Urban Studies (1986) 23, 285-305 © 1986 Urban Studies Factors of Urbanisation in the Nineteenth Century Developed Countries: A Descriptive and Econometric Analysis Paul Bairoch and Gary Goertz [First received January 1985; in finalform October 1985] Summary. This paper describes the situation from the beginning of the industrial revolution when levels of urbanisation were dependent on geography and the historical situation and when the general level of urbanisation was low, through the nineteenth century in which agricultural productivity and industrialisation determined the levels of urbanisation. This period represents a dramatic increase in the levels of urbanisation during which the present urban structures were put into place. A comparative econometric study, finds that economic growth pushed urbanisation, with industrialisation being the most important factor for Europe and agricultural productivity being quite important for the European settled countries. Other important factors are found to be, trade, total population, topography, and form of industrialisation. Railroad networks more or less extensive than normal were not found to be influential. 1. Introduction and overview rose from 15 per cent to 34 per cent. Importantly, this level of urbanisation was achieved without the The 19th century, and particularly the period be- massive imports of foodstuffs from other countries. tween 1820-30 and 1914, constitutes a turning point The England of the 1830s was certainly no longer a between a society still essentially rural and a devel- region with a surplus of cereals despite being called oped, urbanised society prefiguring that of the end the 'breadbasket' of Europe by contemporaries in of the the 20th century, a society in which over 90 the middle of the 18th century. However, with its per cent of the population would no longer be imports consituting 4-6 per cent of its food needs, it involved in agriculture, even if some of these might was also not the England of the end of the 19th still live in the countryside. It is no exaggeration to century which, like the Netherlands of the 17th say that, with the exception of the USSR and also century or certain Italian city-states of the 13-14th Japan,' the present urban system was almost in century, fed its urban population largely with im- place at the eve of World War I. ported cereals. Around 1700, London with its Certainly around 1830, England, the cradle of the 550,000 inhabitants was along with Paris, one of the industrial revolution, had already behind it a large largest cities of Europe, but that continent and even part of what one might call the 'urban transition', more so Asia had known cities twice as large. How- since from around 1700 to 1830 the English popula- ever, towards 1830 London or Greater London (the tion living in cities of more than 5,000 inhabitants metropolitan area of London) already had 1.5 million Paul Bairoch is Professor of Economic History at the University of Geneva, Gary Goertz holds appointments in the University of Michigan and the University of Geneva. The authors would like to thank Professors H. Glejser, of the University of Brussels and P. Balestra and F. Calevaro of the University of Geneva for having read and criticised earlier versions of this paper. They are, of course, not responsible for the views expressed here. 'Japan and South Africa are not included in this study because their social and economic structures are too different from the other developed countries. All references, except when otherwise noted, to developed countries are to be understood as excluding Japan and South Africa. 285 286 PAUL BAIROCH AND GARY GOERTZ inhabitants, which made it the largest city of the period Table 2 and maybe the largest in history up to that time. This Evolution of the number of great cities in the developed world was certainly the case by 1851 when a census reported that London had 2.4 million inhabitants. City sizes 1580 1700 1800 1914 1980 (thousands) But because the England of 1830, with a total population of 14 million inhabitants, represented 100-200 3 9 16 138 457 only 5 per cent of the population of the future 200-500 1 I 6 84 334 500-1000 - 2 1 47 115 developed world, the urban structure of this future 1000-5000 - - I 10 93 developed world was but marginally changed. In 5000 and more - - - 2 7 1830, the level of urbanisation of the future devel- Total 4 12 24 281 1006 oped world was close to that of previous centuries Sources.: Adapted from (see Table 1). At this date, the level of urbanisation 2 Bairoch (1985). can be estimated at 12.3 per cent, compared with the growth of already existing cities, but also a about 10-11 per cent in 1700, the level of urbanisa- period 'par excellence' of the emergence of new tion increasing by only about 0.1I per cent per year. cities. The long term evolution of the urban struc- This moderate increase during the 18th century ture measured by city size is summarised in Table 2. continued a trend already established during the The number of large cities (more than 100,000 preceding two centuries. However, by the eve of inhabitants) which doubled between 1700 and 1800 World War I, this level was 36 per cent (43 per cent increased by a factor of 12 between 1800 and 1914. excluding Russia). Hence, between 1830 and 1914, As for very large cities (more than 500,000) these the level of urbanisation increased by 1.3 per cent increased by a factor of 200 during the 19th century. per year, the urban population by 2.3 per cent per If these changes are essentially the result of the year, while from 1914 to 1980 these increased respec- growth of the size of the city, the 19th century is also tively by 0.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent. Thus, the the period in urban history which saw the birth of developed world of around 1830 had only one city of the largest number of new cities. Effectively, of the over a million inhabitants became that of 1914 with approximately 268 cities of more than 100000 twelve such cities, the largest of which being London inhabitants in the developed world around 1910, with more than 7 million inhabitants. some 98 did not exist or were villages at the begin- The period studied here is not only a key period in ning of the 19th century (or in England in the middle of the 18th century). The proportion must be higher Table for smaller cities so that one can estimate that 40 per Long term evolution of urbanisation of the developed countries cent of the cities of more than 50,000 existing in 1910 were new cities or became cities during the 19th Total Urban Level of population population urbanisation century. After World War I very few new cities were (millions) (millions) (%) created, except in the USSR, although in 1930 there began the creation of new planned cities, these, 1300 80-100 7-9 7.0-9.0 1500 85-105 8-9 7.0-9.0 however, being created largely in order to alleviate 1700 135 160 14-17 10.0-11.0 the congestion of large existing urban agglomera- 1800 211 23 10.7 tions. 1830 255 31 12.3 1880 405 95 23.6 It is also important to examine the various factors 1914 600 215 35.7 both economic and non-economic which led to the 1950 749 353 47.1 urbanisation of 19th century Europe as well as those 1980 992 659 66.4 other countries now qualified as developed. It is in Source.: 1800-1914: see Table 3; other data adapted from the period 1830-1914 that Europe undertook urban- Bairoch, P., De Jericho d Mexico: Villes et conomie dans isation at its fastest rate. It is on Europe that this l'Histoire, 1985. Note: The degree of rounding of the figures does not imply a study will concentrate in the econometric analysis in correspondingly low margin of error. the second section, although the European settled 2 From this point on, except when indicated to the contrary, we will consider urban population as defined by cities of 5,000 inhabitants or more. See Appendix Al. URBANISATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 287 countries (i.e. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and by the industrial revolution. The most striking fact is the USA) will also be included. One purpose of this the large spread in the level of urbanisation of the study is to try to move beyond the explanation of various countries. Around 1800, between the least the level of urbanisation in terms of the level of urbanised country (Finland) and the most (the Gross National Product per capita and to consider Netherlands) the spread is from 1 to 12. The urban economic factors in somewhat more detail and, in situation in these various countries around 1800 is addition, to consider social, demographic and struc- still very marked by their several hundred and even tural factors which may contribute to or constrain several thousand years of previous history. In the the urbanisation of a society. It should be recalled previous several hundred years, if one excludes the that in 1800, when the disparities in GNP per capita United Kingdom, the six most urbanised countries were reasonably small, less than a 2 to range, (in decreasing order: the Netherlands, Belgium, already the level of urbanisation of the Netherlands Italy, Spain, Denmark and Portugal) have an urban was four times that of Germany while its GNP per network that is the result of previous periods of capita was only roughly one-third higher, and that commercial power already long past.