1st Edition
Urbanization without Economic Growth in Pre-Industrial Italy Rome’s Long Shadow
By Luigi Oddo
Copyright 2027
172 Pages
27 B/W Illustrations
by
Routledge
172 Pages
27 B/W Illustrations
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Why did some of Europe’s most urbanized pre-industrial societies industrialize relatively late? Conventional theories link urbanization to economic growth. Yet European history presents a paradox: early industrializers were not the most urbanized, while highly urbanized regions often stagnated. This book argues that urbanization levels alone are misleading. What matters is the structure... Read more
List of Figures
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 A Critical Review of Theories of Urbanization in Long-Run Economic Development
2 The Roman Urban Inheritance
3 A City- State Logic: Genoa’s Regional Dominion (Twelfth– Nineteenth Century)
4 Urbanization, Institutions, and Structural Constraints in Early Modern Tuscany (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries)
5 Concluding Remarks
Index
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 A Critical Review of Theories of Urbanization in Long-Run Economic Development
2 The Roman Urban Inheritance
3 A City- State Logic: Genoa’s Regional Dominion (Twelfth– Nineteenth Century)
4 Urbanization, Institutions, and Structural Constraints in Early Modern Tuscany (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries)
5 Concluding Remarks
Index
Biography
Luigi Oddo earned his Ph.D. in Economics and Political Economy in 2022 from the University of Genoa. Presently, he is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research lies at the intersection of economic development and economic history, with a particular focus on urbanization, institutions, and environmental factors as structural determinants of long-term economic development in the pre-industrial world. His work has been published in leading international journals such as Explorations in Economic History, European Review of Economic History, and Rural History.
