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Book Review
Canada and the United States
Thomas W. Hanchett. Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 18751975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1998. Pp. xv, 380. Cloth $59.95, paper $24.95.
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Because of its modest size, Charlotte, North Carolina, has often been overlooked in regional urban studies. With around 2,000 people on the eve of the Civil War, the city did not reach a population of 100,000 until 1940. But Charlotte dominated commerce in the Carolina Piedmont from the mid-nineteenth century and by the 1920s exhibited many of the essential features of a transportation and banking hub. This excellent study gives the city the attention it deserves, especially now that it has emerged as a major international financial center. |
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Thomas W. Hanchett chronicles Charlotte's history through the lens of its landscape and spatial profile: the shape and character of its neighborhoods, land uses, street patterns, and populations. This very useful approach takes maximum advantage of the available historical sources and permits comparison with other cities in the context of general urban development trends. |
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Charlotte's early rail connections gave it significant commercial advantages in the rich agricultural interior of North and South Carolina. These advantages were actually advanced during the Civil War and its aftermath, since Charlotte emerged unscathed, although it could never overcome Atlanta's superior rail connections with the Midwest. The growth of the textile industry especially fueled the city's growth between 1880 and 1930 and transformed its society and economy in the process. |
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