Specialized industrial cities in the United States 1860–1930

There is a general view among geographers, historians and economists that a high level of industrial specialization is likely to inhibit the growth of a city. The arguments in support of this position emphasize the importance of diversity in the generation of new work. This position is more reasonable for a large geographic region than for an individual city in a regional system. Empirical data on the growth of American cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fail to support the proposition that specialization retards population growth. Specialized cities of a given region and age grew at about the same rate as their regional contemporaries. These data are consistent with the notion that flows of capital, entrepreneurship and labor among cities in a regional system render specialization of little importance to long run population growth.