Urban-growth and city-systems in the United States, 1840-1860.

Abstract

Examines the urban growth and city-system development of the United States as a means of illuminating the kind of growth and change that usually occur in city-systems under different prevailing modes of production and capital organisation. The period 1840-60 was marked by the most rapid urbanisation in the nation's history. The statistics for the distribution of urban growth are scrutinised, the various views on antebellum development are summarised, a sample of the rich but highly fragmented empirical evidence is given, and a heuristic and probabilistic feedback model of the 1840-60 city-system growth and development is devised. In an interpretation of events, great stress is laid by the author on the importance of the availability and distribution of crucial economic information. Fifty-one tables are included in a statistical appendix. -J.Sheail