Nature's Metropolis is a history of the relationship between Chicago and the rural areas to its west during the nineteenth century. Its primary thesis is that you can't understand one without the other.
It sounds like a dry subject perhaps, but I was fascinated by the interplay of natural and social forces, intentional and unexpected consequences, that defined the course of history. Chicago's founders thought their city would be the gateway to the west because of its "natural advantage" of being near the divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, but ultimately its biggest advantage (over St Louis) was that its main Eastern trading partner (New York) wanted its supply lines to be to its north because its main rivals were to its south. There was also the Civil War, which cut St Louis off from its main trading partner New Orleans.
The heart of the book covers the three major commodities that flowed through Chicago: grain, lumber, and meat. In these stories too there are intentional and unexpected consequences. The coming of the railroad had its expected major impact; the invention of the automated grain elevator unexpectedly shifted the entire economy.
My discovery of Nature's Metropolis is an advertisement for the value of used book stores. I came across it at The Book Exchange, a used book store in Ashland Oregon. It seems unlikely I would ever have seen it at any other place.
No city played a more important role in shaping the landscape and economy of the mid-continent during the second half of the nineteenth century than Chicago. Conversely, one cannot understand the growth of Chicago without understanding its special relationship to the vast region lying to its west. ... The central story of the nineteenth-century West is that of an expanding metropolitan economy creating ever more elaborate and intimate linkages between city and country.In other words, the nature of the landscape around Chicago shaped its development as a city, and Chicago's development shaped the landscape around it. Wisconsin has dairy farms and Iowa has cornfields because of business decisions made in Chicago.
It sounds like a dry subject perhaps, but I was fascinated by the interplay of natural and social forces, intentional and unexpected consequences, that defined the course of history. Chicago's founders thought their city would be the gateway to the west because of its "natural advantage" of being near the divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, but ultimately its biggest advantage (over St Louis) was that its main Eastern trading partner (New York) wanted its supply lines to be to its north because its main rivals were to its south. There was also the Civil War, which cut St Louis off from its main trading partner New Orleans.
The heart of the book covers the three major commodities that flowed through Chicago: grain, lumber, and meat. In these stories too there are intentional and unexpected consequences. The coming of the railroad had its expected major impact; the invention of the automated grain elevator unexpectedly shifted the entire economy.
My discovery of Nature's Metropolis is an advertisement for the value of used book stores. I came across it at The Book Exchange, a used book store in Ashland Oregon. It seems unlikely I would ever have seen it at any other place.
No comments:
Post a Comment