Industrialisation

How did the Industrialization change the structure of cities ?
Industrialization is a process in which society or country transforms itself from a primary agricultural society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and services. It is a part of a wider modernisation process, where social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large scale energy and metallurgy production. Geographers view it as the extensive organisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing (Hiller, 2010).
Industrialisation started in North America around 1840's with the migration of industrial technology. People adapted use of machines. Agriculture revolution took place and farmers produced more crops for more people. Lot of rural to urban and international migration took place. There was competition amongst factories and shops for prime lands, right in the core of city. The working class consisted of white collar managers and blue collar labourers . No zoning laws existed at that time which led to haphazard development and segregation of space took place (D'Addario, 2013).With the spread of industrialisation there was a centripetal movement of factories and spatial distribution was dominated by factories especially near water availability. Increase in population led to outward movement to suburbs by the elites due to congestion in the city and no free land was available. The urban structure of the industrial city consisted of Central Business District which was the hub of economic activity. CBD was home to the largest industrial events and hosted all the offices of industrial city. Distance between homes and factories tend to increase as houses diverged away from the centre of city. Innovation in technology expanded the urbanisation process and network in electricity, water, gas started to create infrastructure in city. With the improvement in transport industry due to industrialization, regional decentralization took place which prompted redistribution of power, people or things away from central location. This led to metropolitan consolidation within this industrial city, turning boroughs and towns into cities due to increase in population (Hiller, 2010).
Chicago in 1840's served a great example of industrial city. The characteristics exhibited by Chicago were mass migration of people from land to cities, massive building of below standard accommodation, massive increase in childhood mortality due to injuries at work, poor diet due to low wages and collapse of the agricultural economy due to lack of labourers. In conclusion Industrialization in Chicago laid the foundation for the fall of rural population and explosion of urban environment's population.