Review of The Horse in the City by Clay McShane and Joel A. TarrThe Horse in the CityThe Johns Hopkins University Press13:978-0-8018-8600-3$36

Abstract

In the preface of this book, an editorial published in the New York Times, dated July 24, 1881, is cited. Entitled “The Horse in Cities,” the editorial notes how indispensable the horse had become to urban areas. This animal, which served as a “living machine,” was the power source for pulling wagons that distributed a variety of merchandise to homes and businesses, as well as for public transit vehicles that stimulated the expansion of the city outward from the central business district. Furthermore, its use as a leisure and recreational vehicle by the wealthy elite contributed to the creation of large city parks with internal roads limited to carriages. As with any urban transport mode, there was a dark side, and the message contained in the editorial was that the horse came with a high price and presented many problems. The basic problem was that the horse created what today are known as “negative side-effects,” which often overshadow the benefits to a society of increased mobility, status, and access to urban amenities. Among the problems created by the horse in cities were: disease such as the epizootic of 1872, which effectively brought the city to a standstill ; traffic safety brought about by the “misconduct” and “skittishness” of horses, thus placing riders and pedestrians at the “risk of death or maiming” ; health and sanitation caused by excrement, noise, air pollution, and dead animals ; fire risks caused by stables located in residential and commercial areas ; and high maintenance costs including items such as feed, housing, street cleaning, and disposal . Given these high costs and many potential system failures, it is not surprising that the editorial concluded that the horse was “indispensible” but only until a better substitute would be found. Little did the editorial writer know that help was on the way and that a new “horseless carriage” would soon emerge that would appear at first to have all the positive attributes and few, if any, negative ones.