Post-Industrial Growth of U.S. Cities

The first wave of US urbanization came as part of the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century. This article provides an overview of how urban areas in the United States have changed in the post-industrial era. It discusses urban growth, suburbanization, return migration to cities, and the role of immigrants in populating new urban areas. In addition, it documents the situation in urban ghettos and the effects of white flight in creating and maintaining segregated and resource-poor urban areas. Finally, it considers the practices of gentrification and urban renewal in transforming urban neighborhoods.

Keywords Eminent Domain; Gentrification; Ghetto; Great Migration; Industrialization; Marginalization; Metropolitan Statistical Area; Post-Industrial; Segregation; Suburb; Sprawl; Takings; Urbanization; Urban Renewal

Population, Urbanization & the Environment > Post-Industrial Growth of US Cities

Overview

Throughout most of human history, a very small proportion of humans lived in cities. This was true for much of United States history as well. Those cities that did exist played an important role in regional markets and other economic activity, but remained small. For instance, the largest city in the United States in 1840 was New York City, with a population of just over 300,000 (Gibson, 1998). By the year 2005, New York City was still the largest city in the United States but had over eight million residents (US Census Bureau, 2007). In fact, in 1840, only 10% of the United States population lived in places with more than 2,500 residents. By 1960, however, things had changed. In that year, the Census Bureau recorded that over 60% of the United States population lived in places with over 2,500 residents (US Census Bureau, 1993). By 2000, almost 80% of Americans lived in urban areas, or areas of dense settlement; 68% lived in cities of more than 50,000 people (US Census Bureau, 2000).

The first wave of urbanization — the one that occurred as the urban population grew from just a small fraction of the United States to around half of it — came as part of the industrial revolution. The growth of factories and industrial employment created new economic opportunities in cities that had not previously existed and that drew immigrants from Europe as well as migrants from rural areas in search of better economic futures. At the same time, the industrial revolution brought with it innovations in agricultural and transportation technology that resulted in the need for fewer farm laborers and allowed food to be shipped to growing population centers. However, industrialization had run its course by the middle of the twentieth century. Yet, urban populations continued to grow.

The growth of cities in the post-industrial period has been different from the growth of cities that occurred during industrializations. The growth of industrial cities led to urban centers that were crowded, densely populated, and occupied by many poor and working-class individuals. During the economic expansion that occurred in the middle of the twentieth century, many urban residents were able to afford to move out of urban centers and purchase homes for the first time in the suburbs. In some cases, suburbs are part of the same city as the urban core — for instance, the city of Los Angeles includes neighborhoods like Watts, a densely populated and poor area, as well as Bel Air, a rich area with a suburban feel and large plots of land for homeowners. In other cases, suburbs are outside of the city limits but still within the same Metropolitan Statistical Area, and suburban residents commute into the city for employment and sometimes entertainment opportunities. For instance, the city of Boston is ringed by many suburbs, such as Wellesley and Newton.

As suburbs grew, they changed the nature of cities. Previously populated and vibrant inner city areas were deserted by their residents as they moved to suburban homes. Metropolitan areas became spread over a much wider geographical area with people commuting long distances by car to reach their jobs from areas not served by public transportation, necessitating the construction of highways that disrupted settled working-class communities. More and more people have chosen to live in suburbs, leading to suburbs that are further and further away from cities; residents of the suburbs surrounding cities like New York and Washington, DC face average commute times of well over thirty minutes (Buckner, 2004). Long commutes and the sprawl created by suburban development have had negative consequences for the environment, including reduction of habitat for wildlife as well as increased greenhouse gas production from the high gas usage of long or traffic-filled commutes. Additionally, those who have been unable to move out of urban centers have found themselves increasingly unable to access economic opportunities and other resources that have relocated to suburbs to follow population movements.

In fact, the central urban areas of some cities have lost so much population that they are often called "Shrinking Cities." This has been most notable in the cities of the Rust Belt — northern and Midwestern cities that developed as centers for heavy manufacturing industries like steel and automotive that have moved on. Residents of such cities have left not only for the suburbs but also for southern cities that offer new economic opportunities in the service sector. Some shrinking cities have become deeply mired in poverty; others have tried to develop new models for existing at a smaller scale (Lanks, 2006). For instance, shrinking cities that are looking to revitalize themselves on a smaller scale might demolish vacant buildings and replace them with urban parklands.

Other urban areas have continued to grow. This growth has occurred in different patterns than in the past. First, contemporary immigrants are attracted to different cities than in the past. While European immigrants in the early part of the twentieth century were predominantly attracted to northeastern port cities like New York and Philadelphia and to other cities in the northeast and Midwest that were easily reachable by railroad, new immigrants from Asia and Latin America seek residence in cities in the South and West that are closer to their own points of origin (Min, 2002).

The industries that attract workers to cities are different as well. Cities in the United States are no longer centers of manufacturing and production. Instead, knowledge work in industries like advertising, finance, and education tend to be concentrated there. Finally, cities have begun to attract return migrants — older adults who left cities to raise their children in suburban areas but want to come back for their retirement years. These individuals are attracted to the possibility of car-free lifestyles in urban areas that make it possible for them to visit doctors, go shopping, socialize with friends, and engage in recreation opportunities without depending on others for transportation as they age. In addition, some return migrants are beginning to be attracted to city life as fuel costs rise. For them, increased access to public transportation or even just shorter commute times makes city living cheaper than the suburban alternative.

Applications

The Urban Ghetto

As noted above, the departure of middle and then working class people from many central cities has left behind impoverished areas. These areas are often referred to as "ghettos." There are three key components that make a neighborhood a ghetto.

• First, it must be a specific area of a city — suburbs or rural areas, even if impoverished, are not considered ghettos.
• Second, it must be populated primarily by members of a minority group or a group that is otherwise socially or politically marginalized.
• Finally, some sort of legal, social, or economic pressure must be responsible for the observed population concentration.

For the most part, people do not choose to live in ghettos. While ghettos have been present all over the world and for many centuries (the roots of the term come from describing neighborhoods in which Jews were concentrated in European cities), in the United States, the term generally refers to neighborhoods in which Blacks or Latino/as are concentrated. There were some Black ghettos prior to the middle of the twentieth century, but most ghettos formed after the Great Migration in which large numbers of Southern, rural blacks moved to Northern cities. Latino/a ghettos also came later after mass migration from Latin America to the United States began.

Ghettos suffer from a number of persistent problems. Because they are often located in older sections of cities, the housing stock tends to be dilapidated. The low incomes of ghetto residents contribute to the deterioration of housing, as residents often cannot afford more than basic home maintenance, and in any cases a large portion of housing is rental housing managed by absentee landlords or by public housing authorities (Bickford & Massey, 1991). Residents of ghettos face significant economic difficulties. William Julius Wilson refers to ghetto residents as the "underclass," a group mired in poverty and suffering from a lack of education, employment, and opportunities. These problems have only worsened during the course of suburbanization, as jobs, stores, and other resources have followed middle-class and working-class populations to suburban areas not served by public transportation. Many ghettos also face problems with crime, imprisonment, and resulting social disorganization; it is not that ghetto residents are necessarily more likely to commit crimes than others, but their crimes are often easier to detect, are more harshly punished, and they are less likely to be able to afford competent defense (Rose & Clear, 1998).

The suburban migrations that created ghettos were not due only to increased economic prosperity among those who left the city. They were also due to white flight. According to Douglas Massey, the average Black person prefers to live in a neighborhood which is about half Black and half White. However, the average White person will choose to move away from a neighborhood that is more than about one fifth Black. To some degree, this is due to racism, but there are many other important factors as well. Because of historical practices of segregation and because of the fact that Blacks on average earn lower incomes and have less accumulated wealth than Whites do, Black neighborhoods do tend to be poorer. In addition, the preferences of Whites become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Whites begin to leave, other Whites will no longer consider moving into a neighborhood. This causes the value of housing to fall, thus creating economic costs for Whites who remain in an area after the population has begun to shift. In addition, because they generally lack the services and recreation opportunities that people desire in cities, ghettos have seen less of the population that is returning to cities discussed above.

Issues

Gentrification

Not all ghettos remain ghettos forever. Some go through the process of gentrification, a process during which members of more affluent groups move into and change poor urban areas. Gentrification occurs not only in ghettos, but also in stable working-class neighborhoods. Often, the first people to participate in a gentrification process are artists, students, and other young knowledge or creative workers who want to live near the opportunities that cities present but who cannot afford the high rents in more desirable urban neighborhoods. Though it is low costs that first attracted such residents to the neighborhoods they inhabit, their presence results in rapid changes in the neighborhood. New stores, services, and cultural opportunities are created to serve the new residents, and these are often services that are economically or culturally inaccessible to the area's prior residents. Such new businesses then begin to attract other new residents with higher incomes, driving the price of housing up. If the process of gentrification continues, the original residents may be priced out of their homes. The resulting population shifts lead to a resegregation of the city, with prior poor and working-class residents moving on to a different poor and segregated area, while middle-class White professionals take over the neighborhood.

The usual pattern for gentrification is this informal and economically driven process. However, sometimes gentrification is driven from above by governmental policy. In such cases, it is often called "urban renewal." Sometimes, such gentrification occurs via incentives provided by the government, such as special low-interest housing loans to help qualified families buy and improve properties. In other cases, urban renewal occurs when cities condemn properties or when they exercise eminent domain. Such maneuvers allow cities or private developers to dismantle housing and evict residents, replacing them with luxury apartments, shopping, or other facilities. While many city residents welcome the changes that urban renewal brings to their areas, others believe that it is unfair for some residents to be displaced to make way for others.

Eminent Domain & Urban Renewal

The debate over eminent domain and urban renewal has made its way to state and federal courts, where cases about such takings have become common. Under the United States Constitution, eminent domain can only be exercised for a public purpose — for instance, to build a road or a reservoir. However, the idea of a public purpose has become interpreted more broadly. First, facilities like railroads that are owned by profit-making private corporations but are used by the public were incorporated. Next, and more directly relevant to the idea of urban renewal and gentrification, the idea of removing urban blight became seen as a public purpose. The idea here is that cities and city residents suffer from the existence of poor or decrepit urban neighborhoods that are seen as eyesores, and thus those neighborhoods should be removed, regardless of the desires of the people living there.

The last 25 years, the interpretation of eminent domain has expanded further. In 1981 in Detroit and 2005 in Connecticut, governments exercised eminent domain to allow new development for private companies without any public purpose. In Detroit, a neighborhood was demolished to make way for a General Motors plant; in Connecticut, a large commercial development including such facilities as a conference center and a resort took the place of a residential community. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that such actions are permissible, paving the way for more cities and states to remove residential neighborhoods and provide the land to commercial developers. There has been something of a backlash against this sort of takings with various cities and states passing laws prohibiting such action. While eminent domain can and does affect middle-class and wealthy city residents, it is more likely to affect poor residents and to be part of the process of gentrification.

The exercise of eminent domain for purposes of urban renewal remains controversial. Some people believe that the new commercial developments and luxury housing that take the place of prior neighborhoods will revitalize cities and keep them strong. These people argue that the prior housing — even if not decrepit — was out-dated and insufficient for modern living. They argue that residents will find new housing elsewhere, and in the meantime the city will become more beautiful, will gain more tax revenues, and will attract more residents and tourists to urban neighborhoods. Others argue that the exercise of eminent domain is detrimental to cities and their residents. In cases where residents of demolished neighborhoods had been renting their apartments, compensation for the takings goes to landlords and leaves long-time residents without means to secure comparable new housing. In addition, settled and cohesive neighborhoods are broken up, actions which some people believe will result in increased crime, poverty, and dependence on city services. In addition, developers who profit from eminent domain sometimes receive tax credits, meaning that the city does not see the tax gains some might predict. The political controversies around such projects are heated and in some cases have resulted in the abandonment of projects that might have otherwise gone forward and displaced thousands of residents.

Terms & Concepts

Eminent Domain: Eminent domain is the power of the government to seize private property. While in the United States, eminent domain was historically used to seize property for public purposes, modern government is able to seize property for most any purpose, though compensation is supposed to be provided to the property owner.

Gentrification: The process by which a low-income urban area is transformed into a middle-income or high-income area. Gentrification generally has the connotation that the area will be physically and culturally "rejuvenated."

Ghetto: A section of a city in which members of a particular minority group are concentrated, generally due to factors beyond their control. Ghettos suffer from a significant lack of economic resources and opportunities.

Great Migration: A massive population movement during the first half of the twentieth century in which rural Blacks moved to Northern cities. While the migration occurred throughout this period, it was concentrated in the years just after each World War. Scholars debate exactly which years should count as part of the Great Migration and thus exactly how many Blacks moved during it, but estimates range from 1.6 to seven million people.

Industrialization: Industrialization is the process of moving from an agricultural to an industrial economic system. The main components of industrialization are the development of organized systems of labor and production that result in work outside the home to produce saleable goods for a market economy. Industrialization in developed countries occurred during the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when factory production was invented; industrialization is still occurring in many less-developed countries. However, most developed countries are seeing a transition to post-industrial economies where services rather than goods are produced.

Marginalization: The process of being excluded from larger society. Marginalization generally occurs to groups who are outside the mainstream of society.

Metropolitan Statistical Area: Metropolitan Statistical Areas, or MSAs, are urban areas designated by the United States Census Bureau. Each MSA is an area with a large population and has an integrated economic and social character. MSAs tend to consist of one or more medium to large-sized cities and the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs that surround them.

Post-Industrial: This term refers to an economy that is no longer driven by manufacturing but instead by service and knowledge work.

Segregation: The arrangement of groups into separate geographical areas, schools, or other facilities based on race or some other characteristic not related to individuals' own choices and skills. Segregation can be maintained by law and policy or it can exist informally through the institutionalized actions of social groups.

Suburb: A residential area located on the periphery of a city.

Sprawl: Sprawl refers to housing development that is low in density with large lot sizes, long distances between residential and commercial areas, and significant dependence on cars for transportation. Sprawl tends to characterize the development of outlying suburban areas around cities as well as urban areas that were developed in the second half of the twentieth century. One of the characteristics of areas developed through sprawl is that they tend to have few boundaries or limits on further development; they also tend to involve building on previously agricultural or undeveloped land.

Takings: Restrictions placed by the government on the use or sale of privately-owned property, or the actual confiscation of such property by the government or private developers through eminent domain.

Urbanization: The process whereby larger proportions of the population come to live and work in cities and where cities themselves grow larger.

Urban Renewal: The process of planned revitalization of urban areas through incentives or direct government or developer action.

Bibliography

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Suggested Reading

Beauregard, R.A. (2006). When America became suburban. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Boyd, M. (2008). Defensive development: The role of racial conflict in gentrification. Urban Affairs Review 43, 751-76. Retrieved August 30, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=32789550&site=ehost-live

Byun, P., Waldorf, B.S., & Esparza, A.X. (2005). Spillovers and local growth controls: An alternative perspective on suburbanization. Growth & Change 36, 196-219. Retrieved August 30, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=16954621&site=ehost-live

Freeman, L. (2006). There goes the 'hood: Views of gentrification from the ground up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Geller, A.L. (2003). Smart growth: A prescription for livable cities. American Journal of Public Health 93, 1410-5. Retrieved August 30, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=10736749&site=ehost-live

Gillette, H. (2005). Camden after the fall: Decline and renewal in a post-industrial city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Kelly, J.J. Jr. (2006). "We shall not be moved": Urban communities, eminent domain, and the socioeconomics of just compensation. St. John's Law Review 80, 923-90. Retrieved August 30, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=23498666&site=ehost-live

Leichenko, R.M. (2001). Growth and change in US cities and suburbs. Growth & Change 32, 326-54. Retrieved August 30, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=14509043&site=ehost-live

Li, H., Campbell, H., & Fernandez, S. (2013). Residential segregation, spatial mismatch and economic growth across US metropolitan areas. Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.), 50, Retrieved October 30, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=90053887

Rybczynski, W & Linneman, P.D. (1999). How to save our shrinking cities. Public Interest, Spring, , 30-44. Retrieved August 31, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=1854343&site=ehost-live

Wiechmann, T., & Pallagst, K. M. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A comparison of transformation patterns and local strategies. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, 36, 261-280. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=71885217