • Contact Us

40 Cities that Changed the World

September 20, 2023 By Richard C. Young

By Delpixel @ Shutterstock.com

At the Cato Institute, Chelsea Follett discusses her book, Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World. She writes:

“Cities, the dense agglomerations that dot the globe, have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace,” as urban economist Edward Glaesar explains in his book The Triumph of the City.

Athens’s storied breakthroughs in philosophy are but one example of how cities have often been the sites of pivotal advances throughout history. Kyoto gave us the novel. Bologna gave us the university. Florence gave us the Renaissance. Paris gave us the Enlightenment. Manchester gave us the Industrial Revolution. Los Angeles gave us cinema. Postwar New York gave us modern finance … the list goes on.

As Glaeser also notes, “Wandering these cities—whether down cobblestone sidewalks or grid‐​cutting cross streets, around roundabouts or under freeways—is to study nothing less than human progress.”

If you’re not able to travel to each of these extraordinary cities, perhaps the next best thing is to embark on a virtual tour from the comfort of your home. To that end, I wrote a book surveying 40 of history’s greatest urban centers, showcasing each city at a moment in time when it notably contributed to progress.

Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World offers a fact‐​filled yet accessible crash course in global urban history, spanning from the agricultural revolution to the digital revolution. This book affirms the importance of cities to the story of human progress and innovation by shining a spotlight on some of the places that have helped create the modern world.

The book’s chapters can guide you through the Library of Alexandria, the stock exchange of Dutch Golden Age‐​era Amsterdam, and the pubs of Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment, all in an afternoon.

Centers of Progress “takes the reader on a time‐​travel cruise through the great flash points of human activity to catch innovations that have transformed human lives” at their moment of invention, according to writer Matt Ridley in the insightful foreword he kindly provided. Come explore Agra as the Taj Mahal was erected and Cambridge as Isaac Newton penned the Principia. Meet engineers in Ancient Rome, Silk Road merchants in Tang Dynasty Chang’an, music composers in 19th‐​century Vienna, and Space Age flight controllers in Houston.

Learning about past achievements may even hold the secret to fostering innovation in the present.

As I note in the book, “Although there are some exceptions, most cities reach their creative peak during periods of peace. Most centers of progress also thrive during times of relative social, intellectual, and economic freedom, as well as openness to intercultural exchange and trade. And centers of progress tend to be highly populated.… Identifying those common denominators among the places that have produced history’s greatest achievements is one way to learn what causes progress in the first place. After all, change is a constant, but progress is not.”

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Hong Kong’s transformation from a war‐​ravaged “barren island” into a prosperous metropolis, many of the stories featured in Centers of Progress hold valuable lessons about the importance of ideas, people, and freedom. I hope that you will consider joining me on a journey through the book’s pages to some of history’s greatest centers of progress.

Read more here.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • 9/11: Day That Changed The World
  • The Health of Cities
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • World Cup Final: The Shots Heard Around the World
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.
Richard C. Young
Latest posts by Richard C. Young (see all)
  • Is Trump Divorcing Bibi? - May 16, 2025
  • How Will Trump Move Forward on Ukraine? - May 16, 2025
  • Is Trump Preparing for Peace with Iran? - May 16, 2025

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Democracy & Diversity: Not In the Constitution
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • The Three Best Retirement Decisions I Ever Made
  • To Me There Isn’t a Better Way to Live
  • Does Big Government Create Poverty?
  • Why Investors Should Forget Prices and Focus on Income
  • You’re Ready to “Make It a Good Month”
  • Joel Salatin and Alfie Oakes, America’s Food Kings
  • Stunned Democrats Against “Defund Police”
  • The Worst President in American History

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Not a Fan of For-Profit Medicine and the Pharmaceutical Industries
  • Texas Investigates Plans for "Muslim City"
  • TRUMP: More SALT Please
  • The Foolishness of Eliminating Cash
  • Is Trump Resetting His Relationship with Israel?
  • The Riviera: A Sunny Place for Shady People
  • An American in Rome
  • The Arctic Is No Longer Safe for NATO
  • A Contemptable Little Twerp
  • Prior Planning: Thank You, Mom

Compensation was paid to utilize rankings. Click here to read full disclosure.

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Congratulations, You’re Retired #3: “When You Were Young”
  • Magnets Run the World — And China Runs the Magnets
  • USGS Launches Major New England Critical Minerals Survey
  • U.S. Import and Export Prices Edge Up in April Amid Fuel Declines
  • Denmark Considers Ending 40-Year Nuclear Ban
  • Apple’s Next-Gen CarPlay Rolls Out in U.S. and Canada
  • Congratulations on Graduation Day from Work to Retirement “2.0 and Go”
  • Could an Economic Slowdown Curb Global Oil Consumption Growth?
  • No SALT Please: Part II
  • Vertical Aerospace Advances Toward VX4 Certification

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Congratulations, You’re Retired #3: “When You Were Young”
  • Are You Giving a Tax Free Gift in 2025?
  • Does Your Lazy Cash Need a Home?
  • Congratulations on Graduation Day from Work to Retirement “2.0 and Go”
  • $3 Million Makeover of the International Tennis Hall of Fame
  • No SALT Please: Part II
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement: Now What? Part 1
  • You’re Not Dreaming, Food Prices Are Falling
  • Can America Generate Enough Power for New Data Centers?
  • TRUMP: More SALT Please

US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

My Key West Garden Office

Your Retirement Life: Traveling the Efficient Frontier

Live a Long Life

Your Survival Guy’s Mt. Rushmore of Investing Legends

“Then One Day the Grandfather was Gone”

Copyright © 2025 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives