jason carr HIST 5302 Metropolitan America Final Part B: The late nineteenth century witnessed the rise of modern urban America but the nature of cities and their metropolitan regions has changed significantly since that time. Trace the changing nature of American cities since the turn-of-the-century with special emphasis on the spatial, economic and social (but not necessarily exclusively these) development. American urban structures have changed significantly since their growth in the late nineteenth century. Those cities were formed in an economic, technical and cultural matrix which influenced their physical layout, population distribution and self-image. Cities which experienced their significant growth later on (Western cities, for example) present these features differently. The archetypal (Eastern) city in the late nineteenth century was a "walking city"; the city was organized around a Central Business District and the majority of the cities population lived within walking distance of the center. There was a mixture of functions (residential, commercial, industrial, etc), and a clear break between the rural and urban entities.1 Even though some of the rich could afford country homes and carriages and some cities like Philadelphia even had turnpikes2, these were the exception to an otherwise compact and heterogeneous city center. Verticality was the rule for industrial buildings. These buildings featured a vertical shaft piercing the floors, harnessing a single energy source (whether steam or water) to power the entire building. The local delivery of goods thus produced was dissatisfying: it could cost less to ship a product across the nation on a railroad than it could to ship across town on wagon. For better or worse, the rich and the poor lived interspersed for the most part, lending to the city a cosmopolitan, exciting air. A cultural change which warmed to new street uses, street administration3 and new transportation technologies such as the omnibus, cable car, commuter train and trolley turned this old urban pattern design "inside out."4 Those who could afford a daily commute began to purchase stand- alone, single-family housing away from the city (this tended to increase the percentage of poor people near the city's center). More modest homes appeared within walking distance of the railroad lines. These early suburbs developed "like beads on a string"5 and are an early example of how technology extended the city in ways both familiar and unfamiliar at once.6 Contemporary technologies and businesses were amenable to commuting; telephones and electricity meant that company executives could remain in touch with their business while safely removed from the excitement of downtown.7 With the appearance of affordably-priced automobiles, the masses began to move out of the city into the suburbs. This was in effect a decentralization of the citizenry, with social repercussions: people began to believe they could run away from the problems of the big city. Housing developments sprung up to accept these emigrants; no longer restricted to the geometries of the commuter railroads and walking culture, land developers built divisions to absorb the urbanites. New automobile-related industries flourished: petroleum, road construction, car manufacturing. All the while the city centers became poorer, increasingly populated by Blacks from rural areas who had moved to the city for opportunity and freedom; that dream was deferred, indefinitely as it turns out. The development of the light truck, capable of moving parcels inexpensively and quickly through city streets and down highways, coincided with a decentralization of the business core of the city that mirrored the earlier outflow of the citizenry. The city, already having lost its middle and mobile lower classes now lost its industry to the suburbs, too. Companies moved out to the suburbs where the land was cheaper, there was less congestion (in theory), and where their skilled workers already lived. Currently, suburbs and cities enter into bidding wars to attract corporations; tax breaks are the common currency. With the industrial and technical bases moved to the suburbs, the remaining businesses downtown are frequently high-status businesses like financial or legal firms. Both of these fields are singularly unsuited to the skill sets of the permanent underclass left in the inner cities. This classical progression (regression?) from centralized city to decentralized metropolis is not representative, however, of the development of Western cities. Western cities, coming of age in a period of high mobility, went straight into decentralization. Although there are definite regions in the Western metropolitan sprawl (pockets of ethnicity like the Fair Park are of South Dallas or the high-tech Telecomm Corridor north of Dallas) the basic pattern is one of dispersion and decentralization. Fans of the traditional, Eastern-style centralized and existing cosmopolitan city are unlikely to be encouraged by this trend. The tendency toward sprawl will continue, and not necessarily in the geographic and cultural sense. Modern telecommunications and inexpensive data computing power make telecommuting possible and even desirable. The upside is reduced commuting times and office-related expenses (both for the company and employee) and a potential for a vastly improved quality of life.8 The downsides are an absolute destruction of orthodox corporate life9 and the fact that the increasingly technical workplace favors those who are proficient with the manipulation of information and abstractions. Once again, the largely Black underclass is left out of the upward mobility. How does an American metropolis remain a viable entity when entire sections of its valuable and talented human resources lay fallow? None of the options for remedying this situation are pleasant. Force the underclass to adopt a business/corporate/capitalist culture? Let them fail and starve? Continue, paternally and patronizingly, to underwrite the current self-perpetuating welfare system?10 The night will get darker before it gets light again. The current fragmentation of American culture, business and urban topography will continue, the distance between us likely growing ever greater. _______________________________ 1McShane, Clay. Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City. p 14. Boston's boosters consider their city "America's Walking City." See http://www.discoverboston.com/cover2.htm 2McShane. p 6 3 McShane. p 57 4 Jackson, Kenneth. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. p 20. 5 Jackson, 101. 6 Note that suburbanites, like urbanites, are still limited by the distance one can walk on foot. The difference is that this phenomenon is existing well outside the city proper. The understanding of what it is to live urban life is malleable. This is seen in the extreme later on in the "sprawling" Western cities. 7 Telecommuting is not necessarily a new idea. 8 Earlier this year I resigned the presidency of my company, Cyberline, sold my interest, and marketed my skills as a freelance telecommuting programmer. Although my gross cash flow has decreased, my usable income has soared. My dry cleaning, business breakfast/lunch/dinner, and commuting bills have been reduced to literally nothing. When not in school a tank of gas lasts a month. I work my own natural schedule, at my own page, and at a rate I set. I have been able to carve out enough time to finish off the M.A. this semester. This is surely my vision of The Good Life. 9 Although I submit this is not an entirely Bad Thing, office life constitutes the bulk of many people's lives. Why do people date their co-workers? Because work has consumed all their leisure time. The loss of this last remaining social contact would probably be traumatic. 10 Herrnstein and Murray's exceedingly controversial The Bell Curve pessimistically predicts the creation of "reservations" for the underclass. http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/