The Emergence of Central Immigrant Ghettoes in American Cities

1840–1920

Bibliographic Data

ID7425154
AuthorsDavid A Ward (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author), David Ward (0000-0001-5476-9526)
Year1968
Volume58
Issue2
Pages343-359
Publication date1968-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306
PublisherAmerican Association of Geographers (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-8306.1968.tb00648.x
OpenAlexW1964089832
LanguageEN
Citations received13

The emergence of concentrations of foreign immigrants on the edge of the expanding central business district was one of the most characteristic manifestations of American urban growth between 1840 and 1920. The settlement of newly arrived immigrants in central urban locations has been closely related to the blighting effects of commercial encroachment into adjacent residential quarters. The concept of blight, however, obscures both the diverse social and physical attributes of central residential districts and the different effects of particular types and periods of business expansion upon central immigrant settlement. The selective adoption, subsequent longevity, and diverse characteristics of immigrant residential locations were primarily determined by the timing and dimensions of the expansion of different segments of the central business district during the second half of the nineteenth century. Notes 1 E. W. Burgess, “The Growth of the City,” in R. E. Park, E. W. Burgess, and R. D. MacKenzie (Eds.), The City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925), pp. 47–62. 2 H. W. Zorbaugh, The Gold Coast and the Slum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), pp. 1–16; H. Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighbourhoods in American Cities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939). 3 R. E. Park and H. A. Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted (New York: Harper Bros., 1921), pp. 60–80; O. Handlin, The Uprooted (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1951), pp. 259–85. 4 C. F. Ware, Greenwich Village: 1920–1930 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935), pp. 3–8, 81–126; W. F. Whyte, The Street Corner Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943), pp. 94–104, 255–78. 5 N. Glazer and D. P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964). 6 H. J. Gans, The Urban Villagers (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), pp. 3–41; B. J. Frieden, The Future of Old Neighbourhoods (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964), pp. 1–5. 7 G. C. Homans, The Human Group (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1950), pp. 334–68; W. I. Firey, Land Use in Central Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), pp. 170–97, 290–313. 8 W. I. Firey, op. cit., footnote 7; E. Jones, A Social Geography of Belfast (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). 9 W. Alonso, Location and Land Use (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964); L. Wingo, Jr., Transportation and Urban Land (Washington: Resources for the Future, 1961); R. M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values (New York: The Record and Guide, 1903). 10 D. Ward, “A Comparative Historical Geography of Streetcar Suburbs in Boston, Massachusetts and Leeds, England: 1850–1920,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 54 (1964), pp. 477–89. 11 E. R. L. Gould, “The Housing of the Working People,”8th Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895), p. 419. 12 E. E. Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner (New York: Macmillan, 1919), p. 21. 13 E. Abbott, The Tenements of Chicago: 1908–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1936), pp. 481–83. 14 R. Ernst, Immigrant Life in New York City: 1825–1863 (New York: King's Crown Press, 1949), pp. 17, 61–77; O. Handlin, Boston's Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 54–87. 15 R. F. Foerster, The Italian Emigration of Our Times (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919), pp. 332–44. 16 S. Joseph, Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), pp. 42–46. 17 J. R. Commons, “Immigration and its Economic Effects,”Report of the Industrial Commission XV (Washington: 1901), pp. 316–26. 18 W. T. Elsing, “Life in New York Tenement Houses,” in The Poor in Great Cities (New York: Scribners, 1895), pp. 42–85. 19 T. J. Lowi, At the Pleasure of the Mayor: Power and Patronage in New York City, 1898–1958 (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964). 20 Zorbaugh, op. cit., footnote 2, 142–51. 21 Information on the timing and scale of the expansion of the component specialized areas of the central business district during the nineteenth century is widely scattered and rarely related to the fortunes of adjacent residential districts. J. E. Vance, “Emerging Patterns of Commercial Structure in American Cities,” in K. Norburg (Ed.), Proceedings of the I.G.U. Symposium in Urban Geography (Lund: Gleerups, 1962), pp. 473–83, and D. Ward, “The Industrial Revolution and Emergence of Boston's Central Business District,”Economic Geography, Vol. 42 (1966), pp. 152 71, give some indication of the developmental aspects of the problem, whereas R. E. Murphy and J. E. Vance, “Delimiting the CBD,”Economic Geography, Vol. 30 (1954), pp. 189 222, and D. W. Griffin and R. E. Preston, “A Restatement of the Transition Zone Concept,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 56 (1966), pp. 339–50, from an essentially contemporary perspective indicate the diverse characteristics of different edges of the CBD. 22 N. S. B. Gras, “The Development of the Metropolitan Economy in Europe and America,”American Historical Review, Vol. 27 (1922), pp. 695 708. 23 Zorbaugh, op. cit., footnote 2, p. 127. 24 L. Grebler, Housing Market Behavior in a Declining Area (New York: Columbia University Press. 1952), p. 113 on the up-town shift of retailing on Manhattan Island and the effects on the residential districts near to the original center of growth. 25 Zorbaugh, op. cit., footnote 2, p. 166; F. E. Bushee, “Italian Immigrants in Boston,”Arena, Vol. 17 (1896–7), pp. 722 34. 26 W. L. Warner and L. Srole, The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), pp. 33–52; K. H. Claghorn, “The Foreign Immigrant in New York City,”Report of the Industrial Commission XV (Washington: 1901), pp. 471–72. 27 Grebler, op. cit., footnote 24, pp. 106–16. 28 R. A. Woods (Ed.), The City Wilderness (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898), pp. 35–39; Zorbaugh, op. cit., footnote 2, pp. 69–86. 29 T. Pemberton, “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston in 1797,”Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Vol. 3 (1810), pp. 241 304. 30 E. C. Wines, Trip to Boston, in a Series of Letters to the Editor of the United States Gazette (Boston: Little & Brown, 1838), p. 123. 31 W. M. Whitehill, A Topographical History of Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 59–65. 32 R. H. Lord, et al., A History of the Archdiocese of Boston, Vol. 2 (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944), pp. 35–36; O. Handlin, op. cit., footnote 3, pp. 93–94. 33 Massachusetts Public Document, No. 17, 19th Annual Report of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity (Boston: 1889), pp. 98–99. 34 E. Stanwood, “Topography and Landmarks of the Last Hundred Years,” in J. Winsor (Ed.), The Memorial History of Boston (Boston: James Osgood, 1881), pp. 25–65. 35 Boston City Document, No. 4, The North End: A Survey and Comprehensive Plan (Boston: 1919), p. 6. 36 Massachusetts Public Document, No. 15, 42nd Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labour (Boston: 1910), p. 230. 37 Bushee, op. cit., footnote 25, pp. 722–34. 38 Bushee, op. cit., footnote 25. 39 R. A. Woods (Ed.), Americans in Process (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1902), p. 107. 40 Woods, op. cit., footnote 39, pp. 113–16. 41 Woods, op. cit., footnote 39, pp. 54–55; Bushee, op. cit., footnote 26. 42 Woods, op. cit., footnote 28, pp. 37–53; R. Murphey, “Boston's Chinatown,”Economic Geography, Vol. 28 (1952), pp. 244 55. 43 A. B. Wolfe, The Lodging House Problem in Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912), pp. 9–15. 44 Whitehill, op. cit., footnote 31, pp. 141–73. 45 A. Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), pp. 44–47

Central business district · Settlement (finance · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Race, History, and American Society · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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