Most cities developed in the style of Topsy: they just "growed and growed". Little planning was involved until the 19th century and even then regulations were not always followed, writes Seamus Martin.
There are a few, however, which were specifically designed to become capitals of their respective countries. St Petersburg was brought into being as Peter the Great's "window on the West". Washington was planned as "the nation's capital" for the young United States of America. Brasilia fulfilled a similar function in Brazil while Canberra too, was a late creation as the seat of government for Australia.
In some of these cases the people were consulted, in others not. St Petersburg, for example, was born from the iron will of the Tsar. He simply decreed that a great city be built on a swamp close to the gulf of Finland.
Not surprisingly, thousands died in its construction. The city did, however, become popular and, for a time at least, outdid Moscow as the industrial and cultural capital of Russia.
In none of these cases, when new cities were created for political reasons, was any consideration given to the habits of the animals which inhabited the wildernesses on which they were built. The result has sometimes been quite remarkable.
The elk which live in the neighbourhood of St Petersburg had certain behavioural patterns burnt into their collective instinct long before the foundations for the Peter and Paul fortress were laid. For example, the site of the city lay across a track through which they traditionally wandered.
To this day elk still wander through this city of almost five million people at certain times of the year. Traffic chaos ensues, but in general the citizens recognise that the animals had marked out their territory long before the humans arrived.
Canberra has similar tales to tell. Its thoroughfares frequently look as though a mass cull of marsupials has recently taken place as the bodies of kangaroos and other animals lie at the roadside, having been struck by cars and trucks.
It was in Canberra too, late one winter's night in 1998, that I witnessed an extraordinary sight. Dinner at the ambassador's residence had been warm and convivial. The visitor's book contained the signatures of two men from the same part of Ireland who had become famous in the 1920s. One, Eamon de Valera, had been there on an official visit. The other, Daniel Mannix, was resident in the Commonwealth as the Archbishop of Melbourne.
On the drive back to Yarralumla, where my wife and I were staying, a possum darted out in front of the car and the driver skilfully managed to avoid it.
Almost immediately afterwards we saw something remarkable. There, ambling down the middle of a suburban street, was a fox. Now, the European red fox (vulpes vulpes) is not native to Australia. It was brought there in the mid 19th century for what is described as "recreational hunting" by immigrants from the UK. In a way this was not a bad thing, since many settlers had previously satisfied their appetite for the chase by hunting Australia's aboriginal inhabitants as though they were beasts of the field. In Tasmania a genocide that is rarely mentioned nowadays took place.
The "country sports" constituency has repeatedly argued, as part of its pro-hunting lobby, that it was doing a service by hunting the fox. Hunters, they said, were keeping fox numbers down and thus controlling vermin that were a danger to humans and their domestic animals and poultry.
So what argument was there for country sporting types arriving in Australia, which had no need to control the fox population for the very simple reason that there were no foxes to control?
Many settlers brought animals with them. They packed their bags in the home country and along with their personal belongings they brought memories of home. The European goldfinch was intended as a decorative addition to Australia fauna, though it is hard to imagine what prompted some settlers to bringing the starling.
Fishermen introduced the brown trout and the rainbow trout to augment the local species. Pigs, dogs, cats and horses were unsurprising arrivals but many of them escaped into the countryside to become feral additions to the continent's wildlife.
It was wealthier settlers, either from the nobility and gentry, or from the types who wished to ape their habits, who had the bright idea of bringing in the fox. Since the argument for control of vermin did not apply in Australia the conclusion is inescapable that these "country gentlemen" brought fox cubs with them so they could enjoy the experience of chasing wild animals to exhaustion and then watch them being torn to pieces by packs of hounds.
That lone descendant of the cubs brought to Australia a century-and-a-half earlier was, as it moved along the streets of suburban Canberra, a living proof of how disingenuous one of the principal arguments for fox hunting has always been. When you watch blood-sports lobbyists on TV arguing against the recent ban on hunting with hounds in England and Wales, don't believe them.
Just think of what the hunters did in Australia to satisfy their bloodlust: they introduced a pest to a land where that pest did not exist.