Chapter 3: The foundation of the American Urban System

The evolution of U.S. urban system through five distinctive epochs that together established the foundations for the contemporary urban system. In Knox, this set of urban settlements is both the product of and continuing framework for, processes of economic, technological, demographic, political and social change.
* New patterns of settlement
* New kinds of towns and cities
* New patterns of trade and migration between towns and cities

5 epoch of Urban Development:

1. the frontier urbanization around which the U.S economy was organized until independent nation hood
2. a period of merchant trading, or mercantilism, during with there emerged a more extensive system of local marketing and service centers (central places).
3. characterized by an expansion and realignment of the urban system in response to early industrialization, the mechanization of agriculture and immigration
4. industrialization on the effects of principles of industrial location on the development and adaptation of the urban system
5. corresponds with the emergence of Fordism and mass- produced automobiles, trucks, and aircraft which significantly changed the spatial organization of the urban system

• How did creative destruction manifest itself on the urban landscape?

As soon as the differential is large enough, some disinvestment will take place within core cities, leading to deindustrialization there; meanwhile the capital is invested in the new ventures that are located elsewhere.