The Urban World, 9 th Ed.

1. The Urban World, 9th Ed. J. John Palen

2. Chapter 3: The Rise of Urban America • Introduction • Colonists as Town Builders • Major Settlements • Colonial Urban Influence • Cities of the New Nation • The Industrial City • Political Life • Urban Imagery • Summary

3. Introduction • A look at the development of North America: From Jamestown up to the contemporary era

4. Colonists as Town Builders • Native American Indians were nomadic • Puritans believed themselves to be God’s chosen people • Colonists’ emphasized conquering natureand were town-oriented

5. Major Settlements • New England • Consisted of tight, self-reinforcing social elite • Boston and Newport valued education • The Middle Colonies • Manhattan most cosmopolitan because of the diversity in languages spoken • New York had a magnificent deepwater natural harbor, fertile soil, and access to the interior. • Philadelphia was the youngest of the colonial cities

6. The South • Charleston • Slow growing • Negative trade balance with Great Britain • Civic atrophy due to social structure • Canada • French established Quebec and Montreal • Mainly used as garrisons and trading posts • Not until the mid-19th century would Canadian cities become manufacturing and economic centers

7. Colonial Urban Influence • Seminal importance of colonial North American cities, regardless of size • New ideas and forms of social organization developed • Set the political tone

8. Cities of the New Nation: 1790-1860 • Rapid Growth • Pre-Civil War the North had rapid expansion and city growth • Influenced by • Environmental factors • Land speculation • Immigration • Marketplace Centers • The urban economy was in a commercial stage • The wealthy lived in the center of the city, while the poor were forced to the periphery

9. The Industrial City: 1860-1950 • Technological Developments • Urban technology opened the frontier and overcame the environment • The Railroad, improved farming techniques, and improved technology facilitated growth and prosperity • The location of cemeteries can be used as a gauge for previous city boundaries

10. Spatial Concentration • Concentration and Centralization: the late 19-century city’s layout, accentuated by industrialization • Industrialization encouraged centripetal rather than centrifugal forces • Workers’ homes located near factories • Twentieth-Century Dispersion • The telephone, electricity, and transportation advances aided in dispersion • Cities gained a star-shaped configuration due to public transportation

11. Political Life • Corruption and Urban Services • Political institutions were adequate under simplified rural conditions but inadequate to the task of governing a complicated system of ever-expanding public services and utilities • Political Bosses • Buffers between slum dwellers and the often hostile official bureaucracy • Distinguished between dishonest graft and honest graft, or “boodie”

12. Immigrants’ Problems • More than 40 million immigrants between 1800 and 1925 • Accelerated after the Civil War • To WASP writers around 1900, the sins of the city were frequently translated in the sins of the new immigrant groups • Reform Movements • Reformers were distinctly middle-class • Represented abstract WASP goals

13. Urban Imagery • Ambivalence • The city is exalted as the center of vitality, enterprise, and excitement OR denounced as sinks of crime, pollution, and depravity • Although Americans pour into cities, they traditionally idealize the country • Myth of Ritual Virtue • Only 1.6 percent of the American population still resides on farms • Small towns still depicted as filled with friendly folk with “down home” wisdom