GENESIS, EARLY GROWTH, AND IMPACT OF THE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ON DETROIT, 1805-1900 (MICHIGAN)

Transportation networks are of primary significance in present-day America. They were equally significant in the American past. This research is about the evolution of the transportation network and its impact on the changing spatial distribution of people and manufacturing and business activities in Detroit from 1805 to 1900. The transportation system is here defined as the internal overland public transportation network.;The omnibus, first used in 1847, was the only internal public transportation mode in Detroit for over a decade. It disappeared finally with the acceptance of the street car railways. First pulled by horses and then by electric power, the street car railway began operation in 1863 to carry people to and from working places and residences on regular schedules. Its lines were dispersed in all directions from the city's center; by 1895 a few cross-town lines were added in the upper part of the city.;The extension of the transportation network did not increase the segregation of the residential areas by occupations and ethnic groups according to the disimilarity indices, but was a factor in the changing spatial distribution of Detroit's population and business and manufacturing activities. With the development of the transportation network, manufacturing areas tended to disperse over the city along major roads and street car lines while business areas tended to concentrate in the CBD where the street car railway lines converged.;To examine the impact of the transportation network, the residential patterns by occupations (white-collar, skilled, and semi-skilled or unskilled), and by ethnic groups (the British, the Irish, and the Germans), and the pattern of the business (businesses and manufacturing establishments) area in Detroit were reconstructed for four different dates (1837, 1854, 1874, and 1894). Maps representing the transportation networks and the three different spatial patterns were drawn for each study year. Sampling techniques were used to draw the reconstruction maps. The dissimilarity index was computed for each time period for occupations, ethnic groups, and businesses to determine the changes in segregation. The spatial units to measure segregation were one-quarter mile zones from the city's center.