A Train of Cities
Written and edited by Edward Mitchell
Yale School of Architecture (2013)
In the early nineteenth-century much of the wealth of Massachusetts was distributed among towns and cities connected to the waterfront. The spread of rail service to the coastal communities in the mid century resulted in the growth of metropolitan Boston as the hub of New England’s economy. The loss of lucrative industries like whaling and cloth manufacturing marked the demise of the power of local cities and towns, and the construction of the interstate system, ostensibly a connective network to the coast, inevitably damaged the infrastructure and identity of many of these communities. In the 1990s SRPEDD, the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, began plans to open up former commercial rail lines as commuter routes from Boston to the south coast.
The Post Professional studios at the Yale School of Architecture led by Fred Koetter and Edward Mitchell looks at the potential for re-invigorating these historic communities by networking their physical and economic patterns. The book analyzes the historic structure of these areas with student work done in Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford projects the potential for education, new industry, housing, and agriculture as sources of economic growth and development leading to a possible future for rich heritage of these older industrial cities.
To purchase: http://architecture.yale.edu/school/publications/train-cities
