The Gilded Age allowed for rapid urbanization of American cities through wealth concentration and developing industrial technology. In an article from the journal Planning Perspectives, urban historian Domenic Vitellio examines the history of urban planning in the Gilded Age as it relates to centralization of power and authority: essentially, how urbanization grew increasingly central to American life during a time of immense socioeconomic change. I personally find this lens to be very intriguing because I have never before considered viewing history through an architectural or urban perspective. In Philadelphia especially, newcomers such as Peter A.B. Widener were able to usurp political power in the late 1800s and early 1900s, allowing elite groups to remake the socioeconomic structure of city life. Such individuals, among them also Charles Yerkes in Chicago and William Whitney in New York, exercised enormous power over American city developments during the Gilded Age.
In previous posts, I established that the idea of monopolies was central to Gilded Age life. In a sense, urban planning was dominated by a monopoly of its own sort, spreading to multiple cities across the nation and spurred onwards by growing wealth concentration (which, generally, was also accompanied by rising inequality). Much historical scholarship focuses on the portraits of singular individuals such as Widener who wielded great power in urban development through corporate or social means. But even so, different cities underwent widespread patterns of urbanization, a phenomenon that can be attributed to the variety of factors beyond the control of even monopolists. Such factors can include: minute discrepancies in local politics, competing technological developments, ideological impasses, and so on. While it is true that certain individuals carried a great degree of influence over urban development during the Gilded Age, to say that the patterns of growth experienced in cities from New York to Chicago were identical would be historically inaccurate and insufficient.
The article goes on to discuss urban developments in American cities in a great deal of depth; however, the introductory stages delve into the idea of “political economy” which is a phrase I have read and heard about before but only ever superficially considered. According to Investopedia, political economy is “the study and use of how economic theory and methods influences political ideology.” This strikes me as very interesting, but also quite complex, as it would require a perceptive understanding of both economic theories and political ideologies. Game theory is also a significant part of the political economic field, as it allows groups and individuals competing for finite resources to devise the best potential outcomes for profit, or any other goal in mind. This reminds me of the definition of economics itself that I learned last year: “the study of allocating scarce resources to satisfy human wants.” I am wondering now how a historian might connect urban planning to political economic theory. In any case, this exploration has reinvigorated my excitement to get back into economics with AP Microeconomics in the second semester!
An American Inquiry 
