Perhaps no place and time of urban history has been more exhaustively studied than the
cities of the United States during the industrial transformation and after - that is, during the
period from the mid-nineteenth century when industrial enterprises, which had originated in
Europe, began to secure a foothold in America to the period in the mid-twentieth century
when the United States became a world power and its cities were regarded as the paradigm
examples of advanced, “modern” urbanism. It was an extraordinary period of rapid
transformation, both socially and technologically, and it is the subject of Sam Bass Warner’s
“Evolution and Transformation: The American Industrial Metropolis, 1840-1940”.
Warner summarizes (samenvatten) the broad range of areas in which the very terms of
urban life changed during the century after the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
He notes that the new technologies and economic changes led the way toward new
urban spatial arrangements - inner-city neighbourhoods, suburbs, specialized
industrial districts, and commercial downtowns with their department stores and
soaring skyscrapers.
He also notes the extraordinary, and often unexpected, social transformations that
accompanied and intertwined with these other developments.
cities of the United States during the industrial transformation and after - that is, during the
period from the mid-nineteenth century when industrial enterprises, which had originated in
Europe, began to secure a foothold in America to the period in the mid-twentieth century
when the United States became a world power and its cities were regarded as the paradigm
examples of advanced, “modern” urbanism. It was an extraordinary period of rapid
transformation, both socially and technologically, and it is the subject of Sam Bass Warner’s
“Evolution and Transformation: The American Industrial Metropolis, 1840-1940”.
Warner summarizes (samenvatten) the broad range of areas in which the very terms of
urban life changed during the century after the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
He notes that the new technologies and economic changes led the way toward new
urban spatial arrangements - inner-city neighbourhoods, suburbs, specialized
industrial districts, and commercial downtowns with their department stores and
soaring skyscrapers.
He also notes the extraordinary, and often unexpected, social transformations that
accompanied and intertwined with these other developments.
