In what ways did New York City's location (surrounded by water!) allow it to become a major urban center of the world? Include in your response the different roles that water played in New York's development throughout history.
New York City is a major urban center in the world and one of the things that allowed it to become such a well known urban center is that it was and still is, completely surrounded by water. Being completely surrounded by water allowed New York City to become a major urban center of the world because if you have water all around you, then it is a lot easier to export and import goods. Also being surrounded by water allows it to become an urban center because it is easy for many people to go out and to come in to the city.
Water helped New York City go from a undeveloped city to a developed country that is one in a kind, all over the world. Water did this in two major ways. One of these ways included that once New York City was able to build the Croton Aqueduct, it did not have to worry about getting water so it could move on to new things and become more of a developed country. Another way that water helped New York City develop is that water allowed New York City to connect to other countries all around the world. It connected both because the people traveled to different places and because of imports and exports. New York City was the largest natural port.