To what extent were New-York, London and Paris centers for technical innovations?

Résumé du document

In his paper 'City as Truth-Spot, Laboratories and Field-Sites in Urban Studies', Thomas Gyerin contends that each locus for practicing science is linked 'with distinctive epistemic virtues'. In other words, when the laboratory is standardized-prone, removing doubts that experimental results might be caused by an uncontrolled environment, the field-site embodies the idea of unadulterated reality, and insist on the necessity of 'being there' to acknowledge a discovery that cannot be reproduced elsewhere. Each of these loci has its assets and drawbacks. In this regard, the city can be depicted both as a laboratory and field-site, being as much a controlling environment suitable for a generalization to 'anywhere' as a pre-existing reality, a particular place. Such a reflection is especially relevant when talking about New-York, London and Paris in the 19th century. Hence, beyond their differences, which features style of thought, institutions, scientific culture, geographical location did London, Paris and New York share in order to become stages or even objects for technical innovations. Were these innovations to be considered the criterion of a new hierarchy?

Extraits

[...] What's more, it is the locus of a jurisdiction responsible for having hosted in 1735 the trial of John Peter Zenger, that favored the freedom of press in North America. Finally, the city welcomes in 1754 the university of King's College owing to a charter by George II. Even if Philadelphia was celebrated for being the intellectual flagship of the Colonies, New York dominated by most standards the American hierarchy before industrialization, as exemplified best by its designation as the capital city, before it was replaced by Washington in 1800. Obviously, New York did not harbor a royal court. [...]

[...] The nature, structure and shaping of technical innovations will be different when retaining a sense over another. Here, what could be argued is that the technical innovations will partly arise from this shift in the identification of the center from a closed space behind - sometimes moral - walls to an open one (exemplified by New-York Commissioner's Plan of 1811). Hence, beyond their differences, which features style of thought, institutions, scientific culture, geographical location– did London, Paris and New York share in order to become stages or even objects for technical innovations? [...]

[...] They proved very useful for land use planners dealing with urban property and estate structure, that appreciated the knowledge from the geologist. -Finally, the coproduction relation coupled with the historical past of these cities was an unexpected fuel for technical innovations. Here the article of David Aubin, Fading Star of the Paris Observatory in the Nineteenth Century: Astronomers' Urban Culture of Circulation and Observation” is judicial: it shows that when the industrializing city became too noisy, smoke-filled in the 1860s, the scientists wondered whether to move it to le Mont-Valérien. [...]

[...] As for the Metropolitan Railway of London, inaugurated in 1863, its creation had been actively supported by hygienists. -Hence another major change leading to technical innovations: the elaboration of a new vision of the city owing to cartography. As Antoine Picon argues in his article “Nineteenth Century Urban Cartography and the Scientific Ideal: the case of Paris”, cartography was not brand new. The author underlines the fact that cartography was already used measure the degree of knowledge of the New World that had been acquired by the time of their production”. [...]

[...] They were thus both laboratories for the analysis of industrialization and field-sites for local and peculiar urban histories. Combining these facets, what needs to be clarified is how they became the ideal place for technical innovations, considering these as specialized knowledge bringing about the idea of practical control, and dedicated to a precise purpose. Also, did they really benefit from being centers? First, the center can be considered as a “receptacle of accumulation” (George Basalla) or as a “contact zone” (Louise Pratt). [...]