colonial city

Colonial cities emerged when societies came under the domination of European and North American powers during the expansion of the capitalist world system. These cities served as central hubs for altering a colony's productivity to export wealth to core nations. They housed the administrative and economic agencies, such as bureaucracies, banks, and merchants, that facilitated this unequal relationship and wealth drain.1

Examples include Bombay and Calcutta under British rule, and European trading cities in China and West Africa. The culture within these cities was a unique blend of the colonizing power and the colonized society. Indigenous populations often formed a new urban lower-middle class, educated to serve the colonial establishment. This class, in turn, frequently led nationalist movements against colonial rule, transforming the colonial city from an instrument of exploitation into a site of protest.1