| New York and New Jersey during the post-World War II era saw a growth, not just in the cities, but also in their suburbs. Suburban growth was in no small part due to the new technologies in the shipping industry; the container ship and the shipping container revolutionized this industry. Moving cargo by train, truck, and ship, later to be renamed intermodalism, made it possible to achieve true global trade. Although not a new idea, it came into its own with the invention of an interlocking mechanism. This interlocking mechanism allowed for trailers, later to be renamed containers, to be stacked thus stacking provided a structurally sound way of transporting them to and from ports. This further allowed trucks, trains, and ships to interwork with one another with minimal fuss. They could transport the containers from one to the other without ever taking the cargo out of the trailer thus saving all involved many hours of removing and reloading cargo from ships, trucks, and trains to one another. The labor that took days to perform now takes hours with less longshoremen needed to do those tasks. New Jersey ports in Elizabeth and Newark flourished why New York City ports declined. |
