“Little Plants in the Country”: Henry Ford's Village Industries and the Beginning of Decentralized Technology in Modern America

Abstract

“Technology Spurs Decentralization Across the Country.” So reads a 1984New York Timesarticle on real-estate trends in the United States. The contemporary revolution in information processing and transmittal now allows large businesses and other institutions to disperse their offices and other facilities across the country, even across the world, without loss of the policy- and decision-making abilities formerly requiring regular physical proximity. Thanks to computers, word processors, and the like, decentralization has become a fact of life in America and other highly technological societies.