Foundations of the American Urban System: Part One

This Lecture

• 5 epochs that established the foundation of the American Urban System:

– Frontier: Founding to 1790

– Mercantilism: 1790-1840

– Early Industrial Expansion and Realignment: 1840-1875

– Organization of Industry: 1875-1920

– Early Fordism: 1920-1945

• Understand how technology, transport, economic change, frontierism, and other social changes shaped the American Urban system

Frontier Urbanization

• Unlike Meso-America, few large pre-Columbian settlements in North America

– Both the Hohokam and Anasazi in the Southwest built extensive irrigation canals and roads, traded with Toltecs (but did not develop major cities like groups in Meso-America)

– The Mississippian people built Cahokia, Illinois (near St. Louis), which existed from about 700-1300, including large mounds

• At peak, was probably in 30,000-40,000 range

– Compared to the valley of Mexico and lower elevations of the Andes, North America was very lightly populated, so both settled/agrarian and hunter/gatherer tribes tended to have a decent amount of space and little impetus to city build.

Frontier Urbanism (cont.)

• Spanish the first European power to set a permanent settlement

– St. Augustine, FL the first; Santa Fe, NM the 3^rd (in between was the Dutch New Amsterdam (now NYC))

• The Spanish also found a series of pueblos (centers of commerce and admin), missions (centers of religious conversion), and presidios (military forts) throughout the southwest

– San Antonio, San Diego, LA, Santa Barbara, San Fran, etc...

• The French also establish trading outposts along Mississippi and Great Lakes

– Quebec, Detroit, St. Louis, New Orleans, La Crosse, etc…

• English first in Jamestown, VA then Williamsburg, VA to grow tobacco – also where the British brought first African slaves to US

– Charlestown, SC eventually becomes the most significant port in the Southern US

• In the North, many cities like Newport, RI, Boston, MA, Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA are founded by religious dissenters (or Catholics)

Frontier Urbanism (cont.)

• Eventually, the British take and name NYC, and along with Charleston, Newport, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia, become the major gateway cities/entrepots for the American colonies

– These gateway cities

• Assemble staple crops for export

• Distribute imported manufactured goods

• Administer the new territories

– Like colonial gateway cities the world over, they trade mostly with Europe, not each other

– Of these, New York had the best natural harbor and rivers (and eventually canals) that penetrated deep into its hinterland (the land that is associated with a larger city). But on the eve of independence, only had 25,000 people

Frontier Urbanism (cont.)

• Over time, new inland gateway cities emerge that collect produce and bundle it before sending it on to ports

– Hartford, CT; Albany, NY; Lancaster, PA; and Richmond, VA were the first wave

– Later on cities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City hold these roles.

• Many early East Coast cities were along what was called the Fall Line, where the metamorphosed rock of the Piedmont dropped off to the sedimentary rock of the Coastal Plain.

– Why?

• This was often the “head of navigation” – the farthest inland on a river a boat could go (because of waterfalls)

• These sites with falling water could power mills, and thus were sites for early industrialization

– These include: Lowell, MA; Harford, CT; Albany, NY; Fall River, MA; Montreal, QC; Trenton, NJ; Philly; Wilmington, DE; Baltimore, MD: Washington, DC; Richmond, VA; Fayetteville, NC; Columbia, SC; Augusta, GA

Mercantile Epoch

• The US Constitution did several things that allowed cities to grow effectively

– Giving the federal government exclusive right to create tariffs and mint money, thus forbidding states to create tariffs internally (thus creating a uniform, single market)

– The new country needed to trade internally to upend dependence on Europe

– Most new American investment by Americans, meaning profits no longer leaked back to Euro cities

– A new system of government was needed, with district, regional and state courts and administrators (including a brand new city to be the capital – Washington DC)

– The plans for westward expansion assured new cities would emerge as local service centers

Mercantile (cont.)

• Roads in the era were incredibly slow, rivers dominated commerce

– Thus explosive growth of St. Louis, New Orleans

– The Erie Canal connected the port of NYC with the Great Lakes (Buffalo, C-town, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee) via the Hudson River, while another route links Philly and Baltimore to the Ohio River (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville)

• Some cities, like Cincy in Pork (fed by Ohio and Kentucky corn), begin to specialize based on their comparative advantage (what they can do most efficiently, based on local conditions)

• Manufacturing began to emerge in the Northern colonies (which were less dependent on plantation export agriculture)

– Along with the big cities, Lowell, MA; Albany, NY; Newark, NJ; Providence, RI; and Wilmington, DE make the cradle of American Industrialization

Mercantile (cont.)

• Though people of English descent dominate, about 40% of some other ancestry

– At independence, out of 2.5 million, 1/5 are slaves

• Behind slaves, next larges groups are the Scotch-Irish and Germans

• Bigger numbers soon to come

• This era also sees a boom in agricultural production

– Combo of getting better farm land through opening the interior, better farm tools and better techniques

– This means same number of people can produce more food; meaning more people available to settle cities

• By 1840, New York at nearly 400,000 is four times larger than its nearest rivals for size: Baltimore and New Orleans (followed by Boston and Philly)

– Cincinnati has become the most important city in the interior

Living in the Mercantile City

• These cities, sometimes called walking cities, were defined by their compactness

– Most extended no more than a 2 mile radius from their center (how far a person can walk in a half hour)

– Thus every type of land use (housing, warehousing, retail, workshops, banks) mixed in with housing

– Goods were moved around by hand cart or horse cart

• Densities were very high (75 per sq mile before things like elevators and skyscrapers), only relief came to cities like NYC, Philly when ferry service was established to open a second bank of development

• Waterfront tended to be the hub of activity, with its merchant offices, wharves and warehouses

– Slightly inland you get hotels, banks, churches, public buildings, homes of prominent families

– Squeezing into open space were housing for artisans, shop keepers and laborers, this extended to the edge of town

• Most people lived next or in the place where they worked from factory owners on down to servants

– Mills, breweries, slaughterhouses and tanneries tended to be on the very edge of town

• Unlike older European (and certainly Middle Eastern cities), US cities in this era develop very few ethnic/occupation quarters (although Irish quarters were most common)

Vance’s Mercantile Model

• Through abstraction and diagram drawing, tries to generalize the process of colony making described above.

– Only mention it because it was very prominent for a long time, but like most models is only a generalization that misses a lot of detail

• 5 phases

• Exploration – Finding what is there

• Harvest Natural Resource – Taking what nature provides (pelts, timber, fish)

• Emergence of Farm-Based Production – Start to get staple crops for export; gateway cities along the coast to process exports and receive imports

• Establishment of Interior Depot Centers – More demand for products and more colonists push colonization inward; new cities found and old gateway cities grow

• Economic Maturity/Central Place Infilling – A big enough domestic market allows industry to emerge in the old gateway cities and interior depots; smaller central places begin to emerge to fill in the gaps between the older cities.

Early Industrial Expansion and Realignment

• Improved machines, increasing industrialization, and rural to urban migration fuel urban growth

• Additionally, 1840’s begins the huge waves of European immigrants

– First wave was the beginning of the great Irish emigration, with people fleeing the potato famine and near criminal British Laissez-faire policy

• The reception the Irish got in the US, especially as Catholics, was not warm; lots of ghettoization in East Coast cities

– 1850 wave saw people leaving Germany, France and the low countries due to changes brought mechanization of agriculture and industrial overproduction

– 1870’s add the Scandinavians (many to the upper Midwest)

– 1880’s until the beginning of the quota system around 1920 see Italians, Central and Eastern European Jews, and East-European Slavs (many of whom come to cities and mines)

• Again, because these immigrants were different (Catholic, Jewish or Orthodox) from the Northern Europeans, they too faced discrimination that led to the Emergency Quota Act (1921) Immigration Act (1924)

New Towns and City Types During Early Industry Era

• Power Sites: Early industries needed falling water (see Fall Line cities mentioned last time)

• Mining Towns: Once coal and ores (iron, copper, etc) were needed for industrialization, new mining towns sprung up (West Virginia coal and Upper Peninsula Michigan cooper)

• Transportation Centers: New cities emerge where canals and railroads get routed (Roanoke, Virginia and eventually Atlanta)

• Heavy Manufacturing Towns: These need huge volumes of both raw materials and power (Pittsburgh with both coal and iron)

Early Industry…

• Railroads really begin to take off during this time

– First railroads are about feeding produce from agricultural areas into established ports (Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Cincinnati, St. Louis), thus worked with rivers

– With the completion of Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 and the huge increase in miles of track, get a national rail network that can bypass St. Louis and New Orleans with grain

• As plow technology improves, upper midwest farmable for the first time and Minneapolis and Kansas City begin to grow

• This also allows the first emergence of the Great Lakes Manufacturing Belt (aka Steel Belt, now Rust Belt)

• Two big east west wholesale alignments:

– NYC/Buffalo/Cleveland/Detroit/Chicago

– Philly/Pittsburgh/Cincinnati/Louisville

• Rail density and industrialization does not proceed as extensively in the South

– Being able to sell things across the continent means American business can take advantage of economies of scale (that the more you produce of something, cheaper it is to make each unit)

Theories of Urban Growth in Urban Industrial Era

• Most urban growth and industrial growth occurs in already large towns and cities

• Theories why?

– Initial Advantage: Cities that already have stuff get more

• In the U.S. case, early cities already had transport and wholesale businesses for infrastructure, their owners who had capital, financial services, innovators, large pools of labor, and large and affluent populations

– This made them likely sites for mass producers

Theories of Urban Growth (cont.)

– External Advantage (or Agglomeration Advantage): Any advantage that comes from collective than exclusive use of any of the elements necessary for profitable activity

• Examples include skilled labor, business services (marketing, etc.) and good physical infrastructure (ports, roads, etc)

• If these advantages are confined to a particular industry, it is called Localization Economies

– Includes specialized pool of labor, focused technical schools/university programs, shared marketing or research institution, and associated subcontractors

– This was cars in Southeast Michigan; Rubber in Akron, OH; publishing in NYC

» Obviously, these do not necessarily hold forever

Theories of Urban Growth (cont.)

– Rank size rule: Population of City = Population of Largest City in Country / Rank of City in Country

• This (mostly) holds for US in this era where New York (1.3 million in 1875) is 3 to 4 times larger than nearest 5 cities (Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis) and 10 times larger than next 10

– When you plot this on a chart, makes a nice curve where the distribution remains constant, but a city’s relative ranking floats over time

• HOWEVER – Like many similar formulas that are simple, it has lots of exceptions, for example, many countries have a primate city many orders of magnitude larger than its nearest competitor (Buenos Aires, Dublin, London, Mexico City)

– Innovation and Urban Growth: The larger the city is, the more steady and predictable its growth rate (ie variability in growth rate decreases with urban size)

• Theory behind this is innovation theory, that places with most innovations (or successfully adopted outside innovations) both keeps current residents and attracts migrants

– In general larger places do this (and places near where innovations occur (neighborhood effect)), but sometimes a random small place hits a big idea