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Some economic innovations pioneered in Great Cities:
1. Baltimore: B & O Railroad for logistics; tin can packaging of food products; business district self-taxing for extra services
2. Boston: public market, public schools; individual political freedoms; historic district preservation; light bulb filament and threaded socket
3. Buffalo: Erie Canal terminus for portage between waterways; electricity as consumer product; mass production techniques for grain
4. Chicago: reversed river's course to protect water supply; elevators to allow higher office buildings; creation of cultural center public space
5. Cincinnati: slaughterhouse logistics; rail consolidation; regulation of development on slopes
6. Cleveland: steel making and petroleum refining processes; 19th century advertising and graphic design
7. Detroit: Ford Motor Company assembly line mass production; first paved road and freeway miles; eminent domain use
8. Milwaukee: machines such as typewriter and motorcycle
9. New York City: mass media and popular entertainment; public investment in mass transit; fire safety codes in factories
10. Philadelphia: Ben Franklin mail delivery standardization and consumer product inventions; water pumping technology;
large-scale ship building; workshops of the world cluster
11. Pittsburgh: alternating current; air brakes; robot; Roebling Bridge design and construction; iron casting; commercial radio broadcast
12. St Louis: steam-power in goods distribution; regional "gateway" to the West; levee engineering
Manufacturing in the Great Cities as a Share of the National Economy
Notes:
The next tier of industrial centers, Ohio’s Youngstown, Dayton, Akron and Toledo, and Minneapolis/St Paul, Indianapolis, Washington DC and Newark, produced another 5% of U.S. value-added, from 2.7% of population.
 incline built to access slopes in Mt Adams Cincinnati (Detroit Publishing Company) |  Heavy infrastructure made possible the manufacturing activities (Detroit Publishing Company) |  allowing ships to enter the Cuyahoga River at mouth of Lake Erie (Detroit Publishing Company) |
|---|---|---|
 view of Lorain Avenue Bridge over the industrial valley (Detroit Publishing Company) |  Baltimore oyster boat (Detroit Publishing Company) |  View of inner harbor from Federal Hill looking north (Detroit Publishing Company) |
 view of inner harbor looking west from Federal Hill (Detroit Publishing Company) |  Cincinnati was "Queen City," the wealthiest in the midwest before industrialization, and due to surrounding hills like 5 points of a crown (Detroit Publishing Company) |  Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill along Monangehela River (Detroit Publishing Company) |
 1901 view of Cleveland Flats, from the east (Detroit Publishing Company) |  view of eastside riverfront to Lake St Clair (Detroit News) |  view of eastside riverfront looking west from Belle Isle shows manufacturing concentration and pollution (Detroit News) |
 view of eastside shows concentration of heavy industry of all sizes (Detroit Recreation Department glass negatives) |
 Buffalo Expo on electrification |  Sheeler shot of Ford Rouge complex |
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 Brooklyn Bridge |  Philadelphia independence symbols |
 Great Cities' shaped America |  Canal building, in Montreal |
 Baltimore's Carrolton Viaduct |
Much infrastructure was pioneered in Great Cities: bridges, rail lines, electricity, water and sewerage systems, health and education service delivery systems, consumer goods, skyscrapers.
These centers boomed, then declined, and now innovate new forms of communal living, because they use infrastructure efficiently.
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