Industrialization and Urban Transformations

IA 310 - Mapping World Cities

Overview

  • Until about a century ago, cities tended to be much unhealthier than rural areas
  • Improvements in nutrition, sanitation, and public health eroded the “urban penalty”
  • Railroads facilitated expansion of urban hinterlands and connections deeper into the continents and creation of new hub cities
  • Improved shipping facilitated global trade of lower-value commodities (grains, common textiles, household goods, etc.)
  • Demand for space in areas near the urban core generated higher land prices for commercial locations there, incentivizing trading distance from the urban core for cheaper land/more space
  • Mechanized transportation allowed cities to expand outward, leading to more distant suburbs
  • Automobiles and highways led to more personalized transportation and sprawling cities

The end of the “urban penalty”

Estimated urban population share using the HYDE model (Our World in Data, 2023)

The “urban penalty”

Historically, urban dwellers typically had poorer nutrition, were more susceptible to disease, were physically shorter, and had lower life expectancy than rural populations

Comparative heights among South African conscripts during the settler colonial period (Fourie, et al., Australia National University, 2022)

The “urban penalty”

Historically, urban dwellers typically had poorer nutrition, were more susceptible to disease, were physically shorter, and had lower life expectancy than rural populations

Comparative urban and rural mortality rates in the US around 1900, adjusting for age composition of the population (Feigenbaum, et al., NBER Working Paper, 2022)

Sewage and Water Infrastructure

Affluent and industrializing countries begin making large investments in improved water and sewage infrastructure in mid-1800s.

Expansion of water and sewage infrastructure in British towns, 1800s (Aidt, et al., Economic History Review, 2023)

Improving Nutrition

  • Improvements and cost reductions in transportation lead to expanding urban hinterlands (in some cases globally) and improvements in urban nutrition in some areas
  • Britain begins to experience a “nutrition transition” as lower cost international shipping, railroads, and the Empire allow for cheaper importation of sugar, grains, meats, etc.1
  • Railroads are correlated with a reduction in the height urban penalty in the US2

Union Freight stock certificate, Wikimedia Commons.

Better Public Health

Increasing understanding of disease spread and the development of the germ theory of disease leads to better public health interventions to control outbreaks, particularly following the Global 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic1

Declining disease mortality in Britain (Aidt., et al., Economic History Review, 2023) # Transportation technology and expanding urban landscapes

The von Thunen model: A high transportation cost world

  • Early 19th century German economist
  • Imagined a country made of a city on a featureless plain, where only transportation costs to the city center market varied
  • Economic activities that needed faster access to city center market would bid up land prices closer to the city
  • Economic activities would be arranged based on tradeoff between space requirements, travel needs and costs, and land prices

The von Thunen model: A high transportation cost world

Schematic of the von Thunen model (Wikimedia Commons).

The Burgess model: von Thunen in the city

Schematic of the Burgess model (Wikimedia Commons).

Rail transport and the emergence of suburbs

Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow, 1902.

The Hoyt model: von Thunen in the city with freight and passenger transportation corridors

Schematic of the Hoyt model (Wikimedia Commons).

The Harris and Ulman model: The automobile city

Schematic of Harris and Ulman model.

Colonial cities in the industrial age

  • European location preferences shift urban prevalence to less malarial areas in Africa1
  • Continued, though never fully successful, efforts on the parts of colonial governments to maintain barriers between a European core for colonial elites and peripheral areas where native populations lived2
  • Segregation and importation of European colonial city designs lead to subsequent inequalities, lower walkability, and other contemporary urban issues

Example: Maputo’s City of Cement

Map of Maputo, Mozambique, in the 1970s (Morton, Age of Concrete, 2019).

Review

  • Until about a century ago, cities tended to be much unhealthier than rural areas
  • Improvements in nutrition, sanitation, and public health eroded the “urban penalty”
  • Railroads facilitated expansion of urban hinterlands and connections deeper into the continents and creation of new hub cities
  • Improved shipping facilitated global trade of lower-value commodities (grains, common textiles, household goods, etc.)
  • Demand for space in areas near the urban core generated higher land prices for commercial locations there, incentivizing trading distance from the urban core for cheaper land/more space
  • Mechanized transportation allowed cities to expand outward, leading to more distant suburbs
  • Automobiles and highways led to more personalized transportation and sprawling cities