John C. Weaver

Housing the North American City

Doucet and Weaver begin this empirical, analytical, and narrative study with an analysis of the evolution of land development as an enterprise and continue with an examination of house design and construction practices, the development of the apartment building, and an account of class and age as they relate to housing tenure. They also relate developments in Hamilton to the current state of urban historiography, using their case study to resolve discrepancies and contradictions in the literature. Among the major themes the authors deal with is a controversial exploration of what they see as a central North American urge: the desire to own a home. Other themes include the social allocation of urban space, the quality and affordability of housing, the increased interest of large corporations in the land development and financial service industries, and a comparative analysis of housing in Canada and the United States. The authors have drawn on civic and business records dating from the early nineteenth century to the latest planning data. Combining this information with their comprehensive analysis, Doucet and Weaver show that current housing problems and potential solutions are better understood when seen as part of a historical process. They provide a critical assessment of the ways in which contemporary society produces shelter and question the use of technical innovations alone to resolve housing crises.

The North American Shelter Business, 1860–1920: A Study of a Canadian Real Estate and Property Management Agency

In this article, Professors Doucet and Weaver examine the North American shelter business between 1860 and 1920. Drawing upon the business records of the Hamilton, Ontario, real estate firm of Moore and Davis, they analyze the construction, ownership, and management of the North American shelter staple—the single-family detached dwelling. Since these activities had significant effects on the everyday lives of urban dwellers, they reveal significant social as well as business patterns. Doucet and Weaver conclude that this firm, and by implication the industry as a whole, preferred the prudent and routine to the innovative and daring, suggesting, in contrast to the work of recent scholars, that continuity rather than change typified urban development during these decades.

Staying on the Straight and Narrow: Recent Books on Violence, Crime, and the Question of Order in Nineteenth-Century Urban America

John K. Alexander, Render Them Submissive: Responses to Poverty in Philadelphia, 1760-1800 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 1980). Gunter Barth, City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in NineteenthCentury America (New York: Oxford 1980). Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press 1978). Theodore Hershberg, editor, Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family and Group Experience in the 19th Century (Toronto: Oxford University Press 1981). Jame E. Inciardi and Charles E. Faupel, History and Crime: Implications for Criminal Justice Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage 1980). David R. Johnson, Policing the Urban Underworld: The Impact of Crime on the Development of the American Police, 1800-1887 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1979). Roger Lane, Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident and Murder in 19th Century Philadelphia (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press 1979). John C. Schneider, Detroit and the Problem of Order, 1830-1880: A Geography of Crime, Riot, and Policing (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1980).