Abstract
Motorized transportation boosted world urbanization and triggered the rise to prominence of the American Corridor both in Eurasia with the ascent of Northern Germany, Russia, and Japan, and in North America with the triumph of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The Second World War, which had started like the First World War, with a confrontation between, on the one hand, Great Britain and France, and, on the other hand, the German part of Europe, ended up as a battle for the domination of the American Corridor (Great Britain, the USA, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan belonging altogether to that corridor). Today, most of the economically dominant metropolises belong to the American Corridor: Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
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Notes
- 1.
Quoted by Fumaroli (2001), 278.
- 2.
Berlin had its origin in two separate urban settlements: Colln, first mentioned in 1237, and Berlin proper, first mentioned in 1244. Berlin lay on the north bank of the Spree River.
- 3.
The all-powerful Hohenzollern family became Masters of the Mark in 1415.
- 4.
Bairoch (1988).
- 5.
Stockholm was founded in 1255 on Stadsholmen, an island in the narrow channel linking Sweden’s extensive natural waterway system to the Baltic, by way of Lake Malaren.
- 6.
Fridlizius (1990).
- 7.
- 8.
Knox and Agnew (1994), 183.
- 9.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 385.
- 10.
Hammond (1968), A–21.
- 11.
Paul Knox and John Agnew, op. cit., 235.
- 12.
Lung (1994).
- 13.
The Fall Line conurbation even extends up to Boston through Hartford, Connecticut; see Jean Gottman, op. cit.
- 14.
The great “liberators” were Simón Bolívar, who liberated present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and José de San Martín, who liberated Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
- 15.
After the independence period, there was no real commercial rapprochement between Spain and its former American colonies. Impoverished Spain had little to offer, in goods or markets, to its former colonies, and Latin Americans were in no mood to strengthen their relations with Spain.
- 16.
Buenos Aires was founded twice. The first time, in 1534, it was founded by Don Pedro de Mendoza at an ill-chosen spot. Its inhabitants left the site and went up the Paraguay River to found the colony of Asunción. By 1580, Asunción had grown strong enough to re-found Buenos Aires on a site a few kilometers north of the abandoned settlement.
- 17.
Chile was settled directly from Peru by Pedro de Valdivia who arrived in late 1540. He founded Santiago de Chile on February 12, 1541.
- 18.
Rozman (1990).
- 19.
Ibid., 66–7, and Vries (1984), 244–5. Bairoch disagrees with this analysis (op. cit., 359–61).
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Tellier, LN. (2019). The Age of Automobile and the Triumph of the American Corridor. In: Urban World History. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24842-0_12
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