Prewar,Interwar, and Postwar Urbanism

[jd3189]

This thread is sorta a continuation of my last thread concerning LA's status as one of the "Big 6" urban cities.

From the consensus of that thread, I will admit that LA is functionally more suburban than NYC, Chicago, Philly, Boston, and SF.

However, after spending a year here, I still think LA isn't quite like other Sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Houston, or Charlotte. It's still consistently denser throughout, probably the most city-like place that still relies on the automobile to get around. But a large chunk of central LA was built in the prewar and interwar era, which was also the era in which it had the largest streetcar system in the world.

Thus, I would propose 3 general urban development types, at least in the the US and Canada:

Prewar: mainly cities built before the advent of the automobile. Houses, multi-family homes, and apartments are usually built wall to wall in a grid layout that encourages walkability and predominant public transportation use. Commercial areas blend into residential areas more with mixed-use development.

Ex: New York ( Manhattan, brownstone Brooklyn), Chicago (The north side close to the loop), Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco( Nob Hill, Tenderloin), DC, Montreal.

Interwar: these cities were built around the time cars were beginning to make their mark on cities. A lot of them are built on a grid but buildings are often not wall to wall. Rather, they have some space between them. They also devote some space for cars such as garages. The streetcar suburbs are probably the best example of this type of development with a higher concentration of single family homes, garden apartments, and commercial areas that have less mixed use development than the prewar cities.

Ex. Los Angeles ( central areas like Boyle Heights, Echo Park, Silver Lake), Miami/Miami Beach, Detroit ( before decline), New York ( Queens, Bronx, most of Brooklyn), Chicago ( areas between the core and the bungalow belt), Montreal.

Postwar: Pretty much more suburban, relying on urban sprawl since WW II. We are quite familiar with these types of cities. Mainly detached SFHs with commercial areas separated with barely any mixed use development. Heavily dependent on the automobile.

Ex. LA ( most, especially San Fernando Valley), Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, Tampa, Orlando.

And as I just showed, one city could have multiple types of urbanism within its borders.

Please share pictures and discuss

[Steely Dan]

If we're using "pre-war" to mean prior to WWI, then the 1910 census data is probably relevant here.


25 largest US cities in 1910:

01 New York - 4,766,883
02 Chicago - 2,185,283
03 Philadelphia - 1,549,008
04 St. Louis - 687,029
05 Boston - 670,585

06 Cleveland - 560,663
07 Baltimore - 558,485
08 Pittsburgh - 533,905
09 Detroit - 465,766
10 Buffalo - 423,715

11 San Francisco - 416,912
12 Milwaukee - 373,857 -
13 Cicinnati - 363,591
14 Newark - 347,469
15 New Orleans - 339,075

16 Washington - 331,069
17 Los Angeles - 319,198
18 Minneapolis - 301,408
19 Jersey City - 267,779
20 Kansas City - 248,381

21 Seattle - 237,194
22 Indianapolis - 233,650
23 Providence - 224,326
24 Louisville - 223,928
25 Rochester - 218,149

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

If we're using "pre-war" to mean prior to WWI, then the 1910 census data is probably relevant here.


25 largest US cities in 1910:

01 New York - 4,766,883
02 Chicago - 2,185,283
03 Philadelphia - 1,549,008
04 St. Louis - 687,029
05 Boston - 670,585

06 Cleveland - 560,663
07 Baltimore - 558,485
08 Pittsburgh - 533,905
09 Detroit - 465,766
10 Buffalo - 423,715

11 San Francisco - 416,912
12 Milwaukee - 373,857 -
13 Cicinnati - 363,591
14 Newark - 347,469
15 New Orleans - 339,075

16 Washington - 331,069
17 Los Angeles - 319,198
18 Minneapolis - 301,408
19 Jersey City - 267,779
20 Kansas City - 248,381

21 Seattle - 237,194
22 Indianapolis - 233,650
23 Providence - 224,326
24 Louisville - 223,928
25 Rochester - 218,149

agreed this is a good proxy. Not to be annoying, but if you add in the Northern Kentucky river cities across the river from Downtown Cincinnati to Cincy's population, you get another ~100,000. That'd put it in the top 10 in 1910.

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, it ain't perfect, but it's pretty good.

New York was of course in its own universe, as usual, and Chicago & Philly we're together in another tier of their own.

It's really the river cities that don't straddle their rivers that get dinged the most by this measure, perhaps most notably to the twin cities, where Minneapolis and St. Paul had a combined population of 516,000 back in 1910, which would've been good enough for top 10 (St. Paul just barely missed the top 25 at #26 with 215K)

[craigs]

The US didn't enter WWI until 1917, so the 1920 Census would be closer to the "prewar population" than the 1910 Census. 1920 is also probably a better marker than 1910 for when the US started a widespread shift toward car ownership (although that peaked after WWII). Here are the top 10 most populous US cities in 1920:

1. New York City - 5,620,048
2. Chicago - 2,701,705
3. Philadelphia - 1,823,779
4. Detroit - 993,069
5. Cleveland - 796,841
6. St. Louis - 772,897
7. Boston - 748,060
8. Baltimore - 733,826
9. Pittsburgh - 588,343
10. Los Angeles - 576,673

[jd3189]

By the way, I don't mind the stats, but I would want this thread's main purpose to be focused on the actual built area during those eras. For example, what parts of Cleveland and St. Louis are prewar? What parts are more interwar or postwar?

[Steely Dan]

^ the reason i introduced year based stats is because some of your descriptions of what constitutes what era don't fully align with the actual time frames for all cities.

For instance, Chicago was bisecting blocks with service alleys (which would make alley garages a cinch to build later on) as early as the 1850s, 6 decades prior to the first model T rolling off the assembly line.

And Chicago was putting little gaps in between buildings as early as the 1870s, as a response to the great fire of 1871. The fire department wanted to be able to run hoses from the street face of a building to the back of a building without having to go through the building, or all the way around the block. And thus the Chicago "gangway" was born. But it has little connection to the general time periods you outlined.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And Chicago was putting gaps in between buildings as early as the 1870s as a response to.the great fire of 1871

Yep. My first thought was "wall-to-wall" attached housing is the exception in Chicago rather than the rule.

[benp]

The use of the term "pre war" has generally been understood as meaning pre-WW2, generally between 1890 and 1940. I would suggest that a different term be used for the period before WW1.

In my city, it seems like the transition to accommodating cars was well underway by 1910, and by 1920 every new home had a garage or at least a driveway. Maybe "early auto" or something like that to indicate the period before WW1.

[benp]

Originally Posted by jd3189

By the way, I don't mind the stats, but I would want this thread's main purpose to be focused on the actual built area during those eras. For example, what parts of Cleveland and St. Louis are prewar? What parts are more interwar or postwar?

I'm not quite sure what you are looking to see or find out about on this thread. Except for specifically designated historic districts, older cities are typically a mixture of ages and styles. Even relatively "new" areas like Portland's Pearl District are built on the foundation of an older neighborhood.

For example, my neighborhood, though predominately built in the 1920s and 30s, includes individual homes dating to the late 1800s as well as new builds. The business areas include mixed-use walkups built in the 1920s as well as newer 5-story apartments and corner fast-food stands, along with repurposed schools and churches.

And my neighborhood is certainly not unique to most older cities. Add to that, in most cities there is a continuum between neighborhoods and areas, so scratching my head about how to pick and choose what "urban" means to you and what you are looking for among the hundreds of potential locations in a city.

[jd3189]

Well, I stand corrected on my definitions then. But there has been a gradual shift in American urbanism from the late 19th century to the postwar era, no? From more wall to wall city layouts to the car-centric ones of today?

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by edale

agreed this is a good proxy. Not to be annoying, but if you add in the Northern Kentucky river cities across the river from Downtown Cincinnati to Cincy's population, you get another ~100,000. That'd put it in the top 10 in 1910.

Sure, but you could do this for a number of cities on the list though. I mean, if you count just the urbanized area of Allegheny County in 1910 (meaning all the towns on opposite river banks and those that were contiguous with the city of Pittsburgh in 1910), Pittsburgh's population would be over 800,000... solidly in the 4th largest position. Do the same for Philadelphia and it probably moves to 2nd.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Well, I stand corrected on my definitions then. But there has been a gradual shift in American urbanism from the late 19th century to the postwar era, no? From more wall to wall city layouts to the car-centric ones of today?

Here is an interactive map that shows the age of all 2.9 million buildings in LA county:

https://cityhubla.github.io/LA_Building_Age

If you de-select everything after 1940, you get a good idea of the footprint of prewar LA (it only shows the surviving buildings, not the actual size of the city at the time). What is unique about LA is that even most of the prewar stuff is car-centric.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Well, I stand corrected on my definitions then. But there has been a gradual shift in American urbanism from the late 19th century to the postwar era, no? From more wall to wall city layouts to the car-centric ones of today?

You're definitely on to something. There is a difference between pre-WWI and interwar urbanism that's underappreciated North America simply because post-war anti-urbanism was utterly transformative. But cities were built differently between the wars. This was the era of the New Deal, cars, workers' rights, modernism.

These are both cookie-cutter blocks but New Deal housing like the Queensbridge Houses obviously look different from pre-war NY tenements.

This may be better understood in Europe, where interwar buildings often look like this. But at the same time, you got areas like this, which are superficially similar to prewar areas like this, but noticeably lack the density. This comes down to the modernist notion that density is bad, taken up joyously by unions and social democrats that had recently shucked off the yoke of empire and with it the notion that workers ought to live cheek-by-jowl, sometimes literally, with livestock and industry. Nothing so pronounced happened in America.

I think you're right about LA. It's a city that came into its own in the interwar years. I'd suggest that urban areas built in the interwar years are sufficiently compatible with the post-war gestalt that nobody felt the need to raze them and start over. LA no doubt contributed to how American cities turned out--it may be the blueprint for big, car-oriented cities everywhere. But I'd argue that, like traditional-looking interwar and prewar European districts, the similarity is superficial. Interwar Los Angeles didn't hate the city; it just interpreted the city in a period shaped by changing technology and values.

Postwar urbanism in America, on the other hand, was a collective panic--a rush to pound the city into rubble before the Soviets could.

[mhays]

This is all a good conversation, but let's not omit the variability of post-war growth patterns and infill levels.

[edale]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Sure, but you could do this for a number of cities on the list though. I mean, if you count just the urbanized area of Allegheny County in 1910 (meaning all the towns on opposite river banks and those that were contiguous with the city of Pittsburgh in 1910), Pittsburgh's population would be over 800,000... solidly in the 4th largest position. Do the same for Philadelphia and it probably moves to 2nd.

Of course you can do similar exercises for many cities. In Cincinnati's case, the NKY cities are directly across from downtown, and are really extensions of the core. There are plenty of other early suburbs (some of which later became annexed into the city of Cincinnati) north and east of the city that existed in 1910, too, but that's a bit different than Covington and Newport which, again, are a quick walk over the bridge from downtown.

But there are plenty of cities whose populations would increase if you were to count adjacent/contiguously developed municipalities just outside of the city limits. I assume 'urban area' wasn't a term that the Census used in 1910, but just like today, that'd be the best way to evaluate the biggest cities/regions at that time.

[edale]

Originally Posted by benp

The use of the term "pre war" has generally been understood as meaning pre-WW2, generally between 1890 and 1940. I would suggest that a different term be used for the period before WW1.

In my city, it seems like the transition to accommodating cars was well underway by 1910, and by 1920 every new home had a garage or at least a driveway. Maybe "early auto" or something like that to indicate the period before WW1.

In general I agree that pre-war usually means pre WWII, but given the distinction this thread makes between pre-war and inter-war, I think it makes sense to use WWI as the cutoff for pre-war.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Sure, but you could do this for a number of cities on the list though. I mean, if you count just the urbanized area of Allegheny County in 1910 (meaning all the towns on opposite river banks and those that were contiguous with the city of Pittsburgh in 1910), Pittsburgh's population would be over 800,000... solidly in the 4th largest position. Do the same for Philadelphia and it probably moves to 2nd.

right, st. louis also doesnt include the pre-war swaths of st. louis county and the entire illinois side which is likely in the six digit territory as well.

my working assumption here is that pittsburgh and boston are the two with the largest amount of pre-war urbanism not included in the core city count but i havent verified this. particularly boston.

[Steely Dan]

It's also important to remember that there is A LOT of blur on the edges of these timeframes here, especially when we start talking about early suburbia (railroad suburbia) in the late 19th/early 20th century.

For instance, Evanston, IL already had a population of 25,000 by 1910, but it was not some hyper-urban town of tightly packed philly-style rowhouses on tiny little streets. It was primarily detached SFHs on larger lots spread along very generous street ROWs with lawns and big trees and all of that.

Like this:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/AuEcZarJpyjKJYJu6?g_st=ac

It's not like everyone in 1909 America lived densely in compact rowhouses or apartment buildings, and then all of a sudden all of that stopped and only streetcar bungalows were built for the next 4 decades. So much of all of this stuff has always been happening simultaneously. Hell, Chicago was still building green field 3-flats in some areas on the very fringes of the city into the 1950s. And we still regularly build new 3-flats as infill to this day. It's actually what I do for a living (technically, drawing them, not building them).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jd3189

By the way, I don't mind the stats, but I would want this thread's main purpose to be focused on the actual built area during those eras. For example, what parts of Cleveland and St. Louis are prewar? What parts are more interwar or postwar?

Okay, so I typed a large response then realized this was about architectural vernacular. I do not think this is not a good way of categorizing cities by era because some cities lost far more of their prewar stock than others. St. Louis was a substantially larger 19th century city than San Francisco, but I think many people would come to a knee-jerk conclusion that San Francisco was bigger in that era. By the end of the 19th century Detroit was already as big as San Francisco, but again, you wouldn't think that by looking at the two cities today.

Anyway, here's the rest of my response:


Many/most major U.S. cities grew so much during the interwar period that I'm not sure using WW1 as the delineator has that much meaning. Nearly all of the biggest cities in 1950 added 40% or more of their population between 1910 and 1950. This includes New York City, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, and Los Angeles. Philadelphia is a notable exception to this rule. Philadelphia increased its population by only 25% between 1910 and 1920 (I'll get back to this in a bit). In fact, of the four U.S. cities that had ever reached 1 million+ in population by 1950, Philadelphia is the only one of those cities that did not add at least 1 million people between 1910 and 1950:

+1 million pop. cities growth between 1910 and 1950
New York: +3,125,074
Los Angeles: +1,651,160
Chicago: +1,435,679
Detroit: +1,383,802
Philadelphia: +522,597

Why was Philadelphia such a laggard? My theory is that Philadelphia just didn't have the space to keep up with the growth of Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Using 2020 area definitions, here are the densities for those 5 cities in 1910:

New York: 15,889 people per square mile
Philadelphia: 11,474 ppsm
Chicago: 9,595 ppsm
Detroit: 3,350 ppsm
Los Angeles: 680 ppsm


On paper Philadelphia in 1910 was almost as densely populated as New York City in 1910. But Philadelphia is clearly nowhere near the built density of New York City, then or now. NYC must have been developing land much more efficiently than Philadelphia. One obvious region for this divergence is that NYC's rapid-transit system was much more robust. In fact, if Philadelphia had been able to match NYC's density in 1950, it would have had a population of over 3.5 million in 1950 instead of 2 million.

This brings me to the real reason that Los Angeles is more of a postwar city than a prewar. The defining characteristic of a postwar city is one that has/had plenty of land after WW2 to accommodate car-centric sprawl and continued population growth. Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia all could not build car-centric sprawl AND continue growing due to land constraints. Los Angeles is the only million plus city of that era that could do that.

1 million+ pop. cities in 1950 by land area
Los Angeles: 469 square miles
New York: 300 square miles
Chicago: 227 square miles*
Detroit: 139 square miles
Philadelphia: 135 square miles

The reason that most, if not all, prewar cities stopped growing is that they just ran out of room to accommodate growth. Los Angeles didn't have issues with land scarcity until the 2000s.