Newcastle's long nineteenth century: a world-historical interpretation of making a multi-nodal city region

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe describe and analyse how Newcastle was transformed from a relatively stagnant British city at the dawn of the nineteenth century to one of the most vibrant cities in the world by the early twentieth century. We use two frameworks to chart and explain this momentous change: Wallerstein's model of hegemonic cycles to locate Newcastle's late development in a world-historical context, and Jacobs’ theory of city economic growth to understand the processes of change within the city and its region. These lead to an empirical focus on three investigations: first, how Newcastle grew geographically to become a multi-nodal city region (Tyneside plus Wearside); second, how the Newcastle city economy grew and developed into a very complex division of labour; and third, how this generated a new modern metropolitan cultural world.