Urbanization

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URBANIZATION

At the time of the American Revolution (1775–1783), communities within the capitals of the thirteen colonies were very small. Ninety-five percent of the country's population lived rurally, participating in the predominant agrarian economy. The nation's first census in 1790 found only five cities with more than 10,000 people and no city as large as 50,000. The process of urbanization soon took hold, however, and city populations grew rapidly. The close tie between economic development and urbanization became a hallmark of U.S. economic history. Where some nations evolved with a singular large urban center, the form of urbanization in the United States was far more regional. Urban networks grew with large cities supporting a network of smaller cities and the smaller cities supporting surrounding agricultural areas. Racing to develop transportation networks such as railroads and canals, competitive regions made investments into urban infrastructures, including cultural institutions such as museums, opera houses, parks, colleges, and theaters.

The nation's first cities were seaports such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Harbor areas formed the hub of economic activity. Through the early nineteenth century, modes of transportation evolved slowly; a person's needs could be met within a comfortable framework of one or two miles. A diverse mixture of economic activities and social classes including warehouses, artisan shops, and homes of the wealthy merchants could be found around the harbor area. Residential and business districts were intertwined. Little differentiation between social classes and ethnicities was common.

By the mid-nineteenth century a transportation and communication revolution emerged. Railway growth and the introduction of the steam engine dramatically influenced urbanization. Commercial centers transformed into industrial cities. Factory production expanded, bringing greater numbers of people to the cities with foreign immigration serving to satisfy escalating demands for workers. Cities, however, had difficulty accommodating the increased numbers of people. Considerable crowding occurred because buildings could not extend above five stories due to insufficient elevator technologies and the inability to supply water above that height.

By 1870 almost 170 cities had populations over 10,000 and 15 cities had more than 100,000 people. Transportation by horse-drawn street railcars allowed greater mobility. Cities became less centered around their harbor areas. New commercial districts grew somewhat distant from the ports containing key financial institutions, retail shops, and entertainment facilities. The traditional apprenticeship system gave way to a wage-earning working class that sought inexpensive housing. Residential areas became more detached from businesses and fast-growing industrial areas. The continued industrial growth also lead to unprecedented crowding of laborers in congested industrial areas. The wealthy class began creating their own, more lavish residential areas.

Westward extension of the railroads spurred migration. Commercial agricultural production and trade grew away from the coastal cities. Urbanization moved westward as well. Urban markets served agricultural economies as transportation hubs and banking centers facilitated a cohesive, regional economic system.

Major technological advances spurred increased urbanization in the 1870s. Elevators significantly altered urban area economics. The rental value of upper-story office building floors became relatively equal to street level floors, greatly raising city center land values. After 1870 central business districts with clusters of tall buildings began to surface. The buildings contained offices, department stores, entertainment establishments, and government agencies. Administrative and financial centers evolved, anchoring corporate activities that were distributed among outlying smaller cities. By the late 1880s electric streetcars were introduced which greatly enhanced transportation. A classic American urban pattern appeared in cities of over 100,000 residents. The pattern included a central business district, immediately surrounded by slums and working class residential areas, with more prosperous suburbs further outward. By 1918 most Americans lived in urban settings, and the classic downtown era persisted through World War II (1939–1945).

In the 1890s immigration from eastern and southern Europe grew dramatically. These groups were more socially distinct than earlier immigrants from northern and western Europe. During the two world wars of the twentieth century, African American migration from the American South escalated in the cities. The various ethnic groups established distinct neighborhoods with their own commercial activities.

Urbanization led to complex socioeconomic problems following World War II. The emergence of suburbs detracted from the quality of life in city centers by relocating many jobs and desperately needed tax revenue. The population of some cities declined. The process of urbanization had largely run its course. Cities of the late twentieth century presented contrasts between complexes of office towers, convention centers, and lavish hotels, surrounded by pockets of homeless people, poorly supported schools, low income housing, and crime. A new immigration wave entered the cities, primarily from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean, establishing new middle class non-white neighborhoods. The combination of international corporate office buildings and multi-ethnic neighborhoods introduced a new era of American urban centers.

Topic overview

Another measure of the contrasts appearing in the nation's cities at the end of the nineteenth century was the differentiation of urban space. Since the 1850s lower Manhattan had been the province of commercial buildings, warehouses and tenements. However, by the 1880s the island had fragmented into a series of discrete neighborhoods increasingly divided by economic use, race, class, and ethnic origin. Wealthy and white-collar workers followed streetcar lines or elevated railroads uptown or to the urban periphery.

david schuyler, the new urban landscape: the redefinition of city form in nineteenth-century america, 1986

See also: Industrial Revolution, Industrialization, Slums, Suburbs (Rise of), Tenements, Urban Renewal