Monopolizing the metropolis: gilded age growth machines and power in American urbanization

Abstract

Scholars have largely recounted the modern history of urban planning and development in the USA as a fragmented story in which power and agency have rarely been centralized. Yet the power to plan and develop cities and regions has been highly concentrated in certain periods. Between the 1870s and 1910s, a group of capitalists led by Peter Widener in Philadelphia, William Whitney in New York, and Charles Yerkes in Chicago consolidated the transit systems of these metropolises and the gas and electric utilities of some 100 American cities. Holding key positions in certain regions' public institutions and private corporations, they coordinated development of real estate, parks, and neighbourhoods in tandem with this infrastructure. This article surveys how Widener and his colleagues restructured the Philadelphia region in the Gilded Age. Through fire insurance atlases, deeds, biographical and company sources, it explores the ways they concentrated power and coordinated urbanization.