1st Edition
The City and the Railway in the World from the Nineteenth Century to the Present
This volume explores the relationship between cities and railways over three centuries. Despite their nearly 200-year existence, The City and the Railway in the World shows that urban railways are still politically and historically important to the modern world.
Since its inception, cities have played a significant role in the railway system; cities were among the main reasons for building such efficient but lavish and costly modes of transport for persons, goods, and information. They also influenced the technological appearance of railways as these have had to meet particular demands for transport in urban areas. In 25 essays, this volume demonstrates that the relationship between the city and the railway is one of the most publicly debated themes in the context of daily lives in growing urban settings, as well as in the second urbanisation of the global South with migration from rural to urban landscapes. The volume’s broad geographical range includes discussions of railway networks, railway stations, and urban rails in countries such as India, Japan, England, Belgium, Romania, Nigeria, the USA, and Mexico.
The City and the Railway in the World will be a useful tool for scholars interested in the history of transport, travel, and urban change.
Introduction
Ralf Roth
Part 1: Some General AssumPtions on the Topic
1. The City and the Railway in the World: Looking Back over Two
Centuries
Ralf Roth
Part 2: Cities in a Wider Context: the Role of National and Continental Railway Networks In The Development of Cities
2. Tracks Laid in Muddy Streets: Chicago’s Perilous Transition from Frontier Town to Industrial City
Ted R. Mitchell
3. A Comparative Study of the Impact of Railway Stations on Madobi and Kwankwaso Towns in the Kura District of Kano Emirate
Shehu Tijjani Yusuf
4. Railroads and the Urban Trans-Chicago West, 1865–1925
H. Roger Grant
5. Bombay and its Hinterland(s): Railways and the Making of Colonial Western India, 1853–c. 1900
Ian Johnstone Kerr
Part 3: The Railway station: New Entrance to the City and its Multiple Meanings
6. Inventing the Future. Early Railway Station Planning and Mechelen’s ‘Central Station’, 1835–1845
Paul van Heesvelde
7. Railways in Prague: Tying and Cutting the Gordian Knot
Martin Kvizda
8. Putting a Station in its Place: 30th Street Station and its Relationship to Philadelphia’s Urban Fabric
Albert J. Churella
9. ‘Capital Politics’ through Railways: The Opening Ceremonies of Railway Stations in Nineteenth-Century Bucharest
Octavian O. Silvestru
10. The Railways and the City in the History of Indian Political Practice
Lisa Mitchell
11. Save Haydarpaşa: A Train Station as Object of Conflicting Visions of the Past
Malte Fuhrmann
12. The Conservation of Railway Stations in Mexico: A Pending Issue
Monica Solórzano Gil
Part 4: Urban Rails and How They Affected, and Still Affect, the City
13. Private Railways as Urban Developers in Japan
Oliver Mayer and Anthony Robins
14. The Unfinished Dream of ‘Workplace and Dwelling Proximity’: Development of Private Railway Companies and Areas on Railway Lines in Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Areas
Shuichi Takashima
15. Creation of the Railway Culture through Marketing and Consumption: A Case Study of Tama, West Tokyo
Nobuhiro Yanagihara
16. From Viaducts to Vandalism: The London and Greenwich Railway, 1834–1840
Alex Werner
17. The B&O Railroad and the Changing Use of Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, 1829–1865
David H. Schley
18. Brusselʼs Jonction as the Heart Valve in Belgium’s Splintered Body
Micheline Nilsen
19. Birth of a Commuter Society: Workmens’ Trains in Belgium, 1870–1914
Donald Weber
20. Can We Find Historical Evidence of the Existence of Wider Benefits from Urban Rail Projects? The Case of the Liverpool Overhead Railway
John Dodgson
21. The Experience and Image of American Elevated Railways: Rapid Transit Infrastructure in the Urban Consciousness
Gordon Benedict Hansen
Part 5: Railways in Troubled Waters and their Return at the End of the Twentieth Century
22. The German Federal Railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) and the Process of Suburbanisation after 1945
Christopher M. Kopper
23. Light Rail Renaissance in European Cities: Urban Mobility Agenda and City Renewals
Massimo Moraglio
24. A Symbiotic Relationship: The Delhi Metro Rail and the National Capital Region
Anupama Mann
25. Urban Mega Projects and Civic Conflict: The Case of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project in India
Ramachandraiah Chigurupati
Biography
Ralf Roth is Professor of Modern History at the Historische Seminar, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He has published several books and numerous articles on the social and cultural history of cities, transport, and communication networks.
Paul Van Heesvelde is a historian (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) who specialises in war and transportation. He is a former Special PhD fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His publications include Destination le Front. Les Chemins de fer en Belgique pendant la Grande Guerre (2014) and chapters in books on transport history.
