Becoming Metropolitan

Urban Transformation of 19th Century Newcastle

Peter J. Taylor, Michael Barke, Zachary P. Neal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040937105
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Index: Social Sciences

Using a unique data-rich study of Newcastle's becoming a metropolitan city region in the nineteenth century, this book explores a new understanding of how successful cities attain a metropolitan status through disruptions of incessant economic advances being ameliorated by myriad social organizations to create a new vibrant urban environment.

The book defines the specific process of 'becoming metropolitan' by bringing together economic and social urban studies to explain an interactive development that when successful creates a metropolitan city region. In addition, a real example of this is meticulously described through a detailed case study that traces the process across decades to a metropolitan outcome. In doing so, it combines theoretical and empirical understandings within a single text and provides accessible information to a unique and large dataset.

Becoming Metropolitan will appeal to graduates and researchers of geography, sociology, planning, and history specializing in cities and urban studies. It will also be valuable to a larger public audience with interest in cities, as 'metropolitan' is a commonplace idea easily understood, especially in the case- study city.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: The choice of nineteenth century Newcastle
• 2 Cities as organized complexity
• 3 A century of ‘explosive city growth’
• 4 Introducing ‘rounding out’
• 5 A multitude of functional associations
• 6 Initial period of rapid growth (1800–45)
• 7 Transition period (1846–69)
• 8 Metropolitan conurbation outcome (1870–99)
• 9 A century of rounding out
• 10 Metropolitan in context
• Postscript
• Bibliography
• Index