"John Borchert's "American Metropolitan Evolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4900641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Risa Palm (0000-0002-6277-3071, Senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30302–3965., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 308-311 |
| Publication date | 2010-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2010.00038.x |
| OpenAlex | W2081823815 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
John Borchert's 1967 classic Metropolitan Evolution is the article that had the greatest influence on my conceptualization of urban geography. article appeared during my first year as a graduate student and immediately became a kind of text in a very popular two-quarter sequence on The Geography of American Cities at the University of Minnesota. It presented a cogent organizational structure for the relative growth and decline of cities in the United States related to three technological/transportation innovations: the application of the steam engine to water and land transportation; the installation of steel rails, which, along with the widespread use of electric power, permitted more powerful railroad traffic; and the introduction of the internal-combustion engine to transportation and the shift to a service economy. Urban growth was thus divided into four epochs: the Sail-Wagon Epoch, 1790-1830; the Iron Horse Epoch, 1830-1870; the Steel Rail Epoch, 1970-1920; and the Auto-Air-Amenity Epoch, 1920-As each succeeding innovation took hold, new conditions for growth or decline emerged, the results of which could be observed in the relative increase or decrease in metropolitan population size. Borchert recognized that the periods neither were homogeneous nor had sharp boundaries. In fact, a Canal Epoch (1820-1840) affected some cities--notably in upstate New York--during the early Iron Horse Epoch, and the Electric Interurban Railway Epoch (1900-1930) affected some during the Steel Rail Epoch and the early Auto-Air-Amenity Epoch. These examples complicate any simple classification. Furthermore, many short-term effects at individual locations were constantly superimposed on the overall pattern, causing even more variability. Among the very interesting data summaries were Borchert's map and chart of the percentage of 1960 population accumulated in the various historical epochs (1967, 326, 329). For example, by the end of the Sail-Wagon Epoch--1830-the population of New York City was only 3 percent of what it had become by 1960. New York metropolitan area grew by an additional 11 percent of the 1960 population in the Iron Horse Epoch, by 44 percent in the Steel Rail Epoch, and 42 percent in the Auto-Air-Amenity Epoch. Albany-Schenectady-Troy has a very different profile: in each of the four epochs the metropolitan area accumulated an additional 25 percent of the total 1960 population. This profile is in sharp contrast with that of both Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Las Vegas: Each of these metropolitan areas had accumulated only 4 percent of its 1960 population before the auto-air-amenity period began in 1920. Because the different epochs are also characterized by buildings of various densities and architectural types, the street layouts, urban densities, and building ages and styles are very much a function of the epoch in which the greatest population growth occurred. Metropolitan Evolution appeared at a time when geography itself was struggling over whether it was to evolve as nomothetic--a spatial science that sought general laws to describe objective phenomena--or as idiographic--place specific or contingent and subjective (Lukermann 1964,1965; Bunge 1966; Harvey 1969). In those days many geographers considered the Geographical Review to lean more toward historical/cultural/contingent geography than did journals such as Geographical Analysis, founded in 1969 as an outlet for more abstract, quantitative analyses. What John Borchert accomplished in his article was a model for the integration of the two approaches: a highly empirically based analysis with fundamental process principles that have stood the test of time. He analyzed the relative growth and decline of individual cities as related, at least partly, to changes in technology, particularly transportation technology. He also suggested the applicability of this force to the internal evolution of the metropolitan area
Archaeology · Geography · Metropolitan area · Regional Economic and Spatial Analysis · Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis · Urbanization and City Planning
Explanation in geography
R&D production in the United States
Comparison of Energy Transitions in the United States and Developing and Industrializing Economies
The Origins of the American Urban System
Cycles within the System
Dimensions of Urban Structure
Geography as a Formal Intellectual Discipline and the Way in Which It Contributes to Human Knowledge
Residential Structure of Midwestern Cities
The Maturing Urban System in the United States, 1840–1910∗
On Laws in Geography
American Metropolitan Evolution
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |