Urban Origin and Form in Central New York

Bibliographic Data

ID4867256
AuthorsRichard H Schein (corresponding author)
Year1991
Volume81
Issue1
Pages52
Publication date1991-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/215176
OpenAlexW2315898965
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited8

Present-day urban centers in central New York embody processes of European-American colonization in the region after the American Revolution. Urban framework comprises four types of villages, all of which resulted from forces such as exogenously imposed settlement patterns, endogenic refinement of those patterns, regional cultural traditions brought by migrants, necessity for environmental adaptation, and continual integration of the region with the evolving American core. THE north side of Syracuse, New York, looks much like the nineteenth- century section of many Northeast cities: retail stores bear the Italian names of early twentieth-century migrants; huge Italianate and Queen Anne houses catch the eye; the entire area has the slightly run-down look of a decaying industrial center. Yet there are also subtle clues to the city's past: a slight deviation in the grid where North Salina Street leaves the city center; a large park surrounded on all sides by houses of many sizes and ages; and the presence of the severely polluted Onondaga Lake. Within a short drive south of Syracuse are several small villages that seem to have joined the twentieth century only reluctantly. The first of these, lying beyond an old glacial spillway and partway up the Onondaga Escarp- ment, is Jamesville. Today the village seems to function mainly as a suitable location for a gas station and convenience store, serving the daily exodus of commuters whose suburban and rural subdivisions dot the hills overlooking Syracuse. Only the presence of Butternut Creek in the center of Jamesville and the mile or so of crumbling mill and factory foundations suggest that the little village was once something more than a crossroads. Farther south and at the top of the escarpment, where several county roads intersect U.S. highway 20, is another small village, with the grandiose name of Pompey. Nothing like Jamesville, Pompey is the picture of a nineteenth-century New England village, with neatly painted white houses on large lots lining Acad- emy Street, flanking what looks to be a green, complete with a church. The short transect of central New York from Salina Street to Pompey is more than simply the route of homeward-bound commuters. It also provides a glimpse of an urban framework that has persisted since its origins at the end of the eighteenth century. This framework and its components display visible remnants of the first effective settlement of the region by European- Americans after the American Revolution (Zelinsky 1973, 13-14). This part

Archaeology · Geography · Mile · Settlement (finance · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies · Urbanization and City Planning

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