Theorizing A City

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Reading the blog posts for this week thus far, I think Sherwood, Jean, and Sarah all make excellent points about the natural and unnatural juxtaposition theorized by Cronon.  There is no doubt that Chicago rose because of its natural geography and the locational advantage as the “gateway” to the west.  I though Sherwood’s aside was particularly fascinating, pointing out almost irony behind the modern definition of natural.  Just because farmers use land, does that mean they are any more natural than others?  Sherwood mentions the cultivation of land, which I think brings a very interesting debate about how much we can change nature for it to still be considered natural.

On a separate note, the element of the introduction and the first two chapters that stood out most was the near overwhelming amount of Chicago urban theory.  Cronon brings theorists and historians like Sullivan, Garland, Turner, Von Thunen, “Boosters,” and many others as people all trying to explain how and why Chicago grew.  From the vast array of opinions, it almost seems like the rise of Chicago is almost too complex to explain using one theory alone.  Every argument made by the historians above can be challenged.  The booster’s argument, ranging from Scott’s economic to others focused more on the relationship between the city and the land, only accounts for small periods of Chicago’s history.  The theory of the concentric rings seems unlikely as you split the city into different regions.  No one theory adequately explains the complexity of Chicago.  Almost taking the Hewitt argument towards disasters (how every disaster must be looked at separately), I believe we cannot summarize or compare the rise of Chicago to any other city.  While Chicago had the geographical foundation, the city became great for so many individual reasons.  No one factor or theory can summarize the cities rise to power.

To finish off, I believe one aspect that Cronon and the several other Chicago theorists severally underestimate is local climate.  As I am writing this blog post at home in Massachusetts, desperately hoping my evening flight doesn’t get cancelled due to the foot of snow we are getting right now, I wonder how much climate and weather factored into the rise of these cities. Cities with harsh winters like Boston and New York arose because they did not necessarily rely on their local natural products.  Trade and industry drove their expansion.  Meanwhile a city like Chicago had an entirely different function but with the same “natural” problems.  Chicago has similar, if not worse, weather than other big Northeast cities.  They have the snow, the wind, and the freezing temperatures.  All of this has made me think about how it was possible for Chicago to be the center of Midwestern agricultural trade when little could grow locally because of the long harsh winters.  It takes Cronon two chapters to first mention problems of the impeding weather, saying that only through the building of railroads could crops be transported easily.   This makes me question whether Chicago could have risen without the use of modern transportation.  While Chicago was clearly the best geographically Midwestern city for trade, if technology wasn’t evolving around the 1830’s there was no way the harsh climate of Chicago would have allowed the city to grow so astronomically.  Cronon’s book severely underestimates the rise of science, technology, and industrialization in Chicago’s history.