Showing papers in "Urban History in 2018"
TL;DR: The first attempt to use the recently available electronic version of the census to classify all large towns in late-Victorian England and Wales on the basis of their economic structure was made by as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article describes the creation of a new urban classification based on the 1891 Census of England and Wales. It is the first attempt to use the recently available electronic version of the census to classify all large towns in late-Victorian England and Wales on the basis of their economic structure. The creation of I-CeM, which is an integrated, standardized electronic dataset of the England and Wales censuses for 1851-1911, allows the previous limitations of census data for urban classification to be overcome. Where previously scholars were restricted by the geographical units and aggregated occupation data provided in the published census reports, I-CeM allows manipulation of the original records in order to aggregate urban units and examine their occupational structures in great detail. While it was previously possible to examine individual parishes’ characteristics by manually extracting and coding data from the Census Enumerator Books (CEBs), this was a time-consuming practice. I-CeM allows analysis of parishes and aggregated urban units on a scale not realistically feasible previously. This article describes the identification of urban units and a factor analysis of their occupational structure which allows an urban classification to be developed.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, two case studies of large, industrial, bomb-damaged yet important former medieval towns are examined in this article: Southampton and Coventry, and they illustrate the range of local responses to protecting what we now term the historic environment.
Abstract: Post-war planning and rebuilding of Britain's towns and cities led to rapid changes in medieval building stock, topography and character, as well as below-ground archaeology. Two case-studies of large, industrial, bomb-damaged yet important former medieval towns are examined in this article: Southampton and Coventry. Together, they illustrate the range of local responses to protecting what we now term the ‘historic environment’ in the period 1945 to 1955 at a time when a limited protection mechanism was introduced through the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. The responsibility for compiling lists of protected buildings and providing resources to protect them largely fell to local solutions. Using previously unpublished archive material from both national and local sources, this article offers an alternative ‘bottom-up’, local, organized grass-roots viewpoint to most official ‘top-down’ accounts.
7 citations
TL;DR: The experience of colonial Lagos shows that the colonial government policies of town planning and segregation forced the working-class residents of Lagos to the suburbs, and as a result, both the population and housing rent of the area were increased as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Some scholars have argued that the process of gentrification can bring about development, attract businesses and even lower the crime rate in an area. However, no scholars have considered developments in a colonial situation where government policies sometimes produced unintended results, which have subsequently become a permanent feature of those socio-political situations. The experience of colonial Lagos shows that the colonial government policies of town planning and segregation forced the working-class residents of Lagos to the suburbs. As a result, both the population and housing rent of the area were increased with implications for the demography and physical development of metropolitan Lagos.
5 citations
TL;DR: In the early 2000s, Berlin saw the formation of so-called Baugruppen, associations of small-scale investors who pooled their modest capital to commission an architect and construct a multi-storey building in which they would own and occupy a flat.
Abstract: In the 2000s Berlin saw the formation of so-called Baugruppen (construction groups) – associations of small-scale investors who pooled their modest capital to commission an architect and construct a multi-storey building in which they would own and occupy a flat. They were mostly middle-class families united by a belief in community values and neighbourly contact as well as the qualities of urban living.
This article will present the construction groups as an example of bottom-up architecture in an industrialised Western country, in which individual initiatives and user-centred design had to be negotiated within a highly professionalized environment, as well as with contradictory political positions. It will show that construction groups brought together various threads of Berlin's recent urban history: the gradual integration of radical post-1968 lifestyles into mainstream society, the "return to the inner city" connected with the increasing popularity of "new tenements," and the evolution of innovative, post-functionalist architecture.
2 citations
TL;DR: Borsay's concerns 27 years later continue to be mirrored in academic discussions surrounding heritage and materiality, echoing wider questions that surround the relevance of urban history beyond the academy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Writing in Urban History in the spring of 1991, Peter Borsay considered how the gap between the ‘popular presentations of the urban past’ produced by the growing heritage industry and ‘the booming academic study of urban history’ might be bridged. Heritage, he argued, was ‘deeply bound up with the meanings and functions of towns’ and urban historians should play a crucial role within communities ‘engaged in a complex discourse with the past . . . that for many was fundamental to their livelihood and identity’. Borsay's concerns 27 years later continue to be mirrored in academic discussions surrounding heritage and materiality, echoing wider questions that surround the relevance of urban history beyond the academy. Recent conferences have also demonstrated the continued salience of Borsay's argument, considering the potential of the study of cities to shape approaches to their management through work with local communities, heritage partners, cultural institutions and professional groups. This emphasis on knowledge exchange and partnership has also attracted the support of funding bodies through collaborative doctoral awards that have sought to ‘increase opportunities for all researchers to develop their work in collaboration with public, private and third sector partners that increase the flow, value and impact of world-class arts and humanities research from academia to the UK's wider creative economy and beyond’. This has included the author's own work on the heritage of Middlesbrough's iron and steel industries, which has involved working collaboratively with local archives and heritage partners.
2 citations
1 citations
TL;DR: Barker as mentioned in this paper examines how emotions structured family relationships and in turn business practices, showing that duty and obligation, love and affection were central motives in conducting enterprise, often displacing profit as the primary goal of business, as Barker's sensitive reading of diaries, memoirs and letters of trading families reveals.
Abstract: Barker also helpfully reminds us that formal instructions laid out in some legal documents – notably wills and testaments – were frequently circumvented or even simply ignored in everyday practice. This is an important insight for those of us who put such records at the centre of our analyses of family practice. While some parts of the book present conflict and litigiousness as core features of the north-west’s family-oriented urban enterprise culture, chapter 4 emphasizes the importance of co-operation and family loyalty. It examines how emotions structured family relationships and in turn business practices. Duty and obligation, love and affection were central motives in conducting enterprise, often displacing profit as the primary goal of business, as Barker’s sensitive reading of diaries, memoirs and letters of trading families reveals. In the final two chapters, attention is turned to the spatial and social contexts within which this complex form of family capitalism operated, tracing the interdependency of home and work. The spatial organization of households, shops and workshops – often within a single building – underlines the interweaving of family and business life and the hierarchies and ties that existed among family and members of the wider household. A valuable insight here is the significance generational (as well as gender) differences in shaping household hierarchies and in influencing the degree to which things ran smoothly for both family and firm. Engagingly written and astutely aware of the contribution it is aiming to make, this is an important book that urban historians will find especially stimulating. It describes a particular kind of family-centred capitalism that has important consequences for understanding how towns and cities developed – it sets an agenda for studying the ‘urbanization of family capital’, to adapt David Harvey’s formulation, that could be applied in other contexts. But it is also a volume that will make a significant impact in the fields of economic and social history. Alongside the work of other scholars, such as business historian Andrew Popp, it demonstrates the potential value of bringing history of emotions perspectives to understanding urban economic processes, rescuing us from the theoretical and methodological abstraction of some kinds of economic history. Finally, for social historians, Barker’s book also encourages a way of thinking about the categories and contexts of urban social identity – class, gender, generation, neighbourhood, workshop and home – along less discrete and more intersectional lines, enabling us to grapple with the messiness and uncertainty of running a business in the early industrial revolution.