Online Document Assignment 22

LIFE IN THE MODERN CITY ON FILM

Addressing the Challenges of Urbanization

The great cities of western Europe and the United States each had their own unique pattern of development. These patterns were shaped by the city’s history, its relationship to the regional and global economy, its geographical location, and the decisions made by policymakers and political leaders. Thus Britain’s early lead in industrialization would ensure that London was the first major city to experience the challenges associated with rapid and unplanned growth and the first to develop comprehensive solutions to those challenges. Paris, on the other hand, took the lead in the rebuilding of the city itself along recognizably modern lines, an endeavor that was made possible by the concentration of political power in the hands of Napoleon III. The need to absorb wave after wave of immigrants was a crucial element in New York City’s evolution. Nonetheless, as different as these cities were in some ways, by the end of the nineteenth century the common forces of industrialization, population growth, globalization, and technological innovation had produced considerable convergence. By 1900 the modern Western city had emerged.

Motion picture technology was developed in the late nineteenth century, and the modern city, with all its novelty, dynamism, and excitement, was a major focus of early film makers. While the resulting films sometimes aimed at telling stories, more often film makers simply documented urban life, turning their cameras on scenes that seemed to them to embody what was most distinctive about the modern industrial city. As you watch these films of life in turn-of-the-century New York, think about the choices the film makers made. What do their choices tell us about the challenges of modern urban life? What had changed about cities over the course of the nineteenth century? What had not?

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