Mapping urban space

Abstract

In this paper, I engage with the notion of the city as capitalist space, focusing on the specific actors that come together to realign economically heterogeneous spaces into the monolithic, capitalist city. By tracing the role of cartographic practice in enacting the city as a space of industrial economic production in the 19th century, I show how maps helped to bring the capitalist city into view by ‘drawing together’ cartographers, city managers and ordinary citizens, enabling the apprehension of the city as an economic object by emphasizing a specific understanding of what cities looked like, how they worked and what happened in them. In addition, I examine the place of urban nature within this emerging urban imaginary, and its role as a counterweight to the purported totality of the capitalist city. To illustrate these points, historical maps drive a discussion of the specific case of Philadelphia, focusing on two events that coincided with the expansion of the industrial city: the consolidation of the city in 1854 and the establishment of Fairmount Park in 1868. The paper concludes with a discussion of the political possibilities that are opened up by an assemblage-oriented approach for examining the early development of cities.