Summary Comments on Chapters 1, 2 & 3 of "City"

Before I post my summary comments on the first three chapters which you also commented on this past week, let me remind you to incorporate these summary comments in your notes. If I ask anything about this book on the final exam, it will come from this material. Also, I believe some of these comments may have some use in writing the paper for this course and possibly the short essays you will be doing later in the term.

CHAPTER 1: Creative Destruction and the Age of Urbanism

I was gratified that all three of you selected passages which I also singled out in my own reading. Understanding the phenomenon of "creative destruction," which lies at the heart of our capitalistic system, is crucial to understanding 19th and 20th century urbanization in America. This economic imperative has done a lot more to shape cities than local, state, or even federal government actions. Indeed, it appears that unless government actions were in line with the private sector (as they were in the case of the decentralizing automobile and single-family home), they tend to be voted down. As Rae observes, local government decisions depend very much on what happens OUTSIDE the city.

Transportation, of course, was a big factor in fueling city growth, as well as undermining the quality of "urbanism." The railroad played a key role in growth and centralization of cities, and the gap between the dominance of the railroad and the rise of the automobile (roughly 1870-1920) was precisely the time that Rae contends "urbanism was at its height in places like New Haven." The automobile, along with the AC electrical grid "...ended the urbanism friendly age of centered development." (p. 21)

Rae also makes a very astute observation about the cumbersome legislative process of the federal government, especially when it is working AGAINST the grain of capitalism, rather than with the grain. (see pp. 27-28)

The last section, "Urbanism Old and New," (pp. 29-31) I believe presents the basic argument of the book and it is an important one, as we consider improvements in cities today and especially in the future.


CHAPTER 2: Industrial Convergence and a New England Town

One way of thinking about this chapter is to recall my earlier observation about 19th century urbanization in America being determined mainly by CENTRIPETAL (or drawing in) forces. Of course, Rae goes into great detail about how the development of new energy sources (steam), the fixed-route railroad (and lack of variable-route modes of transportation), and industrial development, not to mention the "massive concentration of labor at the site of manufacturing," along with huge waves of immigrants, all contributed to the centralization of growth in New Haven, clustered around that original 9-square grid which was focal point of the pre-industrial New Haven. As Rae observes: "For all these reasons, steam boilers and steam fitters, factories and operatives in the thousands, sweatshops and seamstresses, tenements and families crowded into the center of New Haven and learned to live with one another at close range. This was the fragile coincidence that came apart over the course of the years 1920-1970." (p. 59)

Very interesting contrast between Doolittle's promotion of pre-industrial New Haven in 1824, which highlights its pastoral qualities (pp. 35-36) and an 1892 description which emphasized New Haven's position as a manufacturing and transportation hub. (pp. 51-52)

Finally, in highlighting the growth assumptions for New Haven circa 1910, Rae notes how far off they proved to be, because we did not realize that this era of centralization was near its end. At the end of this chapter, I made the following comment in the margins: "To make more accurate predictions, if not to make meaningful and significant changes, we must understand these larger technological/economic/ecological factors which have proven the real keys to urbanization, and not necessarily political decisions of local officials."


CHAPTER 3: Fabric of Enterprise

One thing that clearly stands out in this chapter is just how thick that fabric of enterprise had become in New Haven by the early 20th century. The opening two paragraphs (pp. 73-74) provide a nice description of the "era of urbanism" as reflected in the "fabric of enterprise." For example, Rae comments:

"In the peak years of its urbanist era, New Haven's fabric of enterprise was rich and multilayered, centered and grounded. Its richness lay in the number and variety of enterprise -- including thousands of small retail stores, services of every imaginable variety, major industrial firms of world stature. It was centered in that firms were very tightly clustered in the central city -- around its industrial nodes, where working-class housing grew up in abundance, and in its downtown business district. It was grounded in having an abundance of business organizations led and managed by people living in the city, and reliant on the city for success -- reliant on city customers, reliant on city workers, reliant on city suppliers. And it was integrated through mixed-use location, long before zoning came along to regulate and homogenize land use."
(This also comes through in the passage on p. 88 which Miya read in class.)

Rae then gets into the story of Italian entrepreneur, Sylvester Poli. It is interesting and significant where he lived: "...it is characteristic of the period that people of considerable wealth often lived close to people with very little." (p. 77), which is so different from the stark class division of today's cities.

It is also amazing how dominant the foreign-born population was, who along with a small number of blacks and Asians, amounted to over 70% of the total population. (p. 79) Nonetheless, Rae points out how that minority WASP population largely controlled the New Haven Civic Improvement Committee, although they did make room for Mr. Poli as a sort of token foreign-born member. The "City Beautiful" ideas that emanated from that committee proved no match for the energy of the largely immigrant small business community.

On p. 93, Rae identifies three factors that would later help unravel this fabric of enterprise and thereby undercut urbanism.

Bankers were also largely committed to local enterprise. The rise of the downtown department store, in its own way, contributed to this thick fabric of enterprise. And he closes the chapter by highlighting the concentration of major manufacturing companies in the downtown area, another facet of urbanism which has largely disappeared today.
____________________________

That's all for now. On Tuesday (9/28), because I'll have to leave early, we'll only cover one chapter, Chapter 4, and then we'll cover the next two chapters on Thursday. I should be able to hand back your written commentaries on Tuesday as well. See you then.