Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure (1984) / Chapter Skim
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1 The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
1 The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Pages 4-66
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From page 4... ...
Urban infrastructure is defined as the "sinews" of the city: its road, bridge, and transit networks; its water and sewer lines and waste disposal facilities; its power systems; its public buildings; and its parks and recreation areas.) In developing an analysis, the chapter draws on history in three ways: to furnish perspectives on the evolution of the urban infrastructure over time; to point to critical stages, paradigm shifts, and key turning points in history; and to provide analogies between the contemporary so-called crisis of the infrastructure and similar events in the past (see Stearns and Tarr, 19821.
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From page 5... ...
While infrastructure construction patterns do relate closely to swings in the development process and to city building cycles, government has also used public works for countercyclical, employment, and political patronage purposes. The preferences and perceptions of different actors such as business leaders, politicians, and professionals in a particular city at a particular time may be more important in the city building process than a generalized set of forces that relate to all cities.2 For purposes of analysis, this chapter uses four historical stages of infrastructure development related to the process of urban charge: 3 · Urban Networks ant!
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From page 6... ...
These cities were primarily commercial and break-of-bulk locations that developed substantial manufacturing functions only in midcentury. The initial urban network consisted of a line of Atlantic Coast cities, but by the IS20s a second urban frontier of interior cities had developed along inland waterways, such as the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes.
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From page 7... ...
One author has estimated that total federal expenditures on internal improvements from 1820 to IS40, not counting subsidies to state and private projects, probably amounted to about 11 percent of the federal budget (Aldrich, 1980:F.~. The most innovative policies with regard to infrastructure development took place on the state level.
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From page 8... ...
In 1843, municipal debt was approximately $27.5 million and federal and state debt $231 million (Figure 1-1~. By 1860, however, municipal debt had reached over $200 million, almost as large as state debt (HilIhouse, 1936:32-341.
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From page 9... ...
Diffusion of the more modern governmental forms through the urban network, however, took place at a relatively slow pace, with the older and larger cities making innovations first. Structural changes in city government permitted the development of the service orientation, as states granted municipalities new charters and authorized the revision of old ones.
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From page 10... ...
. The forces underlying the changes in city government, especially increased infrastructure construction, were more complex than simple economic models suggest.
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From page 11... ...
The interaction of the various forces driving infrastructure construction is clearly illustrated with regard to three areas of importance in the walking city: streets, water supply, and sewers. Because they were sensitive to the constituencies interested in the streets, city council members considered questions involving streets approximately half to two-thirds of their time.
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From page 12... ...
The two most critical elements relating to the urban metabolism were water supply and human waste removal. It was in these two areas that the greatest technological advances both using the subsurface r'ather than the surface of streets were made during the period of the walking city.
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From page 13... ...
The large capital requirements of the systems and frequent inadequacies of the private companies necessitated public ownership. Cities that began with private water supply companies, such as New York and Chicago, shifted to public ownership because the private companies refused to provide adequate water for civic purposes such as street flushing and fire hydrants, to eliminate pollution, to enlarge their works in anticipation of population growth, or to service distant districts (Anderson,.1980:119-124; Galishoff, 1980:361.
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From page 14... ...
In cities with private companies, such as Baltimore until 1854, water supply was class structured. The affluent residential districts and the central business district received the piped water of a private corporation for an annual fee, while the working class districts continued to depend on shallow polluted wells supplied by city pumps (Olson, 1980:132-1331.
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From page 15... ...
. While both private and public underground sewers existed in the larger cities such as New York, Baltimore, and Boston, they were intended for stormwater drainage from streets rather than for human waste removal.
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From page 16... ...
The adoption of new technologies, therefore, combined with higher urban densities to cause the breakdown of the cesspool/privy vault system of waste disposal and the generation of excessive nuisances. Different solutions were tried, but eventually most sanitarians, engineers, and business leaders agreed that the water carriage technology of waste removal was the most elective one available.
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From page 17... ...
Beginning in the IS50s, therefore, planned sewerage systems became part of the infrastructure of urban America, although it was not until the last decades of the century that the great wave of municipal sewer building took place. Financing Infrastructure in the Walking City Large-scale municipal involvement in the construction of urban infrastructure, such as streets or capital-intensive water supply ant!
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From page 18... ...
When the building of the Croton Aqueduct increased New York City's debt from $500,000 to over $9 million, many citizens anticipated financial disaster (Studenski and Krooss, 1952:134~. Municipal infrastructure creation plus involvement in various railroad funding schemes increased municipal debt from $27 million in 1843 to $200 million in 1860.
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From page 19... ...
By the 1840s, civil engineers formed a definite occupational group (Calhoun, 1960:1821. Many of these engineers moved freely between the large state public works projects and the major urban infrastructure developments.
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From page 20... ...
These developments combined with other European and British imports, such as street paving, gas lighting, sewers, and omnibuses, to make the technology of the American urban infrastructure a blend of European ideas and adaptations and homegrown inventions and innovations (Armstrong et al., 1976; Merritt, 1969~. Conclusion The critical infrastructure developments that occurred during this period of foundations were two: the construction of a trans
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From page 21... ...
Facilitating the changes were experiments on the state level with private-public partnerships, changes in the structure of urban government, a willingness on the part of municipalities to assume debt obligations in order to provide infrastructure, and an increase in the supply of trained civil engineers capable of constructing and operating urban technologies. In the larger cities such as Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, these new patterns produced a movement away from a piecemeal, decentralized approach to urban infrastructure to one characterized by system, planning, and expertise.
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From page 22... ...
On the private side, the critical innovations were the building of streetcar systems powered by horses; the construction of steam-powered elevated railroads in New York City; the extension of gas distribution systems and the development of improved methods of lighting; innovations in the area of electrical power and lighting systems, including the dynamo, the central station, and the arc and incandescent lamps; and the development of telephone systems and the extension of the telegraph network. In the second period, the critical public infrastructure developments include the rapid diffusion of water and sewerage systems throughout the urban network; the development and construction
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From page 23... ...
Federal spending for urban public works was relatively minor and consisted largely of river and harbor improvements, lighthouse construction, and public buildings such as post offices and custom houses. Federal expenditures for developmental transportation improvements declined sharply after the 1870s (Aldrich, l980:F.28-F.321.
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From page 24... ...
(Tarr, 1973:202-212; Tarr et al., 1980:74-761. Institutional and Political Changes in Infrastructure Supply and Distribution In many cities, first priority was given to the provision of improved services to the central business districts.
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From page 25... ...
In some cities, such as Baltimore and Cincinnati, "neighborhood associations" at the turn of the century were successful in ensuring equality of service delivery (Arnold, 1979:3-30~. In many late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century suburbs, the provision of urban infrastructure was beyond the financial capabilities of the towns.
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From page 26... ...
, and the American Society of Civil Engineers (1852, 1868) , used their conferences and their journals to agitate for the creation of local and state boards of health, the improvement of water supplies, the construction of sewers, the control of pollution, and the paving of streets (Wiebe, 1967:111-1631.
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From page 27... ...
In addition, large numbers of the party faithful secured employment on the city payroll, helping to construct and maintain infrastructure projects (Tarr, 1971:62-741. In many cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whether or not dominated by political machines, politics centered around questions of infrastructure investment.
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From page 28... ...
In addition, special districts were also a means for suburbs to secure central city services without submitting to annexation (Hawkins, 1976a:25; Studenski, 1930:256-2621. A critical issue involving infrastructure that occupied municipal political agendas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the question of the private or public ownership of utilities.
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From page 29... ...
Some of these cycles produced institutional changes and modifications that affected infrastructure construction for many years after the economic downturn had passed. In the period 1866-1873, for instance, postwar economic prosperity and delayed demand resulted in a large expansion of public works building in a number of cities.
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From page 30... ...
In the period IS70-~890, for instance, per capita municipal debt only rose from $13.38 to $14.79 (current dollars) with an actual decrease in the deflationary IS80-1890 decade.
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From page 31... ...
Important developments with regard to these factors took place in the late nineteenth century, and by the lS90s they began to generate the diffusion of technologies throughout the urban network and down the urban hierarchy. Critical to this diffusion was the supply and quality of engineering.
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From page 32... ...
The field of water supply is a good example. Early distribution systems had suffered from pipe deterioration, but by 1860 the development of improved methods of manufacturing cast-iron pipe and of coating their interiors had solved the problem.
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From page 33... ...
As technologies spread throughout the urban network, they often created unforeseen problems. Most municipalities that constructed sewerage systems discharged their sewage into adjacent streams, thereby polluting the water supply of downstream cities.
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From page 34... ...
Some city engineers obviously faced uncertain tenure and were subject to political interference, but others held office throughout many political changes and managed their systems effectively. In many smaller and middIe-sized cities, they regularly assumed managerial positions (Armstrong et al., 1976:686; Teaford, 1982:137-1394.
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From page 35... ...
In Pittsburgh, for instance, between 1917 and 1929, the number of automobiles in the central business district increased 587 percent, the number of motor trucks 251 percent, and the number of streetcars 81 percent. Downtown business groups throughout the nation called for planning to alleviate traffic congestion and for new road networks to facilitate entry into downtown areas and to permit the bypass of through
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From page 36... ...
In the newer spread cities that lacked strong downtown business districts, such as Los Angeles and Denver, the automobile became the primary shaping element, and the dense patterns of development characteristic of the older eastern cities never materialized (Anderson, 1977:87-104; Muller, 1981:1960; Tarr, 1978:31-34~. The needs of the automobile, motor truck, and bus for improved roads and highways, expressed by automobile clubs, business organizations, and engineering associations, resulted in extensive construction.
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From page 37... ...
By 1917, each state had created a road agency, usually staffed by civil engineers. In addition, in order to receive federal aid, states had to designate 7 percent of their rural mileage for inclusion in a federal network.
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From page 38... ...
Various professional associations, such as the American Society for Municipal Improvements, the American Water Works Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the International Association of Public Works Officials, were also influential in arguing for infrastructure development in areas of their professional interest. Even though such concepts as the "city efficient" and "functional" government were in vogue in the 1920s, political machines persisted in the larger cities and were responsible for considerable infrastructure construction.
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From page 39... ...
Adoptions of special district government expanded in this period as a means of infrastructure development and service delivery. These structures further undermined the competitive advantage of the central city with regard to services.
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From page 40... ...
Urban and suburban counties created extensive park systems and recreational facilities, constructed sewers, and even in a few cases provided water supplies for suburban residents. From 1913 to 1932, county government spending in 96 metropolitan areas increased from 16 to 21 percent of combined county-municipal expenditures (Teaford, 1979:79-834.
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From page 41... ...
These projects generated a variety of benefits to local communities. New water supply systems, for instance, produced sharply reduced fire insurance premiums in addition to water supplies.
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From page 42... ...
The depression affected engineers more than other professionals, and it is likely that the qualifications of engineers working on public infrastructure construction and maintenance improved because of the scarcity of private-sector postions. A 1962 survey shower!
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From page 43... ...
waterworks, school buildings, and roads proceeded at a rapid pace, reflecting the impacts of suburbanization, the automobile, and the baby boom (Aldrich, l980:F.59-711. Central city decline and suburban proliferation created different sorts of infrastructure pressures.
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From page 44... ...
the county to act in place of the municipality (Teaford, 1979:174-1751. Faced by rapid suburbanization and central city decline, downtown business interests and urban politicians joined to attempt to revitalize the central business districts.
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From page 45... ...
Essentially this involved cooperation to eliminate smoke pollution of the air and sewage pollution of the rivers, to control flooding, to renew the central business district as a corporate headquarters center, and to improve the highway network. Some projects, such as sewage treatment, involved suburban towns as well as the central city.
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From page 46... ...
urban areas was exceeclingly expensive, cities eventually receiver} a large percentage of the total allocations. The interstates, however, although they speeclec} commuter traffic in some urban areas, also accelerated central city decline by making it easier for residents to move to the suburban fringe ant!
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From page 47... ...
renewal of central business districts as well as rising gasoline prices, have resulted in some return migration to the city, the numbers are still relatively small. Accompanying central city losses has been a massive regional population shift from the older cities of the Northeast and the Midwest toward the cities of the Sunbelt (Abbott, 1981:34-56; Muller,1981:1191821.
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From page 48... ...
, federal dollars poured into sewer and sewage treatment projects. Between 1967 and 1977, federal expenditures for sewer systems increased from $150 million to $4.1 billion, with the heaviest expenditures after 1973.
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From page 49... ...
Mass Transit The involvement of the federal government in the provision of funds for urban mass transit is another critical infrastructure development in the 1970s. Between 1973 and 1977, federal funds to localities for urban mass transit grew from $275 million to $~.3 billion.
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From page 50... ...
Important on the demand side have been the activities of city boosters and the downtown business establishments, real estate developers, urban politicians, contractors, suppliers of materials, and various professional groups. The motivation of each group often varied.
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From page 51... ...
Perhaps the governmental organization that best reflected the administrative ideal was the special district authority, free from the political and financial constraints of older cities. This form of management proliferated in the outer city settlements that have developed in recent decades.
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From page 52... ...
· The influence of neighborhoods on infrastructure development: There is some evidence that the "revolt of the neighborhoods" is not just a phenomenon of the 1970s and that neighborhoods exercised influence over infrastructure decisions in their areas as early as the nineteenth century. We need to develop more information concerning how neighborhood groups as opposed to politicians or real estate developers shaped the process of infrastructure development, and what forms of governments appeared more sensitive to their preferences.
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From page 53... ...
The one study that attempts this, while useful, is limited to smaller cities in a specific region (Hollingsworth and Hollingsworth, 19791. · The diffusion process: Aside from nineteenth-century water supply systems, we know little about the process by which urban technologies and innovations were diffused among the network of cities over time.
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From page 54... ...
Anderson, Letty Donaldson 1980 The Diffusion of Technology in the Nineteenth Century American City: Municipal Water Supply Investments. Unpublished Ph.D.
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From page 55... ...
Cheape, Charles 1980 Moving the Masses: Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, 1880-1912. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
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From page 56... ...
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Galishoff, Stuart 1980 Triumph and failures: the American response to the urban water supply problem, 1860-1923.
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From page 57... ...
1982 Public Works and Urban History: Recent Trends and New Directions, Essays in Public History.
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From page 58... ...
1979 Light, heat, and power: energy choices in Kansas City, Wichita, and Denver, 1900-1935. Journal of Urban History 5(May)
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From page 59... ...
1973 From city to suburb: the moral implications of transportation technology. In Alexander Callow, ea., American Urban History.
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From page 60... ...
New York: Hill and Wang. DISCUSSION Randy Hamilton A historical view of urban public facilities should focus on tools, skills, materials, and sources of power.
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From page 61... ...
Japan, for instance, connects major urban concentrations by high-speed rail lines. Singapore has redeveloped itself and a series of major satellites and in the process has achieved a high standard of living.
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From page 62... ...
His detailed account of these efforts makes clear that the evoJution of infrastructure to provide service is "more complex than simple economic models suggest." The progress was cyclical in nature, reflecting economic depressions and recovery, the rise and fall of"bossism," temporary reformism, and political ideology. Physical obstacles to trade demanded correctives, which are described by Tarr in colorful designations of the transition from the walking city, to the streetcar city, to the automobile city, and, ~ might add without plagiarizing, to the subway city.
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From page 63... ...
3. Increasing private corporate responsibility for many public works is illustrated in water supply, sewerage, solid wastes,
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From page 64... ...
9. The advent of public participation is not new.
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From page 65... ...
Tens of millions wait for water supply, sewerage, solid wastes handling, transport, safety, and health. The desires are not new.
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From page 66... ...
We really have not wrestled with the decision-making process. We need to look hard at bosses versus professionals versus public participation in public works decisions.
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