"Contact with the native Americans significantly shaped European patterns of settlement."
The Spanish
The Spanish came to the new world with the aim of colonization. The Spaniards were interested in securing territory and "Christianizing" the natives in what is now Florida and New Mexico. Saint Augustine, which is the oldest city in the United States, was established in 1565. The Spanish had been met with opposition to permanent settlement and were confronted with the native inhabitants, when they realized that the Spanish had intended to stay. The Spanish were drawn to the idea of creating cities like the ones in Spain where they had been governed under the condition of a city-state. Spanish also created a system of town planning: common design of rectangular blocks, straight streets, and right-angle intersections grouped around a central plaza. The Spanish had three types of city plans: the pueblos: responsible for commerce; the mission responsible for religious conversion; and presidios that were military outposts.
The French
Early French explorers had come not as colonizers but as individuals seeking their individual fortunes. As traders, the development of cities became somewhat of a requirement, because they needed a place to trade. So they established mainly trade stations at first. This is the initial purpose for the city of Quebec. Settlements were promulgated along rivers with the idea making trades with the natives and other European settlers.
The Dutch
Early Dutch settlers had brought elaborate urban plans. They wanted to build a trading center complete with a main street and marketplace. Chief international supplier of slaves the Dutch, concentrated efforts on developing the trading center that expanded outward from the harbor. Traders were expected to come into the centers, drop off, pick up and go.
The English
Towns combined Puritan notions of social and religious harmony with the inward, village orientation of agrarian peasant society. Created communities. Dutch and English had created settlements that took on a decidedly urban flavor.
According to Warner the settlements including Philadelphia, when first created, had been created with the idea that they were there to service the motherlands that had established them with the transportation of furs, grain, lumber, fish, tea, sugar, tobacco. But the towns then began to meet the needs of the interior of towns and create a robust internal trade operation. The markets became a place of internal trade as well as external trade with neighboring colonies and with the home country.
Further, Warner suggests that it was the home country's distance and neglect over time that had caused the cities to create more complex and powerful forms of government to take care of its inhabitants. Thereby we have the creation of city assemblies and commissions and that this is why you see the development of organizations that considered the expansion and repurposing of cities in the new world. The quality of urban life becomes vastly improved with the establishment of these assemblies.
Urban growth and development require sufficient transportation and communication and thus the formation of cities as merely a servant to the Mother countries did not provide for that level of organizations. It wasn’t until cities grew in size that narrow streets and livestock blocking roads and lack of bridges made it possible for the community to operatie in an organized way. Governments took this on as a part of public policy and the service of government to entice the formation of corporations and corporate operations.
Waste management with citizens living so proximate became an issue that created a whole body of law on trash disposal. Creation of police, methods for dealing with fires, lighting and dealing with crime, the poor, elderly and disabled.
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