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The fire gap and the greater durability of nineteenth century cities

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Pages 333-347 | Published online: 08 May 2007

References

  • Doyle , Arthur Conan Sir . 1893 . Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes London
  • Jones , E. L. , Porter , S. and Turner , M. 1984 . A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, 1500–1900 , Norwich : Geo Books for the Historical Geography Research Group of the Institute of British Geographers .
  • Weaver , John C. and de Lottinville , Peter . 1980 . The Conflagration and the City: Disaster and Progress in British North America During the Nineteenth Century . Histoire Sociale — Social History , 13 : 417 – 449 .
  • Lewis , W. Arthur . 1977 . The Evolution of the International Economic Order , Princeton : Princeton U.P. .
  • Jacobs , Jane . 1984 . Cities and the Wealth of Nations , Harmondsworth : Penguin .
  • Holton , R. J. 1986 . Cities, Capitalism and Civilization , London : Allen and Unwin .
  • Ibid. pp.23, 27, 129–131
  • Chandler , Tertius and Fox , Gerald . 1974 . 3000 Years of Urban Growth 321 New York
  • Ex inform. Dr Orhan Kurmus, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, citing J. H. A. Ubicini (1855). Ubicini apparently did not attempt to describe Beyoglu because ‘this part of the city changes completely every eight or ten years as a result of fires’.
  • Raychaudhuri , Tapan and Habib , Irfan , eds. 1982 . The Cambridge Economic History of India , Vol. I , 467 Cambridge : Cambridge U.P. .
  • Erh‐sun , Chao . 1937 . Ch'ing‐shih kao , 206 – 207 . Mukden . [Draft history of Ch'ing Dynasty]
  • Jones , E. L. “ Premodern Cities: ‘All Flow and No Stock?’ ” . In Landscapes and Cities Edited by: Chartres , J. A. forthcoming
  • Deficiencies in the data available, especially from Third World countries, are certainly severe. Reporting was poor and unprofessional; when journalism became a profession, it attached greater importance to speed and sensationalism rather than accuracy. Official, national statistics are seldom available, especially historically.
  • Smith , John . 1977 . “ ‘Public Health on Tyneside, 1850–80’ ” . In Essays in Tyneside Labour History , Edited by: McCord , N. 25 Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne Polytechnic .
  • Daunton , M. J. 1983 . House and Home in the Victorian City: Working‐Class Housing 1850–1914 , 17 London : Edward Arnold .
  • de Vries , Jan . 1984 . European Urbanization 1500–1800 , 45 Cambridge, Mass : Harvard U. P. .
  • The Times Index, passim.
  • Our list of fires in the United States (see below) includes only those reported to have destroyed at least 50 houses, or a large but indeterminate section of a city. Many of the fires actually destroyed 500 or more houses. The major source has been The Times Index, together with a number of local histories, although the list they afford is undoubtedly incomplete. Moreover, various authorities are inconsistent as to the scale of loss. Reports of the number of buildings destroyed in the San Francisco fire of May 1851 range from 1500 to 2500. In such cases we have adopted a conservative approach. Some newspaper accounts simply report ‘disastrous’ or ‘destructive’ fires; we have included these. Quite apart from the huge fires in major cities such as Chicago, Boston, and Baltimore, certain other cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, also have a history of repeated conflagration. The latter city lost 1158 buildings in an 1838 blaze, and suffered major fires in 1836, 1860, and 1868.
  • The cities are: Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis‐St Paul, New Orleans, New York, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland (Ore.), St Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle.
  • Konvitz , Josef W. 1985 . The Urban Millennium: The City Building Process from the Early Middle Ages to the Present , 124 Carbondale and Edwardsville : Southern Illinois U.P. .
  • The cities are: East — Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh; West ‐ Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis‐St Paul, New Orleans, Omaha, Portland, St Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle.
  • Wade , Richard C. 1959 . The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 , Cambridge, Mass : Harvard U.P. .
  • Dyos , H. J. 1982 . “ ‘The Slums of Victorian London’ ” . In Exploring the Urban Past: Essays in Urban History by H. J. Dyos , Edited by: Cannadine , D. and Reeder , D. Cambridge : Cambridge U.P. . reprinted in
  • Jones , Porter and Turner . A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, ch. III
  • Rosen , Christine Meisner . 1986 . The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America , Cambridge : Cambridge U.P. . passim.
  • Jutikkala , Eino . 1971 . City Plans of Finland and City Ecology before Independence . Turon Historiallinen Arkisto , 26 : 143 – 159 .
  • Rosen . The Limits of Power, passim.
  • Jones , Porter and Turner . A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, ch. III.
  • Rosen . The Limits of Power 95 – 109 .
  • Ibid, pp. 99, 166.
  • 1842 . Select Committee on Buildings Regulation and Improvement . British Parliamentary Papers , : x Cd. 372
  • Jones , Porter and Turner . A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, Table 5.
  • Frost , Lionel . The New Urban Frontier (forthcoming)
  • Australian Cities in Comparative View (in press).
  • We are indebted to Professor Graeme Davison for this reference.
  • Larsen , Lawrence H. 1978 . The Urban West at the End of the Frontier , 78 Lawrence : The Reagents Press of Kansas .
  • We thank Professor Graeme Davison for providing us with a list of references to fires in Melbourne during the 1850s, reported in the Argus newspaper index.
  • Roy , Patricia E. 1980 . Vancouver: An Illustrated History , Toronto : James Lorimer .
  • Splitter , Henry W. 1955 . Los Angeles as Described by Contemporaries . Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly , 37 : 262 – 3 .
  • Jackson , Kenneth T. 1985 . Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States , 124 – 7 . New York : Oxford U.P. .
  • Doucet , Michael J. and Weaver , John C. 1985 . Material Culture and the North American House: The Era of the Common Man . Journal of American History , 72 : 560 – 87 .
  • Barman , Jean . 1986 . “ ‘Neighborhood and Community in Interwar Vancouver: Residential Differentiation and Civic Voting Behavior’ ” . In Vancouver Past: Essays in Social History , Edited by: McDonald , R. A. J. and Barman , J. 101 Vancouver : University of British Columbia Press .
  • Jackson , R. V. 1974 . Owner‐Occupation of Houses in Sydney, 1871 to 1891 . Australian Economic History Review , 14 : 145 – 6 .
  • McCarty , J. W. 1970 . Australian Capital Cities in the Nineteenth Century . Australian Economic History Review , 10 : 127
  • Davison . Marvellous Melbourne 184
  • Mayer , Harold M. and Wade , Richard C. 1969 . Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis , 156 Chicago : University of Chicago Press .
  • Turbeville , Daniel E. III . 1985 . “ ‘Cities of Kindling: Geographical Implications of the Urban Fire Hazard on the Pacific Northwest Coast Frontier, 1851–1920’ ” . Simon Fraser University .
  • 1889–1920 . Fire Insurance and Urban Morphology: The Case of Seattle Washington
  • Lionel Frost and Eric Jones teach economic history at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, where they are members of the Comparative Economic History Group. Frost is the author of The New Urban Frontier and Australian Cities in Comparative View (both forthcoming). Jones is the author of The European Miracle (Cambridge U.P., 2nd edn, 1987), and Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History (Clarendon Press, 1988). Both authors have research interests in very long‐term economic change and urbanization and are now collaborating on an economic history of the Pacific rim.

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