1 / 40

The Invisible City

The Invisible City. The Rise of the Technologically Networked City – Emerged in 19 th Century, Blossomed in 20 th Century. Pipes, Tracks and Wires Made Possible by Industrialism – New Materials and Techniques. Old Croton Aqueduct, Gate Chamber Manhattan, NYC.

gary-boyer
Download Presentation

The Invisible City

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Invisible City The Rise of the Technologically Networked City – Emerged in 19th Century, Blossomed in 20th Century. Pipes, Tracks and Wires Made Possible by Industrialism – New Materials and Techniques

  2. Old Croton Aqueduct, Gate ChamberManhattan, NYC

  3. New York City Subway, Abandoned 42nd Street Lower-Level StationManhattan, New York City

  4. Fever, Fever: Or How the 19th Century City was Made Livable • Cholera • Typhoid • Yellow Fever

  5. Bacteria that cause cholera

  6. Yellow Fever virus

  7. Typhoid Death Rates (per 100,000)1880-1922

  8. It was More than Simply Water Distribution Systems and Sewers that Resulted in the late 19th Century Drop in Mortality Rates: 3 Strategies • The securing of a municipal water supply from a distant and protected watershed • The introduction of of sewage treatment, usually using combined physical / chemical / microbiological processes • The filtration of water at the intake and then chlorination before distribution

  9. The Miasma Theory of Disease • Miasma is considered to be a poisonous vapor or mist that is filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that could cause illnesses and is identifiable by its nasty, foul smell (which, of course, came from the decomposed material). • The theory of miasma made sense to 19th c. English sanitary reformers. Miasma explained why cholera and other diseases were epidemic in places where the water was left standing and very foul-smelling.

  10. London Population Statistics

  11. Edwin Chadwick – a good Benthamite

  12. Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great London, 1842, pp. 369-372.] • That such disease, wherever its attacks are frequent, is always found in connexion with the physical circumstances above specified, and that where those circumstances are removed by drainage, proper cleansing, better ventilation, and other means of diminishing atmospheric impurity, the frequency and intensity of such disease is abated; and where the removal of the noxious agencies appears to be complete, such disease almost entirely disappears. • That the formation of all habits of cleanliness is obstructed by defective supplies of water. • That the annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation are greater than the loss from death or wounds in any wars in which the country has been engaged in modern times. • That defective town cleansing fosters habits of the most abject degradation and tends to the demoralization of large numbers of human beings, who subsist by means of what they find amidst the noxious filth accumulated in neglected streets and bye-places.

  13. Miasmic Theory Disproved • Dr. John Snow, Soho, and London in 1854 • Evidence was not consistent with the observations of microbiology

  14. “The Big Stink” – 1858 • Part of the problem was due to the introduction of modern flush toilets • London had some 200,000 cesspits that overflowed into street drains emptying into the River Thames • Joseph Bazalgette – [this sewage] kept oscillating up and down the river, while more filth was continually added to it, until the Thames became absolutely pestilential.”

  15. Water, Sewers, and the American Scene • Benajmin Latrobe and The Fairmont Waterworks in Philadelphia • In 1822 Fairmont replaces water-driven pumps with steam pumps • By 1880, Fairmont water was polluted because of acidic runoff from anthracite fields; supply limited because of upstream irrigation • Closed in 1909

  16. Benjamin Latrobe (May 1, 1764 - September 3, 1820)

  17. Percentage of American Cities with Waterworks

  18. Public and Private Ownership of Waterworks

  19. The Rise of Sanitary Engineering • William Sedgwick, MIT • Lawrence Experiment Station, MA • George C. Whipple, The Microscopy of Drinking Water (1899) • Allen Hazen, Pure Water and How to Get It (1906)

  20. Decline in Typhoid Rates After Use of Hypochlorite

  21. Water Purification -- New Orleans • 200 mgd, intake on the Mississippi River – complexities include changing river level, water temperature, pollutants, turbidity • Water floridation at the intake • Poly-electrolyte added to promote flocculation • Pumped to reservoirs for holding, pH adjustment, flocculation • Preliminary chlorination • Sand filtration/ carbon filtration • Secondary chlorination, residual of 1 ppm chlorine in system • Haloform reaction, organics, bladder cancer rates • Water from Pearl River? Ozone?

More Related