In discussing the growth of cities in the United States in the nineteenth century, one cannot really use the term “urban planning,” as it suggests modern concerns for spatial and service organization which, in most instances, did not exist before the planning revolution called the City Beautiful Movement that began in the 1890s. While there certainly were urban areas that were “planned” in the comprehensive contemporary sense of the word before that date, most notably Washington, D.C. , these were the exception. Most “planning” in the nineteenth century was limited to areas much smaller than a city and was closely associated with developers trying to make a profit from a piece of land. Even when these small-scale plans were well designed, the developers made only those improvements that were absolutely necessary to attract the wealthy segment of the market. Indeed, it was the absence of true urban planning that allowed other factors to play such an important role in shaping the nineteenth century American city.

Three forces particularly affected the configuration of urban and suburban areas in the nineteenth century: economics, transportation technology, and demographics. Added to these was the characteristic American preference both for independent living, usually associated with having an individual, free-standing home for one’s family, and for rural living. Economics affected urbanization in two ways. First, economic considerations influenced location decisions for business and industry, which often preempted choice sites. Second, industrial growth generated higher incomes for large segments of the population, which in turn provided more money for larger homes and commuter transportation. Related to economics (since costs to individuals always played a role) were improvements in transportation, from the first horse-drawn buses of the 1820s to electrified street railways at the end of the century. Each transport innovation extended the distance that a person could reasonably travel as a commuter or shopper, while constant system improvements and increased ridership lessened costs.

Demographic patterns also affected urbanization in two ways: first, urban populations grew steadily throughout the century due to immigration from rural areas, principally by those seeking factory work, and emigration from abroad. Therefore cities expanded as new housing had to be provided. Secondly, at the same time that new residents were surging into cities, many urbanites, particularly those of the middle classes, began to leave. While a preference for rural living explained part of this exodus, it was also due to the perception that various urban problems were becoming worse.

Many nineteenth-century urban problems were those that continue to plague cities today—crime, pollution, noise—but others were the direct result of lack of planning and regulation, such as threat of fire, poor sanitation, and shoddy building construction. Fire was a significant problem in urban areas of North America from the time of the first European settlement. Construction with combustible materials coupled with close placement of buildings and the use of open flames in heating, cooking, and lighting meant that the potential for raging fires was ever present. Lack of sanitation, and the ensuing public health problems it created, was a more constant, if less dramatic, urban issue it was not until the 1860s that any serious, concerted effort was made to develop proper systems for water delivery and sewage removal. In spite of remarkable strides made in the 1870s and 1880s by the newly established profession of sanitary engineering, the common nineteenth-century pattern of individual unprofessionally planned and installed cesspools (underground tanks for holding household sewage) continued. This led to water contamination and the spread of disease by rodents and insects.

Problems of the fire and poor sanitation were inextricably linked with the last major urban problem of the nineteenth century—lack of coordination in the physical expansion of cities and their infrastructure systems (systems for providing services such as water, gas, electricity, and sewage). Typically, development was both unplanned and unrestricted, with landowners making all choices of lot size, services, and street arrangement based only on their individual needs in the marketplace. Distortions of streets and abrupt changes in the distance of houses from the street in urban areas, which so clearly delineate where one development ended and another began, were just the most obvious problems that this lack of coordination created.

在讨论美国十九世纪城市的发展过程时，人们不能真正使用“城市规划”这个术语，因为该术语表明了现代人对于空间和服务组织的关注。在大多数情况下，在始于19世纪90年代的规划革命，即城市美化运动开始之前，这个术语并不存在。当然，在那个时代开始之前，有一些城市地区是在当代的综合意义上“有规划的”，尤其是华盛顿特区，这些地区都是例外。十九世纪的大多数“规划”都局限于那些比城市小得多的地区，并与试图从一块土地获利的开发商密切相关。即使这些小规模的规划设计得很好，开发商也只做了那些绝对必要的改进，以吸引富有市场。事实上，正是由于缺乏真正的城市规划，才使得其他因素在塑造19世纪美国城市中发挥如此重要的作用。 在十九世纪，三种力量特别会影响到城市和郊区的配置：即经济，交通技术和人口统计。除此之外，通常因为美国人不仅喜欢独立生活，通常拥有个人独立的家庭住宅，而且喜欢农村生活。经济以两种方式对城市化造成影响。首先，经济考虑因素影响了商业和工业的区位选择，这往往会抢占选择的先机。其次，工业发展提高了大部分人口的收入，这反过来又可以为人们购买更大的房子和通勤交通提供了更多的资金支持。与经济学相关的是（因为花销对于个人来说总是很重要的）是交通方面的改进，从十九世纪二十年代的第一辆马车到本世纪末的电气化铁路。每一项运输创新都扩展了人们作为通勤者或购物者合理步行距离，同时不断改进的系统和日益增长的乘客数量都会降低成本。 人口模式也以两种方式影响城市化的进程：首先，由于从农村向城市移民，大部分的移民是寻求工厂工作的移民和从外国迁徙过来的移民，因而整个世纪城市人口稳步增长。因此，为了不得不提供新住房，因而城市必须扩大其规模。其次，在新居民涌入城市的同时，许多城市居民，特别是中产阶级的居民，开始相继离开城市。虽然对农村生活的偏好解释了这种人就流失的部分原因，但也有人认为流失的原因是因为各种城市问题变得越来越严重。 许多19世纪所存在的城市问题现如今仍然困扰着仍在困扰着这些城市 - 犯罪，污染，噪音 - 但其他问题则是缺乏规划和管理的直接后果，例如火灾威胁，恶劣的卫生条件，以及劣质的建筑工程。自第一次欧洲殖民地建立起，火灾是北美城市地区所面临的一个重大问题。使用可燃材料进行建造，加上建筑物之间距离近，以及在加热，烹饪和照明中使用明火，意味着火灾可能会随时发生。缺乏卫生设施，以及随之而来的公共卫生问题，是一个更为持续的，却又不那么引人注意的城市问题，直到19世纪60年代才做出了一些认真协作的努力，来为供水和污水去除建立一个合适的系统。尽管新建立的卫生工程专业在19世纪70年代和19世纪80年代取得了令人瞩目的进步，但十九世纪的普遍模式仍然是个人对污水池的非专业性规划和安装（用于储存生活污水的地下水池）。这导致水污染的发生，以及啮齿动物和昆虫对疾病的传播。 火灾和恶劣的卫生条件这两个问题与十九世纪最后一个重大的城市问题有着千丝万缕的联系 – 即城市的扩建与城市基础设施体系（提供水，煤气，电力和污水等服务的系统） 之间的缺乏协调。通常情况下，发展是未经计划的，也是不受限制的，土地所有者只根据他们在市场上的个人需求对所有的批量，服务和街道安排问题做出选择。城市街道的变形以及房屋与街道之间距离的急剧变化，清楚地描述了一个发展的结束和另一个发展的开始，这恰恰是这种缺乏协调所造成的最为明显的问题。