City Company

“ In every great city to-day are men, women, and boys engaged in a hundred trades, professions, and occupations unknown in 1790. The great corporations, mills, factories, mines, railroads, the steamboats, rapid transit, the telegraph, the telephone, the typewriter, the sewing machine, the automobile, the postal delivery service, the police and fire departments, the banks and trust companies, the department stores, and scores of other inventions and business institutions of great cities, now giving employment to millions of human beings, have been created since 1790. ”

“ But it is the business portion of the south side that is the miracle of the time, the solid creation of energy and capital since the fire—the square mile containing the Post-office and City Hall, the giant hotels, the opera-houses and theatres, the Board of Trade building, the many-storied offices, the great shops, the clubhouses, the vast retail and wholesale warehouses. ”

“ Then the Lord Mayor, the wealthy merchants, the venerable craft-guilds, with many liberal knights and peers, and a few brilliant scholars and clergymen, turn to and remodel the London Company into a truly great commercial corporation with an effective government and one of London's foremost merchant princes at its head. As if by special intervention from heaven, the struggling colony is rescued at the very point of death, and soon takes on a new and more vigorous life. ”

“ It is when the transfer of goods is accompanied by a breaking of bulk or by a change of ownership, there being then added the complex mechanism of commercial exchange performed by importers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers, insurers, brokers and bankers, that wealth is accumulated and localized, with consequent power to control business for local benefit.
Manufactures are of constantly increasing importance in city growth, owing to the development of the factory system and the advantages of labor supply, transportation, and markets in the larger cities. ”

“ The commerce of the city persistently moves north, and the residents flee before it; leaving their fine old Knickerbocker homes to be converted into great department stores, publishing houses, but above all into the omnivorous office-building. ”

“ Social institutions correspond to the needs of the inhabitants, and while there are a few like those in the country, because certain human needs are the same, there is a much larger variety in the city because of the great number of people of different sorts and the complexity of their demands. Every city has its business centres for finance, for wholesale trade, and for retail exchange, its centres for government, and for manufacturing ”

“ Early in the fifties I took up my residence in the Queen City, and though a very young man, found the employment ready that a friend had obtained for me with a manufacturing firm engaged in a large and complicated business. ”

“ The place wherein such companies are floated and looted—the Wall Street of London—is called the City, with a capital C. Bankers, stock-jobbers, promoters, directors and other such leaders of its business are called City men. ”

“ A municipality is a living center of economic activity—a genuine case of essentially local economic interests. To be sure, the greater part of the manufacturing or commercial business transacted in a city belongs undubitably to the national economic system; but there is a minor part which is exclusively local. Public service corporations which control franchises in cities do not enter into inter-state commerce at all—except in those unusual cases (as in New York) where certain parts of the economic municipal body are situated in another state. ”

“ In each city the sections built up by the different factors may be clearly distinguished, these flourishing or decaying according to the prosperity or decline of their special factors. Thus the railroads, docks and warehouses evidence the city's commerce; the factories its industrial energies; the retail shops the consuming power of the population; the residence sections the wealth, social grades and numbers of the citizens; and the buildings of public and semi-public utility the standard of civilization and civic pride of the city. ”

“ But this capital will not be raised all at once, and here, far more than in London, the very same sovereigns would be employed in building many houses. For observe, money is not lost or consumed when it is spent. It merely changes hands. A workman of Garden City borrows £200 from a pro-municipal building society, and builds a house with it. ”

“ From the members of these trade guilds in a town the town guild, or corporation, was formed to rule the town according to its ancient customs and charters, and to obtain for the town as many new rights and privileges as possible. There is much in the corporation of a great city like London, with its many companies, or guilds, which is connected with city life and work of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Although numerous companies are now engaged in this industry, it constitutes a comparatively small factor in the commercial interests of the city, inasmuch as it possesses at the present time over five hundred industrial establishments; giving employment to not less than twenty thousand people. ”

“ I have said that there is no municipality, that there are no mayor, aldermen, or wards; one reason is that it is a manufacturing, not a trading, city; the wharves and docks are for the use and convenience of the merchants of the great trading city, their neighbor; manufacturers are not a gregarious folk; they do not require a bourse or exchange; they can get along without a mercantile center; they do not feel the want of a guildhall; they do not understand that they have any bond of common interest except the necessity of keeping order. ”

“ In contrast, consider in the Western city above mentioned of thirty thousand population. There are one hundred and forty-one attorneys, twenty-four accountants, twenty cleaning and dyeing establishments, fifteen laundries, ten lumber yards, nineteen druggists, seven department stores, eight bakeries, nine men's clothing stores, fifteen dress shops, twelve shoe shops, and twelve furniture stores. We no doubt will save a great deal in labor, handling, delivery, and materials by concentrating our stores to the minimum, at the same time provide a better service. ”

“ Under our form of municipal government it controls the finances and the property of the city, regulates licenses to sell liquor and to carry on various classes of business, such as auctioneers, distillers, grocers, lumber yards, livery stables, money changers, brokers, junk stores, billiard, bagatelle and pigeon-hole tables, pin alleys, ball alleys, hackmen, draymen, omnibus drivers, carters, cabmen, porters, expressmen, hawkers, peddlers, pawnbrokers, theatres, shows and amusements, and many other classes of occupations. ”

“ Some, and much the greater number of them, content themselves perforce with local commerce. Their production is determined by the needs of their population and that of the environs which extend two or three leagues around their walls and, in exchange for the manufactured articles which the city furnishes to them, attend to the food supply of the urban inhabitants. ”

“ The GROWTH OF THE CITY
52Besides extension and succession, the general process of expansion in urban growth involves the antagonistic and yet complementary processes of concentration and decentralization. In all cities there is the natural tendency for local and outside transportation to converge in the central business district. In the downtown section of every large city we expect to find the department stores, the skyscraper office buildings, the railroad stations, the great hotels, the theaters, the art museum, and the city hall. ”

“ This is perhaps the most vital cause of the growth of cities. The great city, as we have already said, is very largely the product of modern industrialism. Improved machinery, improved transportation, and enlarged markets, together with the increased wants of men, not only have made possible a great growth of manufacturing industries, but also these same factors have tended to centralize manufacturing industries in the cities. Let us note briefly why it is that manufacturing industries are grouped together in great cities rather than scattered throughout the rural communities. ”

“ City Companies.—In nothing is the past history of the metropolis, the memory of Old London, kept alive in a more remarkable way than by the City Companies, or Trading Guilds, which are still very numerous. All were established with a good purpose, and all rendered service in their day; but at the present time few have any important duties to fulfil. The age for such things is nearly past; but the companies have revenues which none but themselves can touch; and out of these revenues many excellent charities are supported. ”

“ A city has many sources of revenue of its own. Public utilities which furnish such necessities as transportation, water, gas, and electric light, earn enormous profits. In some places some of these things are owned by the city and the revenues go to the city. In others, the right to build and operate such a public business is given to a private corporation through a franchise. It is evident that these franchise rights are extremely valuable and should not be given away without adequate compensation to the city, as well as the insuring of good service. ”

“ The city provides its own water-supply, it lights its streets, it has recently acquired control of its street-car lines, and every passenger is notified as a shareholder that 55 per cent of the profits comes into the city treasury. ”

“ As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind, which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town. ”

“ The city, from this standpoint, may be regarded as typical of a certain stage in economic development. The rise of the city is intimately associated with the transition from handicraft to machine industry, the division of labor, the market, and exchange. Besides the great number of economic histories which trace the general movement toward urban economy there are many monographs of special cities whose economic history has been studied, and some instances of present-day developments in metropolitan economy. ”

“ Not only do these cities return none but their own citizens, but the country districts, often unable to find within their limits men who have the time and money to make them able to attend throughout the sessions at the capital, elect the city traders to represent them. ”

“ Just as I stated in Chapter I, the city is the base of the secondary and tertiary industries, or the place which is home to those employed by those industries; it is none other than the organization of idleness and gluttony. If there are even a few people who, finding their sole employment in the secondary and tertiary industries, make their living at it (or if there is the possibility of such) , then we must consider this the beginning of the city. ”

“ That city will in the course of time become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great moneyed operations, and the concentrating point of vast, disposable and accumulating capitals, which will stimulate, enliven, extend, and reward the exertions of human labor and ingenuity, in all their processes and exhibitions. ”

“ Our city, with its population of over 1,500,000 inhabitants, its natural advantages, its incomparable harbor, its enormous commerce, and its great industries, is not only destined to be the centre of the commerce of the world, but could be made the most beautiful of the world if its affairs were administered on business principles, without regard to party interests. ”

“ Throughout this time, the corporation, through its practically unquestioned decisions as to wages and hours of labor, has in large measure determined the conditions under which the men shall live. There is only one other industry in the town, the Mesta Machine Company, and little other work except in providing for the needs of the mill workers. We may consider then that the conditions resulting when a great organized industry creates about it, without a definite plan, a town dependent solely upon it for development, are fairly represented in Homestead. ”

“ While the shopkeepers and their employees live in the neighbourhood, and the factory workers can afford to pay the rent for houses or lodgings near their work, the central population will grow denser than before. But as the city grows in size and commercial importance, an increasing number of the most central sites will pass from manufactory premises and shops into use for warehouses and business offices, and for other work in connection with distribution and finance. ”

“ Urban centers of civilization have for their background a pastoral and agricultural source of food supplemented by fabrication, merchandising and financing. Instead of the occupational uniformity of the countryside, the city offers a wide range of occupations, increased productivity, quick and substantial profits resulting in a build-up of capital on one side and enlarged consumer spending on the other. ”

“ We are, of course, quite able to say that certain functions exercised by a city are clearly governmental-that is, lie upon the nearer side of the line-while others are just as clearly private or corporate in character, and lie upon the farther side. ”

“ The economic centre of the city is formed, of course, by the wharves and landing places—and in the case of railway-fed cities by the termini—where passengers land and where goods are landed, stored, and distributed. ”

“ Though primarily concerned with business, the people have other interests to be conserved; the city, therefore, has governmental, educational, and recreational functions as a social organization, and within its limits all kinds of human concerns find their sponsors and supporters. Unquestionably, the economic interests are preponderant. On the principle that social structure corresponds to function, the structure of the city lends itself to the performance of the economic function. Business streets are the principal thoroughfares. ”