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10.8: Industry and Trade Situations- Through Urbanization Lens

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    Industry and Trade Situations: Through Urbanization Lens

    The production of goods (like beer) and the provision of services is surely another reason why cities have appeared in specific locations over the centuries. Many cities evolved from small trading posts or market towns where agricultural and craft goods were exchanged by local farmers and/or wandering nomads. The surplus wealth generated through trade required protection and fortifications, so cities with walls may have been built to protect marketplaces and vendors from roaming bandits or invading armies.

    Some trace the birth of London England to an ancient trading spot called Kingston upon Thames, a market town founded by the Saxons southwest of London’s present core. The place-names of many exceptionally old towns in England reveal their genesis as centers of trade - Market Drayton, Market Harborough, Market Deeping, Market Weighton, Chipping Norton, Chipping Ongar, and Chipping Sodbury. (Chipping is a derivation of a Saxon expression for “to buy”).

    Cities, big and small, have always served market functions for those who live in adjacent hinterlands. Some market cities grow much larger than others because they have more advantageoussituation factors. In other words, more centrally located trading towns tend to grow more than peripheral ones. Central location relative to other competing marketplaces is another example of an advantageous situation factor. Every major US city, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston has some situation factor that improved its competitive advantage in commerce and industry.

    Trade Site Locations

    Some cities grow large because of specific site location advantages that favor trade or industry. All cities compete against one another to attract industry, but those with quality site factors, like good port facilities and/or varied transportation options, grow larger. All large cities in the US are located where two or more modes of transportation intersect, forming what geographers call a break of bulk point. Breaking bulk occurs when cargo is unloaded from a ship, truck, barge or train. Until the 1970s, unloading (and reloading) freight required a vast number of laborers, and therefore any city that had a busy dock, port, or train station attracted workers. Generally, numerous warehouses and warehouse jobs quickly emerge at break of bulk points. Manufacturing also tends to be attracted to these locations. New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, and Houston all grew very large because each was well served by multiple transportation modes.

    River Barriers

    Rivers are important for the growth of cities. Obviously, rivers provide fresh water for drinking (and irrigation), but the effect navigable rivers have had on urban growth is hard to overstate. Before the age of trains and highways, rivers were by far the most efficient way to transport heavy cargo, especially over long distances. The mouths of navigable rivers are break of bulk points, so cities often form where rivers meet the sea. Also, where river navigation is interrupted or ceases to be possible also creates break-of-bulk opportunities attracting workers and urban growth.

    The McAlpine locks and dam.png

    Figure: Louisville, KY. The McAlpine Locks and Dam represent a massive government investment to bypass the Falls of the Ohio (top center of photo). All river traffic once stopped at this location. Photo: Wikimedia.

    Waterfalls were for many years a complete nuisance to river traffic, but they also are responsible for numerous cities. For generations, waterfalls provided a key source of power for industry (see fall line cities below), but they also create a special kind of break of bulk point called a head of navigation. Waterfalls force people to stop, get out of their boats and carry the boat, or just the cargo they carry. Louisville, Kentucky is an excellent example of a head of navigation site because it arose next to The Falls of the Ohio, a place where the Ohio River tumbled over a waterfall forcing all boats to stop and break bulk, again providing jobs at the boat dock, in warehouses and encouraging manufacturing.

    Another kind of break-of-bulk point is created where two bodies of water come near each other but do not connect. This situation once forced people to carry boats and/or cargo between two bodies of water in a process called portage. Towns evolve at many portage sites. Indiana, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine all have towns named “Portage”

    Chicago

    The most important portage site in the United States was once near Chicago. Just southwest of what is now downtown Chicago, near Midway Airport, was a portage where the Chicago River, which flows north into the Lake Michigan nearly intersected the Des Plaines River, which flows south into the Mississippi River system. In 1848, the people of Chicago built a canal connecting America’s two greatest navigable water systems, and by doing so gave Chicago an enormous transportation advantage over all other locations in the Midwest. The Illinois-Michigan Canal made Chicago an especially attractive terminus for multiple railroad companies that sprang up in the 1850s, creating even more break-of-bulk opportunities. It took Chicago just over 30 years to grow from the 100th most populous American city to the number two spot. Today, interstate highways and airline routes continue to converge on Chicago.

    image of the flag of chicago.png

    Figure Flag of Chicago. The two blue stripes symbolize the two waterways that created America's most strategic portage site. Source: Wikimedia

    Rivers also create chokepoints for the movement of goods and people traveling by land. Rivers are often difficult to cross in many locations because the water either the water is too deep or the river too wide. In such places, before bridges were common, those trying to cross a river would seek out a ford, which is a shallow place to cross the river without a boat. City names like Stratford, Oxford, and Frankfurt all contain clues that they were once good places to cross a river. These fording sites often were simultaneously ideal locations for bridge construction because engineering a bridge across a shallow part of a wide riveris often easier at a ford. Bridges funnel overland traffic to specific points, and provide another break-of-bulk opportunity, especially if the river is navigable.

    Pittsburgh

    Sometimes two rivers merge into a single, larger river at a confluence site, creating yet another unique opportunity to gain an advantage over competitors. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania lies at America’s best-known confluence site. The steel industry thrived in Pittsburgh for over 100 years thanks in large part to the industrial advantages created by

    its location. The production of steel requires iron and coal, both of which are very heavy to transport and were once mined near the rivers (Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny) that converge in Pittsburgh. The three rivers do come at a cost. There are nearly 450 bridges in greater Pittsburgh.

    image of pittsburgh and its beauty.png

    Figure : Pittsburgh, PA - Pittsburgh is a classic example of a confluence site where river-born commerce flowing from three directions intersects, creating break-of-bulk opportunities and inviting industry. What industry was synonymous with Pittsburgh for years? Source: Wikimedia

    New York City

    New York City is the largest city in the United States. It wasn’t always that way. It outgrew competitors on the East Coast because it built for itself advantages in transportation. Early on, Boston and Philadelphia were larger, but New York City developed several break of bulk advantages that helped it grow immensely. Key among the factors that helped New York outcompete rivals were its additional transportation options. Like its competitors, it had a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It also had a navigable river, the Hudson, which served many cities upstream, like Albany and Poughkeepsie. Then, in 1825, the Erie Canal opened, effectively connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River and the Atlantic Oceans. New York City was the one East Coast city where trade to the entire Upper Great Lakes region could flow. The canal created a massive advantage for New York. With the opening of the canal, agricultural products produced in the Midwest could be transported across the Great Lakes through the Erie Canal to New York City, where it was off-loaded from riverboats to ocean-going ships headed for Europe. Simultaneously, goods coming from Europe and destined for any location in the Midwest would be unloaded first at the port in New York City. The additional jobs created at the docks and warehouses attracted other industries and a snowball effect was created so that by the mid-1850s New York City became, for a time, the largest city in the world.

    George washington bridge in New York.png

    Figure : New York City - The massive George Washington Bridge reminds those coming into New York City of the navigability of the Hudson River and the importance of the river to New York.

    Los Angeles

    Los Angeles (L.A.) is the great metropolis on the west coast of the United States. The Spanish chose a location near what is now downtown L.A. for a pueblo (town) because they found fertile soil and a consistent source of water there alongside a large population of Indians that they hoped would form the core of a vibrant Spanish colony. As the years went by, Los Angeles’ only significant advantage over potential competitors in Southern California was its river. Spanish water law declared all the water in the L.A. River belonged to the people of Los Angeles. This law prevented other towns from forming either upstream or downstream from the original pueblo. People living along the L.A. River and hoping to use its precious waters were forced by Los Angelenos to become part of L.A.

    Oil production in LA.png

    Figure Los Angeles, CA. 1904. Among the many site location factors accelerating the growth of Los Angeles was the discovery of huge oil deposits in the region, a fact lost on most locals today. Photo: Wikimedia

    Los Angeles remained a small town until the Santa Fe/Southern Pacific railroad opened a second transcontinental railroad terminus in L.A. in 1881. This gave Los Angeles a break-of-bulk advantage over other cities in Southern California. Not long afterward, the local port facilities at San Pedro were upgraded and L.A. began competing with San Francisco for business. The invention of the refrigerated boxcar around 1900 vastly expanded the citrus industry in the region. The discovery of oil in the L.A. basin around the same time also invited a population explosion. Good weather helped encourage migrants to journey westward to take jobs in the petroleum and citrus industries. The same great weather later was critical in attracting both the movie and aeronautical industries in the decades to follow. Water resources though remained a problem. The Los Angeles River was never sufficient to serve the needs of a large city, so a series of canals and pipelines have been constructed over the years to bring fresh water from vast distances into the Los Angeles region. The city’s water projects were controversial from the start and managing water resources for a metropolitan region of nearly 20 million is a critical challenge going forward, especially as climate change threatens the Sierra Nevada’s snowpack – California’s largest reservoir of fresh water.

    the cascades located in the owens valley.png

    Figure : Los Angeles, CA. The "cascades" is the last segment in a nearly 400-mile aqueduct bringing water from the Owens Valley to the very dry San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles. Photo: Stefanie Joseph


    10.8: Industry and Trade Situations- Through Urbanization Lens is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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