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Urban Developments in the Niagara Peninsula1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

J. W. Watson
J. W. Watson*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Extract

The expansion of the Niagara Peninsula has occurred with its advance from a frontier of conflict to one of contact. Lying at the western extremity of the Hudson-Mohawk, that “greatest of all routes of continental migration,” it forms a major land bridge from New York to Ontario, and exerts the same attraction today, when it has become one of the chief international regions linking Canada with the United States, as it did in the mid-nineteenth century, when it formed part of the great overland route drawing immigrants to the West, or even earlier, when it was itself a pioneer zone. At the same time it is a prime water link between west and east, and, being used both by American and Canadian, has helped to bring them together, first in the commercialization of the St. Lawrence, and later in its industrialization. As a result it is one of the few districts of Canada able to show a continued native growth, together with a “pull on the northern margins of the neighbouring states at all comparable to that of the numerous urban and industrial regions of the United States.”

Thanks to these advantages, its population has increased fifteen times in the last 120 years, with an expansion in recent decades only exceeded by that of the early pioneer influx (see Figure 1). Its problems, therefore, are associated with growth, and with the attempts to work out a series of integrations with each new stage of development, in order to preserve equilibrium in expansion, and create new organizations of settlement and society. Its chequered history, especially as represented in the urban centre, has shown the varying success with which these issues have been met.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , November 1943 , pp. 463 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1943

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Footnotes

1

This essay arises out of a field survey of changes in settlement and land use undertaken with the help of a grant-in-aid from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is a regional analysis of the social problems involved in urban expansion in a border region, and seeks to express the idea that, “Even in its most highly developed stages, the city is, among other things, an earth form.” The city is the region in human expression. Cf. L. Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York, 1938), p. 316.

References

2 Hansen, M. L., The Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, vol. I, Historical, completed by Brebner, J. B. (New Haven, 1940), p. 44.Google Scholar

3 Marshall, H., Southard, F. A., and Taylor, K. W., Canadian-American Industry: A Study in International Investment (New Haven, 1936), p. 221.Google Scholar

4 Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, pp. 88, 105–6.Google Scholar

5 Innis, M. Q., An Economic History of Canada (Toronto, 1935), pp. 90, 92, 107, 135 Google Scholar; Landon, F., Western Ontario and the American Frontier (Toronto, 1941), pp. 13ff.Google Scholar; Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, p. 90.Google Scholar

6 Whitaker, J. R., “Peninsular Ontario: A Primary Regional Division of Canada” (Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. LIV, no. 5, 09, 1938, pp. 266–7).Google Scholar

7 Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, p. 261.Google Scholar

8 Census of Canada (Ottawa, 1851), vol. I, pp. xii–xiii Google Scholar, a summary of population from 1817 to 1850. Also see the 1931 Census, vol. I, pp. 348, 356, 360, 364 Google Scholar, and vol. II, pp. 8, 22, for summaries from 1851 to 1931.

9 Cf. Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W., and McKenzie, R. D., The City (Chicago, 1925)Google Scholar, the essay, “The Growth of the City” by E. W. Burgess, p. 54: “Normally the process of disorganization and organization may be thought of as in reciprocal relationship to each other, and as co-operating in a moving equilibrium of social order toward an end … regarded as progressive.”

10 Thorold, Township and Town, 1786-1932 (Thorold, Thorold and Beaverdams Historical Society, 1933), pp. 78–9Google Scholar, “There was a large hotel in the place [Port Robinson] capable of accommodating 100 persons. In exchange for this the proprietor was offered a valuable lot in Buffalo, but he refused the offer, as the U.S. port … gave no promise at that time of becoming so prosperous a place as the little Canadian village.” See also, Creighton, D. G., The Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence, 1760-1850 (Toronto, 1937), p. 147 Google Scholar, for the commercial importance of Niagara.

11 Census of Canada, 1851, vol. I, p. xii.Google Scholar

12 Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, pp. 103, 105.Google Scholar Also, Innis, , Economic History of Canada, pp. 139, 146, 186–9.Google Scholar

13 Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, p. 256 Google Scholar; Innis, , Economic History of Canada, pp. 207, 210.Google Scholar

14 Marshall, , Southard, , and Taylor, , Canadian-American Industry, pp. 4, 201–2.Google Scholar

15 J. F. Gross, “The Early History of St. Johns” ( Welland County Historical Society, Papers and Records, Welland, vol. II, 1925, p. 137)Google Scholar, “The village appears to have reached the height of prosperity about 1840. Today, St. Johns may aptly be called ‘The Deserted Village’.”

16 Thorold, Township and Town, pp. 81-2, decline of Port Robinson.

17 Whitaker, J. R., “Regional Contrasts in the Growth of Canadian Cities” (Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. LIII, no. 6, 11, 1937, p. 379).Google Scholar

18 Hansen, , Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, pp. 186–7Google Scholar; also Landon, , Western Ontario, p. 265.Google Scholar Cf. Michell and Co.'s General Directory for the Town of St. Catharines and Gazeteer of the Counties of Lincoln and Wetland for 1865 (Toronto, 1865)Google Scholar, for the importance of grist-mill settlements and grain farming (pp. 4, 104, 109, 11849, 122, 124-6, 135, 140, 146, 153, 158 and 161). Then see The History of the County of Welland (Welland, 1887), pp. 301, 307 Google Scholar for the new importance of canning settlements and fruit farming.

19 Michell and Co.'s General Directory of St. Catharines, p. 89 Google Scholar, “St. Catharines began to assume the position in the shipping and agricultural interests lost to Niagara.”

20 Whitaker, , “Peninsular Ontario,” p. 280.Google Scholar

21 L. B. Duff, “Samuel Chandler of St. Johns” (Welland County Historical Society, Papers and Records, vol. V, chap. 5), “Today not a stone wall of St. Johns remains due to the building of the Welland Canal … where new towns grew up.”

22 Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Wentworth, Ontario (Toronto, 1875), p. v Google Scholar, “But the construction of the G.W.R. left the town of Dundas at a standstill.” (Reference is to decline of Dundas as a road centre after the rise of Hamilton as a railway junction.)

23 Marshall, , Southard, , and Taylor, , Canadian-American Industry, p. 205 Google Scholar, a list of international industries depending on Canadian raw materials.

24 Burgess, E. W. (ed.), The Urban Community (Chicago, 1926)Google Scholar, essay by McKenzie, R. D., “The Scope of Human Ecology,” p. 169 Google Scholar: “An ecological organisation is in process of constant change.” The emphasis is on cultural and technical dynamics; but the geographical is equally important.

25 Census of Canada, 1911, vol. III, table xi, p. 351 Google Scholar; also Canada, Manufacturing Industries of the Province of Ontario, 1939, table 7, pp. 18–23 Google Scholar; 1940, table 7, pp. 18-23 (Ottawa, 1941, 1942).

26 Burgess, Urban Community, essay by Park, R. E., “The Urban Community as a Spatial Pattern and a Moral Order,” p. 11 Google Scholar: “Natural areas [of cities] are the habitats of natural groups.” With a change in the natural area, which geographers have long identified as the functional region, there comes about a change in the cultural association, and so of the social group. In other words, spatial change, arising out of functional evolution, alters the social form.

27 One of the main difficulties in making adjustments to changing conditions is due to the artificiality of the spatial pattern, which in Canadian cities is not organic to the functional region, but has been created quite apart from the way in which the different areas of the city may function. Cf. Mumford, , Culture of Cities, p. 185 Google Scholar, “Hence there was no functional differentiation on the plan [the grid system] between the industrial, commercial, the civic, and the residential quarters. This means that no section was suitably planned for its specific function.”

28 E. Green, “Keel v. Wheel, (Welland Canal v. Portage Road)” ( Ontario Historical Society, Papers and Records, vol. XXIII, p. 293 Google Scholar).

29 W. B. Burgoyne, “Facts Which Show Our Advantages” (article on St. Catharines in St. Catharines Standard, April 21, 1941).

30 I. M. Brights, “Since We Were Shipman's Corners” (article on St. Catharines in St. Catharines Standard, April 21, 1941; also, “Garden City, Hub of Niagara District” (article in St. Catharines Standard, April 1, 1941).

31 Cf. what Burgess has to say of this stage in “Growth of the City,” p. 52, “… a process of reorganization into a centralised decentralised system of local communities coalescing into sub-business areas visibly or invisibly dominated by the central business area.” Also McKenzie, R. D., The Metropolitan Community (New York, 1933), pp. 232–3.Google Scholar

32 Whitaker, , “Peninsular Ontario,” p. 283.Google Scholar

33 Burgess, Urban Community, essay by Gras, N. S. B., “Rise of the Metropolitan Community,” p. 187 Google Scholar: “No metropolitan community can arise unless situated at a respectful distance from its neighbours.” Hamilton has little chance for further regional development, lying between Buffalo and Toronto.

34 G. Wells, “Welland when Young” ( Welland County Historical Society, Papers and Records, vol. V, chap, XIII, 1938 Google Scholar), “An aqueduct had to be built to carry the canal over the Welland River. A settlement sprang up at the scene of the work which remained in existence after the work was completed. …”

35 Thorold, Township and Town, pp. 81-2.

36 Cf. The Plymouth Cordage Centenary Publication (Plymouth Cordage Coy., Plymouth), also Niagara Falls, The Power City (Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce, 1924), pp. 42-7.

37 See Coombs, A. E., The Niagara Peninsula and the New Welland Canal (Toronto, 1930), p. 94 Google Scholar, for a statement of how “The whole business section was recreated.”

38 For instance Michell and Co.'s Directory, 1865, places both, Haun's and Beattie's foundries on the west of the Canal; they are today on the east. For the movement of the market, see city records. By-law 27, 1885, established the market at the north-east corner of Bold and Fraser, west of the Canal; By-law 77, 1893, established a new site at the north-east corner of Muir and Division, just to the east; By-laws 263, 1907, and 357, 1909, located it still farther east on Young Street, where it was made permanent by the building of sheds in 1923.

39 Wells, “Welland when Young,” section on schools.

40 An interesting exception is the Roman Catholic Church, which remained behind, largely because the newcomers into the region were Central or Southern Europeans of a Roman persuasion.

41 Cf. Burgess, Urban Community, essay by Elmer, M. C., “Maladjusted Youth and Dense Population,” p. 163.Google Scholar Delinquency is associated with the transitional zone, “where the details of the individual's life do not fit into the established group organisations.”

42 Page, and Smith, , Wentworth County Illustrated, pp. v, ix Google Scholar, “The construction of the G. W. R. road materially checked the growth of Dundas and built up Hamilton into a city.”

43 This is particularly true since the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, 1922, forced the truck farmer off the open market in Buffalo, Rochester, and Cleveland, and compelled him to sell increasingly to the canneries within the Peninsula, especially at Hamilton.

44 McKenzie, , Metropolitan Community, p. 184 Google Scholar, chapter on population patterning, “The general exodus of competent families from the inner zone of the city is apparent.”

45 Burgess, Urban Community, essay by Park, R. E., “A Spatial Pattern,” p. 6 Google Scholar: “These neglected and sometimes abandoned regions become the points of first settlement of immigrants.”

46 Ibid., essay by E. S. Bogardus, “Social Distance in the City,” p. 53: “‘Invasion’ is a key to a great deal of the social distance between the native-born and immigrants in cities.”

47 Schmid, C. F., Social Saga of Two Cities (Minneapolis, 1937), pp. 343, 355, 360, and 378 Google Scholar, “The areas of highest delinquency usually coincide with those sections of the city that are characterised by the greatest amount of physical [geographical] and social deterioration. Such conditions as poverty, overcrowding, high mobility of population, cultural conflicts, and the presence of vicious elements evidence a marked concentration in these sections of the city” (p. 360).

48 Watson, J. W., Initial Survey of Overcrowding in Hamilton (Hamilton, Council of Social Agencies, 1942 Google Scholar; also in Hamilton, Review, 07 3, 1942 Google Scholar).

49 Eggleton, M., “Neglected Children as a Social Problem” (McMaster University Library, unpublished thesis, 1941), pp. 1, 89, 93.Google Scholar

50 Watson, J. W. and Gilfillan, V., Survey of Recreation in Hamilton (Hamilton, Council of Social Agencies, 1941), pp. 3, 4, 9 Google Scholar; tables 5, 17.

51 Cf. Mumford, , Culture of Cities, p. 311 Google Scholar, “In general, one may say that geographic differences are primordial, while social differentiations, including those derived from urban association, are emergent: one is foundation, the other pinnacle.”