The Invisible City

The Rise of the Technologically Networked City – Emerged in 19th Century, Blossomed in 20th Century.

Pipes, Tracks and Wires

Made Possible by Industrialism – New Materials and Techniques

Old Croton Aqueduct, Gate ChamberManhattan, NYC

New York City Subway, Abandoned 42nd Street Lower-Level Station

Manhattan, New York City

Fever, Fever: Or How the 19th Century City was Made Livable

• Cholera• Typhoid• Yellow Fever

Bacteria that cause cholera

Yellow Fever virus

Typhoid Death Rates (per 100,000)1880-1922

City 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1922

Baltimore 59 42 59 36 35 4.1

Boston 42 40 35 33 26 1.4

Chicago 34 75 92 38 20 1.1

Cincinnati 70 42 69 39 39 3.2

Cleveland 44 34 50 35 35 54

Milwaukee 37 28 33 26 17 3.1

New Orleans 24 17 24 44 40 10.3

New York 25 27 23 17 21 2.3

Philadelphia 58 64 64 40 35 2.8

Pittsburgh 135 76 132 78 144 5.4

San Francisco 34 44 44 34 13 2.2

St. Louis 40 31 31 21 29 3.3

Washington 54 65 112 86 78 5.0

It was More than Simply Water Distribution Systems and Sewers that Resulted in the late 19th Century Drop in

Mortality Rates: 3 Strategies

• The securing of a municipal water supply from a distant and protected watershed

• The introduction of of sewage treatment, usually using combined physical / chemical / microbiological processes

• The filtration of water at the intake and then chlorination before distribution

The Miasma Theory of Disease

• Miasma is considered to be a poisonous vapor or mist that is filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that could cause illnesses and is identifiable by its nasty, foul smell (which, of course, came from the decomposed material).

• The theory of miasma made sense to 19th c. English sanitary reformers. Miasma explained why cholera and other diseases were epidemic in places where the water was left standing and very foul-smelling.

London Population Statistics

Year Population

1700 700,000

1801 958,863

1821 1,378,947

1841 1,948,417

1861 2,803,989

1881 3,815,544 (4,776,661)

1891 4,211,056 (5,633,332)

• Edwin Chadwick

– a good Benthamite

Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary

Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great London, 1842, pp. 369-372.] • That such disease, wherever its attacks are frequent, is always found in connexion

with the physical circumstances above specified, and that where those circumstances are removed by drainage, proper cleansing, better ventilation, and other means of diminishing atmospheric impurity, the frequency and intensity of such disease is abated; and where the removal of the noxious agencies appears to be complete, such disease almost entirely disappears.

• That the formation of all habits of cleanliness is obstructed by defective supplies of water.

• That the annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation are greater than the loss from death or wounds in any wars in which the country has been engaged in modern times.

• That defective town cleansing fosters habits of the most abject degradation and tends to the demoralization of large numbers of human beings, who subsist by means of what they find amidst the noxious filth accumulated in neglected streets and bye-places.

Miasmic Theory Disproved

• Dr. John Snow, Soho, and London in 1854

• Evidence was not consistent with the observations of microbiology

“The Big Stink” – 1858

• Part of the problem was due to the introduction of modern flush toilets

• London had some 200,000 cesspits that overflowed into street drains emptying into the River Thames

• Joseph Bazalgette – [this sewage] kept oscillating up and down the river, while more filth was continually added to it, until the Thames became absolutely pestilential.”

Water, Sewers, and the American Scene

• Benajmin Latrobe and The Fairmont Waterworks in Philadelphia

• In 1822 Fairmont replaces water-driven pumps with steam pumps

• By 1880, Fairmont water was polluted because of acidic runoff from anthracite fields; supply limited because of upstream irrigation

• Closed in 1909

Benjamin Latrobe (May 1, 1764 - September 3, 1820)

Percentage of American Cities with Waterworks

Year Number Cities (2500+)

% Cities

1830 45 90 50

1840 65 131 50

1850 84 236 36

1860 137 392 35

1870 244 663 37

1880 599 939 64

Public and Private Ownership of Waterworks

Year Total WW Public Private

1830 45 9 36 (80%)

1840 65 23 42 (65%)

1850 84 33 51 (61%)

1860 137 57 80 (59%)

1870 244 116 128 (53%)

1880 599 293 306 (51%)

The Rise of Sanitary Engineering

• William Sedgwick, MIT

• Lawrence Experiment Station, MA

• George C. Whipple, The Microscopy of Drinking Water (1899)

• Allen Hazen, Pure Water and How to Get It (1906)

Decline in Typhoid Rates After Use of Hypochlorite

City Before (1900-10)

After (1908-13)

% Change

Baltimore 35.2 22.8 35

Cleveland 35.5 10.0 72

Des Moines 22.7 13.4 41

Erie 38.7 13.5 65

Evanston 26.0 14.5 44

Jersey City 18.7 9.3 50

Kansas City 42.5 20.0 53

Omaha 22.5 11.8 47

Poughkeepsie 54.0 18.5 66

Water Purification -- New Orleans

• 200 mgd, intake on the Mississippi River – complexities include changing river level, water temperature, pollutants, turbidity

• Water floridation at the intake• Poly-electrolyte added to promote flocculation• Pumped to reservoirs for holding, pH adjustment,

flocculation• Preliminary chlorination• Sand filtration/ carbon filtration• Secondary chlorination, residual of 1 ppm chlorine in

system• Haloform reaction, organics, bladder cancer rates• Water from Pearl River? Ozone?