Part One: The City

Steve Newman

Although today we might consider Britain and the United States to be, in some ways, very similar we must remember that those same similarities are only skin deep, and not least urban growth. For instance, when we look at the pace at which London and New York grew in the 19th century there can be little doubt that these two particular conurbations were considered – on both sides of the Atlantic – to be cities. Yet, the definition of what could be called a city in Britain was very different to that in the United States.

In 19th century Britain (as in most of Europe) the words 'urban' and 'city' had a legal definition and connection with religious and political institutions, and administrative boundaries, that meant that if you lived in an area populated by just a few hundred people, but had a cathedral, you lived in a city; or if it was the administrative centre of a county it was also a city - although there have always been some exceptions. For instance the town of Warwick is the administrative centre of Warwickshire, but is not a city because it only has a collegiate church, which cannot be the traditional county home of the bishop. On the other hand Coventry, just a few miles from Warwick, is a city because it has a cathedral and developed as a religious centre a bit earlier than Warwick. And although Coventry is self-governing, and has no jurisdiction over the rest of the county, it has given most of the southern part of Warwickshire its CV (Coventry) post codes. It can get confusing.

The 19th century US had no such legal, religious, boundary or administrative traditions, with only the pragmatic factor of population numbers – 2,500 inhabitants of more, which was invariably ignored - the only guideline for classification as urban, with the consequence that the majority of such settlements (until the First World War) invariably called themselves cities.

To the European eye these so called 'cities' may, once seen, have appeared as little more than villages. Yet, this somewhat grandiloquent labelling was both optimistic and, in many cases, little more than a means of creating interest - by unscrupulous land speculators - in tracts of land considered ripe (invariably very unripe) for exploitation. Consequently, as a selling tool the word 'city' (at least for many of those immigrants from the Old World) retained its British and European connotations and attractions. After a while, in the US, the term 'city' was most readily applied to the new frontier boom towns of the West, towns that sprang up as a result of the discovery of huge mineral deposits of one sort or another. The classic example is Virginia City.

In 1865 Virginia City was described as having “...seven cemeteries full of murdered men, seven empty prisons, 120 saloons, 800 prostitutes, and a place where 16,000 quarts of whiskey were consumed each week.” And such was the wealth of Virginia City that huge quantities of caviar, truffles, lobsters and Champagne were imported weekly to be consumed, not only in those 120 saloons, but also in the dozens of restaurants, theatres and opera houses operating in the town – sorry, city.

Mark Twain, who was a newspaper editor there in the early days described the place as “...the Athens of the West.”, which suggests Twain hadn't, as yet, been to Athens.

As we shall see even this cursory look at Virginia City helps illustrate - when compared, for instance, with the English city of Birmingham – some of the differences and similarities of the British and US urban experience.

Birmingham's 19th century development was - like Virginia City - also rapid and continuous, because of its place – unlike Virginia City - at the heart of the industrial revolution, a revolution that required an immediate influx of workers from surrounding rural areas. And it must be remembered that although these workers were, on the whole, farm labourers, they were already familiar with a good deal of newly invented machinery (such as the mechanical thresher) that had become such an important part of farming. These men were therefore ideal candidates for the new factories and would soon earn more in a steel mill, ordinance factory, iron foundry, in railway construction - or even producing chocolates for Cadbury's - than they had ever earned as farm labourers. A new and wealthier labouring class had been created almost overnight, that would, in later years also change the political climate of Britain.

By 1851 over half the population of Britain (18 million in total) was considered to be living in an urban environment with almost one quarter living in areas with populations greater than 100,000. By comparison the US in 1850 – with a population of 23 million – only classified 15% of its population as urban.

Over the next decades Birmingham experienced a huge expansion (the population increased by 900,000 between 1801 and 1931) with housing and factory development moving ever outward from the centre, engulfing existing small rural towns and villages, which were then joined by the ever expending railway network.

Virginia City, by comparison, did not attract a rural farming population to its centre because there simply wasn't one. What it did attract was the businessman and entrepreneur (and crook) from the East (many from Brooklyn) who quickly built hotels, saloons, opera houses and theatres to house and entertain the ever growing population of mine workers, many of whom became dollar millionaires.

To reinforce how the urban populations grew in the US and Britain it's worth comparing some statistics.

By 1870-71 some 60% of the population of Britain was classified as urban, whereas in the US it was still only 21%, which was nevertheless an unprecedented increase. Over the next forty years (up to 1910) the US considered 46% of its residents to be urban, a figure that rose to 51% by 1920.

By the last third of the 19th century Birmingham - now confirmed as Britain's (some argue England's) second city – had become virtually self-supporting due its close proximity to agriculture and livestock and meat production. Very quickly such towns as Selly Oak and Great Barr were swallowed-up by the ever expanding city, a city which, by this absorption became itself a centre for food manufacture and distribution for the rest of Britain and the world. And with this seemingly endless growth and diversification came huge wealth and political power both locally and nationally.

Virginia City, at around the same time, was very different – sitting as it does in the middle of a desert some 6,000 feet above sea level – because it had, unlike Birmingham, no local agriculture to help support its growth, which meant it had – as mentioned earlier – to import all its food from long distances, and at huge cost. As a city built on gold it could naturally afford such imports and the infrastructure that went with it, at least for a while.

As a result of its own rapid growth Virginia City also became an important communications link between East and West, both physically (with virtually all stage coaches passing through the city, and later of course the railroads) and electrically, with the city becoming a major telegraph link between the Pacific and Atlantic. All of this encouraged not only more hoteliers, retailers and gamblers, but also bankers, and perhaps most importantly, ranchers who quickly built up herds to feed the growing population. And it wasn't long before the dependence on gold mining diminished, with Virginia City's wealth depending ever more on its telegraph, banking, and ability to distribute goods from the Pacific ports to all points east, north, and south.

Take a look at Michael Cimino's film Heaven's Gate to get an idea of what Virginia City might have looked like in those days.

What we see then, when we compare British urbanization with that of the US, is that, in Britain, urbanization spread outward to engulf already well established towns and villages, whereas US urbanization invariably meant the development of virgin territory that would, if it was in the right place at the right time, develop into a prosperous settlement that could grow at will, with only geographical or geological elements creating a natural boundary – if only temporarily – to further growth. And if that natural boundary happened to be a river, or one of the Great Lakes, prosperity came the quicker, as was the case with Chicago, St.Louis, and New York. The same is also true of Brooklyn, which decided early on it did not want to simply become a suburb of New York, but a city in its own right. It did so by creating its own identity through a great deal of urban planning that, with new housing, included the building of Prospect Park, which, in 1873 alone, received over 6 million visits.

If Chicago, St Louis and Brooklyn were successful, others were not, most notably New Orleans, which, through the lack of political will, dependence on slavery, and a virtual lack of investment in industrialisation, went into rapid decline, leaving the North to industrialise and effectively create the modern USA.

To Be Continued...