Industry of Birmingham
As I walked around Birmingham I looked at the abandoned factories. Even though we were told that Birmingham was a big industrial centre, these abandoned factories really grabbed my attention. As I looked at these factories I imagined smoke coming out of the chimneys, the sound of machines and people working and vans or trucks driving in and out of the gates, but as I took another look, all these things were gone and only an old building was left. This made me wonder, how did these factories come to be here and why were these factories abandoned?
A medieval market town
It’s the year 1166, A Norman Lord of the Manor, Peter de Birmingham, buys a royal charter from Henry II, this permits him to hold a market at his castle at Birmingham, he uses this authority to charge tolls on the market’s traffic. This project is known as the first market in Birmingham. This small market was soon transformed into a successful market by its Norman lords. The agricultural trade of the area became concentrated on the town of Birmingham and this encouraged the development of agricultural industries. But before the success of the market, settlements were scattered. After the agricultural industries were formed these towns started to merge together to form one big town, Birmingham. With a big village and widely visited market it was necessary to make new roads to the market. Another idea of the Norman lords was to lease land to merchants, this turned out to be a great success and the market town grew only bigger. After twenty-three years, the market town had gotten a name, ‘’ The town of Birmingham’’. The market kept growing and so did the population, these things had a positive influence on one another, the bigger the population, t...
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...lishing of new factories needed to be prevented and that some old factories had to be removed. This enormous loss of both factories and factory workers caused for a lot of buildings to be abandoned. After some years, when the industry and population were successfully reduced, some people moved into Birmingham (again). But it wasn’t and would never be the industrial centre it had been before.
Conclusion
My conclusion is a lesson that can be learned from the history of Birmingham, you can start with something small and with enough effort it will become big, but nothing will last forever. With Birmingham it started with a small market but with enough effort it turned into a big industrial centre, but it’s not the centre we know now, because it was ‘ruined’ by the interventions after WWI and WWII. But who knows? Maybe in 100 years it will be an industrial centre again!
In the 1960’s however, Pyrmont-Ultimo was deteriorating at a fast rate and became an unfortunate example of urban decay. The government policy of decentralisation, which is having industries move away from the centre of the city, was having an extreme impact on the suburb’s population. This suburbanisation was caused due to congestion, obsolete plants, an ageing infrastructure, high cost of land and the limited scope for expansion. The railway goods yards were relocated to Chullora when Darling Harbour was redeveloped in the 1970’s and the wool stores moved to Yennora. As there was no longer enough employment for the working class society, the population of Pyrmont-Ultimo declined dramatically which resulted in a reduction in industry. A steady deterioration of services and amenities soon followed with factories and warehouses becoming abandoned and decayed. Another negative impact of this urban decay was the dereliction of the wharves, once central to the industry of the suburb. As there was no public access granted, the wharves were no longer put to good use and became dilapidated.
Because the manors supplied their own source of materials that were needed for community the society became self sufficient. Essential needs such as food, cloth, fuel, lumber, and other goods were produced from the land or animals. Consequently the few outside purchases made were things that weren’t grown on in that region such as salt and iron. Document 3 states, “International trade was carried on only to serve the demands of the wealthy, and it was largely in the hands of aliens [different peoples]—Greeks, Jews, Moslems. Local society made almost no use of money.’’ This shows that there was little need for international trade, those of the few who participated were meeting the demands of the wealthy. Also the trade heavily relied on people
The most important reasons being the terrible weather conditions and the frequent flooding of the river Severn, sometime the water levels reaching extreme heights, also an increase in industry in that area.
Starting with a historical viewpoint with the Industrial Revolution, which was gathering momentum, having begun life within the heart of Manchester. A steady technological and economical progress was gaining momentum in the Shipping Industry, the Cottage Industry, along with new developments in factories. Due to these improvements made saw an increase in food production, resulting from new investments having been spent on machinery and up grading factories. Further afield, profit from foreign trade and further growth and development in the banking sector, now had the ability to provide flexible credit facilities to those who could afford the repayments.
Cities during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century showed great increase in population in Britain and created terrible conditions for the poor working class and their families. These unbelievably harsh living conditions can be seen on image 1 and 3 where families are forced to live in an overcrowded and inadequate room. There was a very high demand of houses and many were constructed in terraced rows that can be seen in image 4. Some of these houses had just a small yard at the rear where an outside toilet was placed. Others were ‘back to back’ without yard as shown in image 2. The people who lived in cities needed cheap homes as the Industrial Revolution continued to grow.
Early in the quarter we read definitions offered by Mumford, Wirth, and others discussing city development as a political, social and economic force, not simply a construction of buildings and environments, but one that encompasses all the activities that bring life to these structures. I discuss some of the forces that dramatically transformed London into the city it is today. During the Industrial revolution, London’s development was increasingly shaped by social and political forces that evolved into policies that changed the physical characteristics of the city. Without this critical development it is unlikely that London would have survived the rapid economic growth it experienced during this period of intense technological
We visited Brixton Village in London for the case study, and we explored if it has been exposed and affected by gentrification. And if so, how has the urban vernacular been affected by gentrification in context to it’s heritage. In the case of Brixton Village, gentrification is interpreted as the process by which upwardly mobile urbanites ‘discover’ an area, open new trend businesses and displace the people who have been living and working there for years.
...ted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History. New York: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965, p. 28.
Maintaining a balance between urban development and natural systems is essential to ensure that, for example, soils are still able to buffer potential contaminants or that ground stability is sustainable for buildings and infrastructure. The land in 1867 was mostly being used for agricultural as farming was key to the primary industry. In 1916 the residential business has increased rapidly as an increase in human activity has resulted in a need for new homes. Then in this present day the industrial industry took a rapid boost as machinery was needed to provide a safe, efficient transport link (hub) for civilians.
Reynolds, Susan, ‘Medieval Urban History and the History of Political Thought”, Urban History 25 (1982), 14-23
McGahey, Richard, and Jennifer S. Vey. Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 2008. Print.
...of steam engines in factories freed the factories to go anywhere. Previously, machines had been powered by the swift flowing water of rivers. Once freed from that constraint, factories were built in more convenient locations, nearer to consumers.
...acted by the pollution that the steam engine produced due to carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. Cities became dominated by polluted rivers and smoke-filled air, which in turn created poor living and working conditions.
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