You lose the meaning of the word if it becomes too inclusive, and you'd simply have to use a new word to distinguish between societies that developed cities and

You lose the meaning of the word if it becomes too inclusive, and you'd simply have to use a new word to distinguish between societies that developed cities and other major technological advancements and those that did not. There were key and fundamental differences between pre-colonial Indigenous Australian nations and the way people lived in say, England, at the same time. While the origin of the word itself is quite literally Eurocentric, being a judgement and description invented by Romans, the consensus has been for a long time that civilisation did not start in Europe which undermines the idea that it's simply a Eurocentric/racist idea. You can also certainly argue that civilisation has major faults and ignored local indigenous knowledge in colonial contexts due to a misguided sense of superiority. If I may suggest a good book on this kind of thing, check out Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. I don't buy into the idea that civilisation is inherently superior (although I do like a lot of the things that come with it) which is probably why I don't see a need to make the word more inclusive.