City Building on the Eastern Frontier
Subtitle: Sorting the New Nineteenth-Century City (Creating the North American Landscape)
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: September 23, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780801879258
Subjects: City & town planning - architectural aspects; c 1800 to c 1900; History - U.S.; City planning; Sociology; Social Science; Politics - Current Events; Northeastern & North Atlantic states; Human Geography; Government - U.S. Government; Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.; United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic; Architecture / Landscape; Sociology - Urban; Cities and towns; Landscape; 19th century; Architecture; History; New York (State)
First sentence: During the early nineteenth century westward expansion was not only pushing the frontiers of the nation through the Midwest but was also redoubling on itself as the undeveloped portions of the eastern colonial states became more intensively settled.
Description: "America's westward expansion involved more than pushing the frontier across the Mississippi toward the Pacific; it also consisted of urbanizing undeveloped regions of the colonial states. In 1810, New York's future governor DeWitt Clinton marveled that the "rage for erecting villages is a perfect mania." The development of Rochester and Syracuse illuminates the national experience of internal economic and cultural colonization during the first half of the nineteenth century. Architectural historian Diane Shaw examines the ways in which these new cities were shaped by a variety of constituents - founders, merchants, politicians, and settlers - as opportunities to extend the commercial and social benefits of the market economy and a merchant culture to America's interior. At the same time, she analyzes how these priorities resulted in a new approach to urban planning."--BOOK JACKET.