1. Boston – Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
2. Boston, Lincolnshire – Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district, the borough had a total population of 66,900, at the ONS mid 2015 estimates, while the town itself had a population of 35,124 at the 2001 census. It is due north of Greenwich on the Prime Meridian, residents of Boston are known as Bostonians. Emigrants from Boston named several other settlements after the town, most notably Boston, Massachusetts, the name Boston is said to be a contraction of Saint Botolphs town, stone, or tun for a hamlet or farm, hence the Latin villa Sancti Botulfi St. Botulfs village). The towns link to the life is probably apocryphal. The town was held to have been a Roman settlement. The early medieval geography of The Fens was much more fluid than it is today and, at that time, Botolphs establishment is most likely to have been in Suffolk. However, he was a missionary and saint, to whom many churches between Yorkshire and Sussex are dedicated. The 1086 Domesday Book does not mention Boston by name, Skirbeck had two churches and one is likely to have been that dedicated to St Botolph, in what was consequently Botolphs town. Skirbeck is now considered part of Boston, but the remains, as a church parish. The order of importance was the way round, when the Boston quarter of Skirbeck developed at the head of the Haven. At that stage, The Haven was the part of the stream, now represented by the Stone Bridge Drain. The line of the road through Wide Bargate, to A52 and it led, as it does now, to the relatively high ground at Sibsey, and thence to Lindsey. The Sleaford route, into Kesteven, passed via Swineshead, thence following the old course of the River Slea, the Salters Way route into Kesteven, left Holland from Donington. This route was more thoroughly developed, in the later Medieval period. The River Witham seems to have joined The Haven after the flood of September 1014, the Town Bridge still maintains the pre-flood route, along the old Haven bank. After the Norman Conquest, Ralph the Stallers property was taken over by Count Alan and it subsequently came to be attached to the Earldom of Richmond, North Yorkshire, and known as the Richmond Fee. It lay on the bank of The Haven
3. City – A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, a big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. Such cities are associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas. Once a city expands far enough to another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis. Damascus is arguably the oldest city in the world, in terms of population, the largest city proper is Shanghai, while the fastest-growing is Dubai. There is not enough evidence to assert what conditions gave rise to the first cities, some theorists have speculated on what they consider suitable pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that might have been important driving forces. The conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic revolution, the Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city development. The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon nomadic lifestyles and to settle near others who lived by agricultural production, the increased population density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per unit of land created conditions that seem more suitable for city-like activities. In his book, Cities and Economic Development, Paul Bairoch takes up position in his argument that agricultural activity appears necessary before true cities can form. According to Vere Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and a relatively large population. To illustrate this point, Bairoch offers an example, Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, when the cost of transport is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometres. Bairoch noted that this is roughly the size of Great Britain, the urban theorist Jane Jacobs suggests that city formation preceded the birth of agriculture, but this view is not widely accepted. In his book City Economics, Brendan OFlaherty asserts Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages, OFlaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known as increasing returns to scale and economies of scale, which are concepts usually associated with businesses. Their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as well, increasing returns to scale occurs when doubling all inputs more than doubles the output an activity has economies of scale if doubling output less than doubles cost. To offer an example of these concepts, OFlaherty makes use of one of the oldest reasons why cities were built, in this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for protection and the output is the area protected and everything of value contained in it. OFlaherty then asks that we suppose the protected area is square, the advantage is expressed as, O = s 2, where O is the output and s stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that output is proportional to the square of the length of a side, the inputs depend on the length of the perimeter, I =4 s, where I stands for the quantity of inputs. So there are increasing returns to scale, O = I2 /16 and this equation shows that with twice the inputs, you produce quadruple the output
4. Massachusetts State House – The building houses the Massachusetts General Court and the offices of the Governor of Massachusetts. The building, designed by noted architect Charles Bulfinch, was completed in 1798 and it is considered a masterpiece of Federal architecture and among Bulfinchs finest works, and was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance. The building is situated on 6.7 acres of land on top of Beacon Hill in Boston and it was built on land once owned by John Hancock, Massachusettss first elected governor. Before the current State House was completed in 1798, Massachusettss government house was the Old State House on Court Street, for the buildings design, architect Charles Bulfinch made use of two existing buildings in London, William Chamberss Somerset House, and James Wyatts Pantheon. A major expansion of the building was completed in 1895. The architect for the annex was Bostonian Charles Brigham, in 1917, the east and west wings, designed by architects Sturgis, Bryant, Chapman & Andrews, were completed. In July 2016, Governor Charlie Baker proposed to the legislature to sell 300 square feet of permanent easement on the west side of the State House lawn to a neighboring condominium. The land in question was once owned by John Hancock. The original wood dome, which leaked, was covered with copper in 1802 by Paul Reveres Revere Copper Company, Revere was the first American to roll copper successfully into sheets in a commercially viable manner. The dome was first painted gray and then light yellow before being gilded with gold leaf in 1874. During World War II, the dome was painted once again, in 1997, at a cost of more than $300,000, the dome was re-gilded, in 23k gold. In front of the building is a statue of General Joseph Hooker. Other statues in front of the building include Daniel Webster, educator Horace Mann, the statues of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer are located on the lawns below the east and west wings. The original red-brick Bulfinch building contains the Governors offices with the Massachusetts Senate occupying the former House of Representatives Chamber under the dome, the Massachusetts House of Representatives occupies a chamber on the west side of the Brigham addition. Hanging over this chamber is the Sacred Cod, which was given to the House of Representatives in 1784 by a Boston merchant, the Sacred Cod symbolizes the importance of the fishing industry to the early Massachusetts economy. The second floor under the dome is decorated by murals painted by artist Edward Brodney, Brodney won a competition to paint the first mural in a contest sponsored by the Works Progress Administration in 1936. It is entitled Columbia Knighting Her World War Disabled, Brodney could not afford to pay models, and friends and family posed. The model for Columbia was Brodneys sister Norma Brodney Cohen, in 1938, he painted a second mural under the dome called World War Mothers