Robert Lewis

Constructing a Fault(y) Zone: Misrepresentations of American Cities and Suburbs, 1900–1950

The way we think about the geography of American cities and suburbs in the first half of this century has, for several decades, been framed by the writings of Ernest W. Burgess, Homer Hoyt, Chauncy Harris, and Edward Ullman. Burgesss zonal model has been especially influential, gaining ascendancy in the postwar period. Contemporaries knew, and recent historical research has shown, that this model was faulty in several important respects. It gained influence as later scholars simplified its conception of the suburban commuter fringe, at first to a contrast between industrial and residential suburbs and then to the singular myth of the middle-class enclave. Suburban affluence came to be contrasted with inner-city poverty. This revised zonal model implied the existence of a political, social, and economic fault zone between city and suburbs and differed markedly from that which Burgess had developed. It gained influence even over historical research because it was associated with the influential Chicag...

The Geography of North American Cities and Suburbs, 1900-1950 A New Synthesis

It is time to rethink the geography of American cities and suburbs in the first half of the twentieth century. Theoretical argument and substantive research have both challenged the received wisdom, which continues to rely heavily on the ideas of the Chicago school of sociology and especially those of Ernest Burgess. In theoretical terms, writers have challenged the view that geographical patterns merely reflect society, suggesting instead that space is integral to economic and social processes. A company does not make its production and location decisions separately: each implies the other. Similarly, a household chooses to live where it can afford, and what it can afford depends on the mix of work strategies that a certain location allows. Such theoretical insights imply that even if the geography of urban areas conformed to the models of the Chicago school, it must be conceptualized anew. In fact, historical research is challenging the substantive accounts offered by Burgess and by many later writers. The enduring model assumes that jobs were concentrated near the city center, except for a few large factories at the fringe. It supposes that jobs and low wages kept immigrant workers in central cities, sometimes in sectors along radial rail lines. Supposedly, only affluent families could afford new suburban homes, while the exclusivity of the suburbs was ensured by suburban self-rule. This view stresses inner-city poverty and suburban affluence. It has inspired many studies of central immigrant ghettoes and slums and, following Warner, the suburban experiences of the middle class. Recently, however, some writers have provided disconfirming evidence of industrial decentralization and of fringe settlement by workers and

The Nature of Circulation: The Urban Political Ecology of Chicago's Michigan Avenue Bridge, 1909-1930

The idea that the urban environment is socially produced and contested is a central concern of urban political ecology. Drawing from the theme of circulation, it is argued that Chicagos Michigan Avenue Bridge is a socio-physical manifestation of capitalist urban nature that had important repercussions for the citys landscape, particularly the development of North Michigan Avenue. As fixed capital, the bridge functioned as a metabolic vehicle that facilitated and enhanced the circulation of capital within the rapidly expanding metropolis. Chicagos Michigan Avenue Bridge is an example of how power geometries shape social, political, and urban environments.

Productive and Spatial Strategies in the Montreal Tobacco Industry, 1850-1918

AbstractThis paper explores the productive and spatial strategies associated with industrial change. A significant portion of the literature on industrial change after 1880 has emphasized the importance of the corporation. To add another dimension to this literature, and building on the work of economic geographers and historians, this paper investigates the range of strategies open to firms and industries. These strategies are theorized through the concept of production formats, which states that studies of industrial organization and economic change need to be built upon the social, technological, and material properties of firms and industries within a historically specific context, and are demonstrated through the example of the Montreal tobacco industry between 1850 and 1918.The production format is a useful concept for understanding the divergent growth paths of the various branches of the tobacco industry, as it is able to capture a variety of productive and spatial strategies characterizing the in...

Local Production Practices and Chicago's Automotive Industry, 1900–1930

Chicagos large, diverse automotive industry specialized in truck, bus, and taxicab assembly, as well as automotive-parts manufacture, in the first decades of the twentieth century. From having just a handful of companies before World War I, by the mid 1920s Chicago grew to include more than 600 firms that were producing a wide assortment of automotiverelated products. This large, successful industry emerged out of two sets of advantages: First, Chicagos well-developed production factors—ranging from relatively advanced transportation and industrial facilities to a large labor force and an effective entrepreneurial business class—promoted industrial growth. Second, the automotive industrys production practices, elaborate division of labor, and intense set of interfirm relations encouraged metropolitan expansion. Even though the citys firms functioned both regionally and nationally, they were also deeply embedded within a local world of innovation, interaction, networks, financing, and servicing. Further adding to these advantages was Chicagos distinctive geography, which enabled a dense complex of linked, interrelated firms to flourish and contributed to the automotive industrys success before 1930.

Segregation and the Social Relations of Place, Bombay, 1890–1910

For many, a defining feature of the colonial Indian city is the high rate of segregation of its European and Indians residents. Building on recent work that explores the messy realities of social and spatial relations, this paper argues that the social geographies of the colonial city were built on the social relations of place—the network of social relations that are bound up with a particular material setting. The result was that social spaces were centred on overlapping geographic patterns, intense negotiations over space, and heterogeneous lived-in spaces. In this paper, these points are examined through the case of Bombays Modern Town at the turn of the twentieth century. Modern Town was supposedly the home of the citys European population and it stood in sharp contrast to the citys Native Town. However, Modern Town did not conform to the spatial topographies described by most writers. While formal residential segregation existed, social and economic articulation and interaction ensured that the districts social spaces were meshed in differentiated and complex ways.

Numbers didn't count: the streets of colonial Bombay and Calcutta

Street and house numbers are part of the modern states geo-locational regime, by which people and places are made legible to distant governments and bureaucrats. Some writers have suggested that they were important in colonial cities, where urban regulation and political control was often insecure, but we know little about their extent and significance in such settings. Bombay and Calcutta c .1901 are significant test cases, being two of the largest colonial cities in the world, as well as being recent sites of major disease outbreaks. City directories in Bombay, together with property assessment and census evidence for Calcutta, show that house numbers were rare for all types of property and people. Local residents used other methods to navigate the city, while British administrators did not believe house numbers to be an important aspect of colonial rule. Fragmentary evidence for other colonial cities suggests that the experience of these Indian cities was broadly typical.

Industrial Districts and Manufacturing Linkages: Chicago's Printing Industry, 1880-1950

In this article, it is argued that the North American industrial district was a metropolitan-centred one that drew extensively on regional resources, skills, capital, and information. The Chicago printing industry between 1880 and 1950 is used as a case study to demonstrate that industries were linked at various scales: from the factory district to the metropolis and the region. A wide range of sources (manufacturing censuses, government reports, industrial journals, bankruptcy records) is employed to establish how the intricate set of relations and transactions formed metropolitan industrial districts.

Comments on urban agency: relational space and intentionality

For urban historians and urban historical geographers, the relevance and meaning of the city as a driver of human history is central to what we do, both theoretically and empirically. For some, the question of how to define what a city does is a pressing one. For many of us, though, the question is rarely raised; it resides in that murky place behind our writing and thinking, and has little direct or conscious play over how we go about doing our daily work. Historical geographers, with their greater emphasis on theory and spatial relations, are more likely than historians, trained as they are to think through narrative, empirical evidence and temporality, to explore the citys role in explaining social change. Despite this difference, the fact remains that only a handful of urban historical scholars of whatever stripe are actively interested in thinking through the scope and significance of urban agency. The fact that few openly grapple with the question of urban agency, of course, does not mean that we do not work with some understanding of the citys ontological status. All of us do, for better or worse.

A happy confluence of planning and statistics: Bombay and Calcutta in the 1901 census

In India in 1901, a rare statistical event occurred. A confluence of interests gave a group of nascent planners new influence over the conduct of a census, with the result being a rich body of published information for Bombay and Calcutta. Useful in its day, this material now offers exceptional insights into social conditions, and the concerns of planners, in two great colonial cities. Having sketched the confluence of interests, this research note outlines the nature of the evidence that it produced and illustrates how it may be used by historical scholars, with particular reference to Bombay. The 1901 census can provide documentation of land use, living conditions, and the social geography of the city at a geographical scale that is finer than that of any other published census of the period.