Commercial townscapes in the making

The building types constructed between 1916 and 1965 in the central areas of two British towns Northampton, a free-standing county town, and Watford, a suburban town are examined in terms of the characteristics of the owners and architects responsible for their creation and the varied factors, local and national, affecting commercial building. Although local firms exercised considerable control over new building throughout the inter-war period in Northampton and local individuals played a major role in the 1920s in Watford, the overriding theme of the paper is the impact of the large-scale entry of retail chain-stores into development for owner occupation in the 1930s, and the growing involvement of property companies and insurance companies in speculative development after the mid-1950s. As the two town centres became integrated into the national commercial network and the national property market, outside architects and new architectural styles were increasingly employed, although speculative developers tended to be slower to adopt new styles than owner-occupiers and buildings in pre-war styles were constructed for a considerable period after both world wars in one or both of the town centres. The influx of outside owners and architects was accompanied by increases in the scale of development and the domination of new building by modern architecture. Other important factors influencing the character of development were the different historical legacies of the two towns. Watford's proximity to London, changes in the sizes of spheres of influence of the two centres, and the nature of property ownership within and on the edge of the two commercial cores.     

Dualities in the transformation of the urban realm: Smyrna and Salonica 1840–1900

Starting from 1840s, the Ottoman State underwent a series of institutional changes which was reflected in the transformation of major cities like Smyrna and Salonica, two prominent ports of the Mediterranean. This paper aims to present a critical and comparative evaluation of the urban transformation in Smyrna and Salonica between 1840 and 1900. Through case studies, such as the regulation of roads and the re-organization of burnt-out neighbourhoods according to the new building codes, and the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects – railroads and quays – the dichotomous nature of urban transformation is revealed. Despite all the zealous efforts of local authorities and implementation of urban regulations, only certain sections in both cities were actually modernized, these being the new investment areas and the burnt-out zones. The Ottoman State and the European investors worked together for creating profitable investment zones, which dramatically changed the appearance of these cities in a short period of time. Except for these areas, the traditional urban fabric still prevailed in Smyrna and Salonica at the end of the nineteenth century.     

Central Government and the Modernization of the British Fire Service, 1900-38

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was no suchnotion of a ‘national and onerous’ fire servicein Britain. Organized fire protection was a purely local functionleft to the discretion of local authorities, voluntary organizations,and private enterprise. By the outbreak of the Second WorldWar, although there remained in excess of 1,450 local brigades,the service had been accepted as of national importance, particularlyin view of the threat posed by aerial bombing and incendiaryfires to British towns and cities. This paper traces the developmentof central government intervention within the fire service duringthe first four decades of the twentieth century, contrastingthe peacetime and wartime impetuses for reform, and locatingreform within wider debates about the nature and practice oflocal government. Although financial, technological, and organizationalfactors were important influences on the professionalizationand modernization of the service, the threats posed to the nation'swartime economic capacity and public morale were, ultimately,decisive factors in compelling local authorities to maintainprofessional fire brigades.     

Early Railways 6: Papers from the Sixth Annual Early Railways Conference

Abstract

Mass production of decorative tiles enabled nineteenth and twentieth century builders and architects to 'beautify' the 'halls of the noble and the churches of the peasant'. Tiles were also used for public houses, fire stations, inebriates' homes and turkish baths, etc. Maw of Jackfield in the Ironbridge Gorge and Craven Dunnill and Company of the same place, were two of the most important manufacturers of decorative tiles, and their products, a triumph of Victorian mass production, can still be seen in many places.     

‘Mr Bourne's dilemma’. Consumer culture,property speculation and department store demise: the rise and fall of Bourne and Hollingsworth on London's Oxford Street

This paper explores the twentieth-century rise and fall of the traditional department store Bourne and Hollingsworth in London's Oxford Street as a means of re-examining the historical geographies of metropolitan consumption cultures. The research moves away from a preoccupation with urban retail's novelty and spectacle towards a consideration of the more conventional and conservative kinds of consumption that have been a vital part of the retail ecology of many major cities in the twentieth century. The paper analyses the intersections of different dimensions of the history of metropolitan consumption: with a culturalist focus on consumer identity and urban microgrographies; but also an examination of this as a family-owned, paternalistic business, and as a material space, both as a building designed and refurbished by its owners, management, architects and shopfitters, and as a particular site within the routes and flows of the West End. The final approach to Bourne and Hollingsworth as urban property, as a distinctive form of capital asset in the city, allows a new understanding of the vulnerability of this kind of retailing by the later twentieth century. The study shows that an emphasis on the significance of cultures of consumption provides at best a partial explanation for changes in the landscapes of consumption: it is argued that cities are the sites of complex intersections between cultural practices and other kinds of geography, in this case those of asset values and opportunities for property speculation.     

"Squatting is Still Legal, Necessary and Free": A Brief Intervention in the Corporate City

Squatting is a solution to homelessness, empty properties and speculation. It provides homes for those who can't get public housing and who can't afford extortionate rents. Squatting creates space for much-needed community projects. Squatting means taking control instead of being pushed around by bureaucrats and property owners. Squatting is still legal, necessary and free. (Advisory Service for Squatters 1996:1)
What follows is an account of a brief intervention in the contemporary urban landscape in an English city, Newcastle upon Tyne. It is an account of a group of people who squatted a building as a response to the increasing dominance of corporate organisations and the declining accountability of local authorities in cities.     

HOUSES, DEFENCES AND STATUS; THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE SECOND CENTURY A.D.

Summary. The appearance of spacious and well-equipped houses in the towns of Roman Britain from the mid second century, following an initial period of resistance to urban dwelling on the part of the wealthy, requires explanation. Various possible motivating factors—the increasing prosperity of villa owners, the desire for security, official pressure coupled with renewed imperial interest in urban development, the availability of cheap building land, the example of the coloniae and the promotion of towns to higher rank—are considered. In many cases a combination of these factors will have applied, but the growing prestige of the towns themselves seems to have been a powerful attraction.     

Welsh migration to England in the mid-nineteenth century

Conventional migration theory suggests that rural to urban movement was a one-way once and for all movement which resulted in the severance of ties to a rural homeland and the gradual adoption of an urban lifestyle and culture. Analysis of Welsh migration to English towns in the mid-nineteenth century suggests that by no means all migrants conformed to this stereotype. Whilst Welsh migrants displayed similar characteristics to other rural-urban movers and fitted easily into an urban labour market, they were able to retain many of their rural traditions and customs in an English urban environment. They also maintained close links with Wales whilst some engaged in return migration. Although easily accepted into English urban society, the Welsh were able to live in two culture worlds for much of the nineteenth century. It is suggested that detailed longitudinal studies of other migrant groups will demonstrate diversity in the extent to which rural traditions were subsumed by urban culture in the nineteenth century.     

The Upriver Reach of a Delta Town: Jiujiang Migrants in the West River Basin,Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries

This article situates the Pearl River delta market town of Jiujiang within a system of market towns and cities along the West River and its tributaries in southern China. Exploring the history of this town as an emigrant community, this article follows the upstream movement of officials, civil service examinees, merchants, and permanent settlers along the West River basin between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century. The trajectory of migration from this market town was shaped by the geographical factors of the West River system. At the same time, migration, which was related both to strategies that Jiujiang families embraced for socioeconomic advancement and to policies that the Ming and Qing states adopted for controlling the southwestern frontier, played an important role in the historical construction of a unified region linked by economic ties and personal networks.     

Urban low carbon transitions: institution-building and prospects for interventions in social practice

ABSTRACT

As we witness increasing numbers and range of low carbon experiments, attention inevitably turns to how they are sustained and whether they can generate more systemic change in carbon-related consumption. This paper responds to the ‘spatial turn’ in socio-technical transitions, and the ‘practice turn’ in social theory to consider the role of intermediary organizations in potential shifts from experiments to institutional arrangements favouring transitions.

Through the example of Climate Change Alliances in Victoria, Australia, the paper examines how such intermediary organizations seek to experiment and in so doing contribute towards institution building. With a focus on the interstitial spaces between local authorities, regional firms, agencies, and state governments we speculate on the prospects for systemic change given the resources, positioning and social strategies of the Alliances as intermediary institution builders.     

19世纪英国城市现代化初探

城市现代化是城市化发展的高级阶段。19世纪的英国不仅是世界上第一个城市化国家,而且率先在城市现代化方面做出新的探索。首先在城市物质环境方面进行了巨大的改革,从城市街道的规划改造,到居民住宅的建筑规范,从居民私人空间的营造,到城市公共空间的建设,使城市的物质环境有了极大的改善。其次,在城市的管理方面也进行了全面探索,使城市管理摆脱了中世纪的寡头统治,进入到民主监督与管理的时代。由此,使城市的发展在经历了第一个阶段的数量扩张后,进入到了质量的增长时期,即向城市现代化方向迈进。     

The spatial evolution of the Mid-western pork industry, 1835–1875

This article discusses the spatial evolution of Mid-western pork packing in the middle nineteenth century as an example of the way in which agricultural processing industries contributed to regional economic development. The changing transportation network provides an essential tool of analysis in understanding manufacturing trends in an area which was simultaneously experiencing extensive and intensive growth. A widespread dispersion of small centres catering to local demand persisted throughout the period, but declined in relative importance. Early concentration of packing was located in the Ohio River towns which were transhipment points for western farm produce on its way to external markets. The advent of railroads in the late 1840s and the 1850s initially widened the agricultural hinterland of the river ports by acting as feeder links. But as rails shipped an increasing proportion of hogs and pork products both within and beyond the region in the 1850s, rail termini became more important as processing centres. The interruption of the Civil War confirmed the ascendancy of the railroad. Then in the post-bellum decade, as settlement continued to move west, pork packing became more dependent on the rail network. A few large cities, drawing on their commercial and financial infrastructure, were able to control much of the industry through extending rails, building central stockyards and improving packing house organization. By the mid 1870s the industry stood on the verge of big business—a testimony to the economic growth of the region where it flourished.     

The countryside as educator: schools, rurality and citizenship in inter-war Wales

This paper examines the ways in which the educational system in inter-war Wales reflected wider debates about national identity, rurality and citizenship. It begins by outlining the role of education in the “rebirth” of Wales at the end of the nineteenth century, and the emergence of the central figure of O. M. Edwards. It then traces his legacy into the inter-war period and the work of the Welsh department of the Board of Education and its permanent secretary Alfred Davies. Themes of nature and the rural, citizenship and Welshness are examined in the context of the Board's Scheme for the Collection of Rural Lore in Schools. These educational debates are linked to others within Welsh youth movements likeUrdd Gobaith Cymru, academic geography (especially the work of H. J. Fleure), and the emerging Welsh nationalist movement. The paper ends by noting the contested role of education in Welshness.     

Cities are Alive with the Sound of Music: Saengerfest and the Transformation of Urban Public Music in Nineteenth-century America

This article examines the development of outdoor public music in American cities during the nineteenth century and develops three primary arguments. Organized and recreational forms of public music – such as musical festivals and outdoor band concerts – became commonplace and integral to city life during the second half of the nineteenth century. Second, German-American singing festivals (Saengerfests) were major public events during the mid-nineteenth century and helped create this recreational public music culture by demonstrating how organized and recreational public music could enhance city life and suggesting to commentators and public officials that it could serve as a tool of reform. Third, public music – such as occurred during Saengerfests – helped bridge social divisions and made American cities more socially fluid, even at a time when some aspects of civic life were becoming more divided and contentious.     

东亚大城市的大饭店历史沿革、现代发展及其城市功能

本文叙述了东亚大城市中的大饭店的历史沿革和现代化发展过程,着重分析了大饭店在城市中的表现形态和功能特色,并进一步探讨现代大饭店与城市现代化发展的相互适应和相互促进的紧密关系。文章着重介绍中国大陆的大饭店,并同日本,南韩的大饭店进行了对比研究。     

From the Piedmont to the Coast: LA-ICP-MS 87Sr/86Sr evidence for short-term,long-distance mobility in the American Southeast

Mounting evidence suggests that the Archaic Southeast shell mound builders had large-scale trade networks and engaged in social aggregations. Here, incremental ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values were measured by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) in third molar enamel samples of 11 individuals interred in the Middle Archaic Harris Creek shell burial mound in St. John's River Valley (SJRV), Florida. Results reveal that SJRV residents engaged in short-term, long-distance mobility up to the Piedmont margin and excursions into coastal areas, consistent with direct trading and social gatherings. Two individuals are interpreted as migrants from central Tennessee, suggesting a link to the Ohio River Valley shell mound builders.     

Clothing the Poor in Early-Nineteenth-Century England

Abstract

In a pioneering study in this journal, Steven King suggested that parish clothing provision was of fundamental importance in the eighteenth century both in terms of local social relations and the perceived standing of parish authorities. This article tests his thesis for the first decades of the nineteenth century, confirming that parish clothing was indeed pivotal in maintaining a sense of local social justice. However, it takes issue with King's reasons for the relatively high levels of clothing provision enjoyed by the poor, suggesting that they had as much to do with a set of shared values between giver and receiver as they did with considerations of parish prestige or social order.     

Aretos yacni Sevdâ: The Nineteenth Century Ottoman Translation of the ‘Erotokritos’

Abstract

The popularity of Vincenzo Cornaro's Erotokritos among Cretan Muslims is well known. In the nineteenth century even the Ottoman authorities of the Island took some interest in this work, and the then Ottoman Governor General, the Epirot Sava Pasha, allocated 3,000 francs in 1887 to the local scholar Antonios Giannaris who had been assigned by the Cretan General Assembly to prepare an edition of the text.     

Industrial suburbs and the growth of metropolitan Pittsburgh, 1870–1920

In 1907, the Pittsburgh Survey team recognized that dispersed industrial development had created a metropolitan area stretching 30 to 50 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. Traditional interpretations of metropolitan formation fail to account for the crucial role of industry in this process. Beginning in the 1870s, the transformation from small, craft organized factories to integrated mills, mass production, and modern management organization in steel and other industries led many manufacturers to search for large sites with railroad and river accessibility. They purchased land, designed modern plants, and sometimes built towns for workers. Other firms bought into new communities begun as speculative industrial real estate ventures. Some owners removed their plants from the city's labour politics to exert greater control over workers. The region's rugged topography and dispersed natural resources of coal and gas accentuated this dispersal. The rapid growth of steel, glass, railroad equipment and coke industries resulted in both large mass-production plants and numerous smaller firms. As capital deepened and interdependence grew, participants multiplied, economies accrued, the division of labour increased, and localized production systems formed around these industries. Transportation, capital, labour markets, and the division of labour in production bound the scattered industrial plants and communities into a sprawling metropolitan district. By 1910 the Pittsburgh district was a complex urban landscape with a dominant central city, surrounded by proximate residential communities, mill towns, satellite cities, and hundreds of mining towns.