The ‘Consumer City’ Once Again Revisited

Abstract

The Weberian concept which has had the greatest influence on the study of ancient economic history is probably the consumer city. The concept is useful for understanding the development of urbanism in preindustrial societies like the Roman empire, because it shows how large cities can develop without having the economic potential inside the city boundaries to sustain their own population. The concept thus allows to escape simplistic arguments that urbanisation in itself proves the sophistication, even the modernism of the Roman economy. Consideration of Weber’s consumer city ideal-type shows that for the development of this type of city a given society needs social and political, but not necessarily economic sophistication.