Environmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism, is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture. Those who believe this view say that humans are strictly defined by stimulus-response (environment-behavior) and cannot deviate.
The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists was that aspects of physical geography, particularly climate, influenced the psychological mind-set of individuals, which in turn defined the behaviour and culture of the society that those individuals formed.
Environmental determinism has been adopted by the urban design field to describe the effects the built environment may have on behaviour. this is the basis of the concept of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) which attempts to modify disruptive behaviours through appropriate design of the physical environment. This concept is also the basis of active space which try’s to encourage activity through the design of a space.
-Wikipedia, Environmental Determinism
“Where housing is in short supply, leading to overcrowding or the occupancy of units considered inappropriate, life-cycle flexibility and mobility are constrained.”
-William Michelson, The Societal Functions of Housing
What factors make occupancy inappropriate? If there are spatial solutions that allow for flexibility and mobility in crowded conditions, would overcrowded become acceptable?
Introduction of apartment buildings in the late 1800s:
“With this new era of ‘sky homes’ and huge compact structures with their hives of families’ would evolve a new form of urban intercourse created by unprecedented density organized according to a ‘method of scientific compactness.’”
-Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City
How could a densely populated current day New York City address unprecedented density? How would it rethink inhabitation?
DP Seminar Research Part 2
DP Seminar Research Part 1
New York City is the American metropolis, but some of the characteristics that define it - busy, crowded, diverse, and fast-paced- did not physically manifest until the early 19th century when they took form in an enlarged city population, overcrowded dwellings, and public transportation. Foreign and domestic trade after the war of 1812 ignited an economic growth that resulted in a surge in population and, subsequently, in the city’s housing. While the state attempted to control the city’s growth with legislative policies and a gridiron structure, the pace of expansion brought about haphazard development. This unregulated growth occurred across social classes, and its effect was evident in housing for the poor as well as for the well-off.
Before the 1800s, New York had already been under the control of various nations. Manhattan Island was occupied by the
Lenape Native American tribe before Giovanni Da Verrazzano discovered it in 1524. The Dutch Fur Trading Company founded a settlement in lower Manhattan in 1614. In 1626 it became an official Dutch colony and was named New Amsterdam when the director-general, Peter Minuit, purchased the island from the Lenape. But in 1664 the British took control of the colony renaming it New York, and it remained under British rule for over a century. During the Revolutionary War, it was occupied by the British from 1776 to 1783 as their military center.
It was only after the American Revolution and the War of 1812 that New York began to even resemble the city it is today. Significant commercial growth in the early 19th century fueled a population and housing boom. New York’s geographic location, its natural harbor, and the persistence of local merchants transformed the city into a center for foreign and domestic trade. Between 1800 and 1830 the value of foreign goods increased 400%. While 9% of the nation’s foreign trade went through New York in 1800, the figure inflated to 62% in 1860[1]. There were a number of reasons behind this sudden jump in activity. The British blockade of American ports during the War of 1812 cut off trade between America and Europe, and by 1815, Americans were all too ready to resume trade. Also, the Napoleonic wars restricted the export of British to other European countries. The United Stated benefited as the recipient of the supplementary goods, and the goods were sent to New York City in particular. The city also became a center for domestic trade. Trade between the East Coast and the Mid West was hampered by the Appalachian Mountains. Routes consisting of mountain passes, expensive turnpikes, and inland waterways were slow and inefficient. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 offered a cheaper and faster means to transport cargo, and since the canal fed into the Hudson River, New York City was able to dominate domestic commerce as well as international.
The connection between the growth of the economy and the increase in population was immediately apparent in New York. During the British occupation, the population of the city dwindled from 25,000 to 12,000[2]. Fires had destroyed more than a third of the city’s buildings. But by 1790, New York as the nation’s capital bounced back with a population of 33,000. Soon after, it became the largest city in the country[3]. Despite this growth, early 19th century New York City was relatively rural. It was not uncommon for pigs to run around in the streets, and the Bowery was still characterized by Dutch farmhouses. Dwellings lacked the running water, toilets, furnaces, and stoves that were taken for granted only a few decades later as basic necessities. When the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811 created a gridiron for Manhattan north of 14th street as a way to better convey the plots of land, residents found it hard to believe that the city would ever develop to 155th street, which gives evidence to the surprising lack of foresight in city planning during that period. Housing development not only crept northward but laterally to the outer boroughs.
The gridiron structuring of Manhattan and the absence of an enforced housing policy were particularly instrumental in the shaping of housing in New York from the lower to upper classes for generations to come. The influx of immigrants to New York City started in the mid-1800s and consisted mostly of German and, to a lesser extent, Irish immigrants. The population in 1820 was around 124,000 and jumped to 516,000 in 1850[4]. Immigrants surge the populace of the urban poor, and there was an enormous demand for new housing for the new class structure. The relationship between housing and class was substantiated during this period. Both tenement housing and single family row houses begin to develop in abundance, and while they often occupied the same 25 feet by 100 feet lots, tenements could house up to 22 families in contrast to the single family with servants occupying a row house.
In the 19th century, housing in New York City was divided into specific typologies according to class. The poor lived in starkly dismal surroundings that included cellars, rookeries, shacks, and tenements[5]. The middle class lived in multi-family dwellings or single family housing in the boroughs. The upper class lived in single-family row houses, luxury apartments, and mansions. The lower class lived in dark, damp, foul, poorly-ventilated, and overcrowded rooms. Cellars were notoriously hazardous and were often the breeding ground for diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, malaria, and tuberculosis. Rookeries, which were abandoned or condemned buildings, were equally as dangerous as they were known to fall apart and catch fire easily[6]. Both types of housing were eventually replaced by the tenements. Squatter shacks began to cluster and situate in Central Park and on the Upper West and East sides in the mid-1800s. They were thought to provide better living that cellars and rookeries but they were often build on marshy ground, crowded next to one another and were characterized by filth and foul odors. These were all eventually replaced by tenement housing, the ubiquitous dwelling for the New York poor in the 19th century. Tenements appeared sometime in the 1830s and 1840s and quickly became a profitable way for landowners to pack as many people as they could into the 25 by 100 feet building lots. By 1900 more than half of New York City’s population lived in tenement housing[7]. Their lack of amenities and characteristically dark, airless, filthy and overcrowded spaces came under scrutiny and prompted demands for reform in the 1850s, but reform was slow and came in stages. Between 1850 and 1900 it took four separate commissions selected to look into tenement housing problems and a number of tenement legislation before living conditions in the tenements were considered acceptable[8]. Regulations comprised of fireproofing, setting maximum coverage of building lot, provided light and ventilation in all rooms, required water closets and running water in each apartment, and set maximum dimensions for building heights, back yard spaces and courtyards.
The other, wealthier half of New York lived in row house, mansions, and eventually apartment buildings north of Lower Manhattan with the middle class spilling over into the boroughs. Notably, the row houses took the form of brownstones. The brownstones that first came about in the early 19th century were Federal-style houses that took up half the building lot, had three to four stories, and had six to eight rooms. But the growing prosperity mid-century called for a certain amount of pretension. Brownstones started growing larger within their lots. By the 1880s, the houses took up to 90% of the building lot, grew a storey taller, and contained up to twenty rooms[9]. The gridiron affected the middle and upper classes as much as they did the lower, and the 25x100 feet building lot was just as unforgiving with light and ventilation in row houses as it was in tenements. The middle and upper classes maintained the desire for single-family homes, although the expense of living in Manhattan drove some of them to the outer boroughs. They were skeptical about apartment living, and it was not until the proliferation of electric elevators and better transportation into Manhattan in the late 19th century that there was a sudden increase in apartment building development and adaptations of it, like garden apartments, in the boroughs. By the start of the 20th century, tall apartment buildings materialized all over New York and became a defining aspect of the city and its skyline.
[1] Lockwood, p. 5.
[2] Lockwood, p. 1.
[3] Ford, p. 72.
[4] Lockwood, p. 6.
[5] Plunz, p. 54.
[6] Plunz, p. 55.
[7] Plunz, p. 30.
[8] Ford, p. 123.
[9] Plunz, p. 60.
Lower Manhattan Tenement Museum / Orchard Street / New York City
