The reading I was assigned this week comes from Professor Baics book Feeding Gotham. I was specifically assigned to read Chapter 5 from this book, titled “Withdraw the Bungling Hand of Government.” This chapter looks at the geography of food access in Manhattan under the new free market regime. In this chapter, Professor Baics shows how the public market system became increasingly fragmented by 1830s, through robust, comprehensive and tightly organized only a few decades earlier. Maps were used to analyze the distribution of food vendors in Manhattan following the decline of the public market system during the mid-nineteenth century.
Sources: The principle data source was building-footprint level land-use designations from the Paris Fire insurance Atlas of 1852-54. By using land-use data, Professor Baics was able to reconstruct the spatial organization of Manhattan’s built environment during the mid-nineteenth century. By mapping land-use patterns in mid-nineteenth century New York, Professor Baics was to provide a snapshot of New York’s economic geography and urban development, and then situate food access within the Manhattan landscape while paying particular attention to both residential and commercial patterns.
Findings: Mapping land use showed that residential structures dominate the built environment. While there was widespread dispersal of industrial facilities across the entire built-up area, mixing in with residential and to a lesser extent, commercial uses, certain industries, such as ironworks and gasworks, settled along the shore, where they could benefit from direct access to the water. Lower Manhattan, below City Hall, was a highly commercial center and almost completely void of a residential population by the mid-nineteenth century. Lacking residents who depended on daily supplies, independent food shops mostly stayed away from the downtown area, unless they participated in the wholesale provision trade centered at Washington and Fulton markets.
As Manhattan moved away from the original configuration of centralized public markets, the geography of food distribution transformed into a complex and highly differentiated system. Within the newly unregulated system, the geography of food distribution followed some important and distinct patterns:
1) The dispersal of provision shops was determined both by urban growth and changing patterns of land use. By 1855, the core of Manhattan’s population was moving out of reach of public markets. Consequently, there were too many markets in the south and not enough in the north although people are moving from south to northern Manhattan. In addition, the hierarchy of streets, from mixed use to residential thoroughfares guided the locational choice of food vendors.
2) The old public market system survived, even through expansion halted and facilities were left to decay. Some old public markets became part of wholesale trade, while neighbored retail markets continued to supply local customers. In the Southern part of the city, the new food geography was incorporated into the existing one, with the two models completing and complementing each other. North of 14th street, food access was entirely subjected to the reign of free markets.
3) Different areas acquired unique geographies of provisioning. Wealthy uptown areas excluded provision stores and other undesirable businesses from their immediate vicinity, while more centrally located working class areas had numerous groceries, meat shops and other food vendors. The wealthiest areas did not rely on the convenience of provision stores, as it is likely that these households could rely on domestic help or home delivery. With the exception of elite uptown enclaves, New Yorkers could hardly reside at an address without having access to at least one grocery within a distance of three hundred feet; in practical terms, a little more than a one minute walk.
In sum, as independent food shops proliferated, the daily routine of food shopping was reconfigured to become a narrowly defined neighborhood experience where one did not need to travel beyond ones block. Under a free-market regime, food stores moved closer to their customers. Consequently, customers enjoyed greater flexibility in procuring necessities. A more differentiated food economy allowed for greater specialization, in terms of both goods and services. However, private food shops could not compare to the variety and volume of foodstuff available under the public market system. In addition, as the food economy relocated from public to private spaces, it became increasingly unregulated and unmonitored.
Maps show that mid-century new york city had a well-defined commercial geography with a central business district, two prominent thoroughfares, a fair number of mixed-use retail corridors, and a vast number of residential streets. All businesses had to find their economically viable place within the urban landscape. The main pattern of food shops was to disperse and follow customers into the heart of neighborhoods, in effect, to withdraw from New York’s public markets and retail centers, except from the grid’s avenues. Consequently, the center of urban public life had moved away from the marketplaces to the streets.
Project Update: I am continuing to work on building my dataset. I hope I will be in a place after the thanksgiving break where I can begin to start mapping.