Urban History

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth U.S.$59 billion. The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. For 9 out of 10 rail projects, passenger forecasts are overestimated; the average overestimation is 106%. For half of all road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%. The result is substantial financial risks, which are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision makers to the detriment of social and economic welfare. Our data also show that forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied, despite claims to the contrary by forecasters. The causes of inaccuracy in forecasts are different for rail and road projects, with political causes playing a larger role for rail than for road. The cure is transparency, accountability, and new forecasting methods. The challenge is to change the governance structures for forecasting and project development. Our article shows how planners may help achieve this.

This paper examines HIV education projects in the context of the construction of a UNESCO World Heritage site in Salvador, Brazil, in order to consider what it means to live within, and contest, the ongoing effects and structures of imperial domination.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure developments pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not those of their competition, that gain approval and funding. This results in the ‘survival of the unfittest’, in which often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, it presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important.

A major source of risk in project management is inaccurate forecasts of project costs, demand, and other impacts. The paper presents a promising new approach to mitigating such risk, based on theories of decision making under uncertainty which won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics. First, the paper documents inaccuracy and risk in project management. Second, it explains inaccuracy in terms of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Third, the theoretical basis is presented for a promising new method called "reference class forecasting," which achieves accuracy by basing forecasts on actual performance in a reference class of comparable projects and thereby bypassing both optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Fourth, the paper presents the first instance of practical reference class forecasting, which concerns cost forecasts for large transportation infrastructure projects. Finally, potentials for and barriers to reference class forecasting are assessed.

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

The history of aided self-he lp housing, that is, of housing built with state assistance by familie s for their own use , is largely unknown. The re is a wide spread misapprehension that such a policy was ® rst discussed and practised during the 1960s,
in the context of the Th ird World. In fact, it was adopted in the Sovie t Union, and in many Europe an nations and citie s, notably Vienna and Stockholm, afte r the First World War. During the 1930s it was incorporated into home stead scheme s, and praised, on both side s of the Atlantic. Then, for a time afte r the Se cond World War, it was widely debated and adopted in many of the more advanced industrial socie tie s. Unlike public housing or market-oriented policie s, aided self-he lp neve r had strong political or ideological associations. In one sense this was a strength: at diffe rent places and time s,
it was endorsed from all side s of the political spe ctrum. In othe r respects its detachment from parties and ideologies was a weakness. It was not promoted by any political constituency, and aroused opposition from the building industry and trades. At best aided self-he lp has some times ® lled, and at the worst it has slipped through, the cracks in state housing policy.

In Hydraulic City, Nikhil Anand explores the politics of Mumbai's water infrastructure to demonstrate how citizenship emerges through the continuous efforts to control, maintain, and manage the city's water. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Mumbai's settlements, Anand found that Mumbai's water flows, not through a static collection of pipes and valves, but through a dynamic infrastructure built on the relations between residents, plumbers, politicians, engineers, and the 3,000 miles of pipe that bind them. In addition to distributing water, the public water network often reinforces social identities and the exclusion of marginalized groups, as only those actively recognized by city agencies receive legitimate water services. This form of recognition—what Anand calls "hydraulic citizenship"—is incremental, intermittent, and reversible. It provides residents an important access point through which they can make demands on the state for other public services such as sanitation and education. Tying the ways Mumbai's poorer residents are seen by the state to their historic, political, and material relations with water pipes, the book highlights the critical role infrastructures play in consolidating civic and social belonging in the city.

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

Beginning with W.E.B. Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro and Ida B. Wells's Southern Horrors, this review revisits and examines sociological research on urban Black Americans from the late nineteenth century to the present. Focusing on the approaches, frameworks, and sociological insights that emerged over this period, we examine this scholarship within two broad frames: the deficit frame and the asset frame. The deficit frame includes scholarship emphasizing both the structures that negatively affect Black urban life (e.g., disappearance of work, residential segregation, poor education, urban poverty) and the cultural " deficits " that either are adaptations to those structural realities or (as some deficit scholars argue) are the cause of urban Black hardships. The asset frame includes scholarship focusing on the agency and cultural contributions of urban Black Americans. Detailing the historical origins and contemporary use of these frames, we demonstrate how the sociology of urban Black America remains a reflection of the possibilities and problems of the broader discipline. The review concludes by outlining new conceptual opportunities offered by what we refer to as chocolate city sociology.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

ABSTRACTThrough a study of middle-class power in Norwich in the first third of the twentieth century, this paper tests a number of hypotheses concerning the behaviour of British urban elites. Analysis of networks (freemasons, business organizations and family) assesses the level of social unification among the middle class; elite involvement in chapel, charities and voluntary organizations addresses the question of social leadership; whilst elite politics is considered through three questions: did they become unified behind a single anti-socialist stance? Did the more important members of the elite leave urban politics? And did they abandon faith in grand civic projects? Its conclusions suggest that the power and involvement of the elite continued into the 1930s, maintaining a positive approach to the scope and function of municipal authority.

This paper argues that historical research on late medieval and early modern craft guilds fails to escape teleological and anachronistic views, including when they are addressed as commons or 'institutions for collective action'. These present-day conceptual lenses do not only create idealized views on guilds, but also of the contexts in which they operated, especially the state and the market. This is especially the case with neo-institutional views on the commons, which fall back on a transhistorical rational actor, who can choose between three options for the allocation of resources and surpluses, namely the state, the market and the common. The paper shows that guilds were fundamentally entangled with both the state and the market and that their ethic implied a less utilitarian and instrumental attitude towards natural resources. The consequence of this is that the history of the guilds offers different lessons to present-day commoners than those implied by present-day research. With an eye at launching a reflection on that, I argue in favour of a cosmopolitical perspective, which invites to take fundamentally different worldviews seriously. This includes questioning our own conceptual and analytical abstractions like the state, the market and the individual, up to and including the very distinction between nature and society or nature and politics, which are at the very basis of modern science itself.

This article analyzes the impact of the residential security maps created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) during the 1930s on residential mortgages in Philadelphia. Researchers have consistently argued that HOLC caused redlining and disinvestment in U.S. cities by sharing its color-coded maps. Geographic information systems and spatial statistical models were used to analyze address-level mortgage data from Philadelphia to determine if areas with worse grades actually had less access to residential mortgage credit as a result. Findings indicate that the grades on HOLC's map do not explain differences in lending patterns with the exception of interest rates, which were higher in areas colored red. Archival material and journal articles from the 1930s also reveal that lenders were avoiding areas colored red before HOLC made its maps, that HOLC's maps were not widely distributed, and that lenders had other sources of information about real estate risk levels.

I seek to provide an overview of the historical and geographical emergence of city-regions and to reflect on some of the debates that have arisen in regard to the theoretical status of these phenomena. I briefly describe the growth and spread of city-regions in the world since the mid-1950s and I consider how contemporary capitalism and globalization have fostered the development of this distinctive urban form. The internal organization of city-regions is then examined, with special reference to four generic outcomes, namely (a) aestheticized land-use intensification, (b) gentrification, (c) social polarization and informality, and (d) postsuburban landscapes. Issues of governance and policy are scrutinized and basic dilemmas of political coordination in city-regions are described. The argument ends with an evaluative review of certain critiques of the city-region idea in the current academic literature.

Risk, including economic risk, is increasingly a concern for public policy and management. The possibility of dealing effectively with risk is hampered, however, by lack of a sound empirical basis for risk assessment and management. This article demonstrates the general point for cost and demand risks in urban rail projects. The article presents empirical evidence that allow valid economic risk assessment and management of urban rail projects, including benchmarking of individual or groups of projects. Benchmarking of the Copenhagen Metro is presented as a case in point. The approach developed is proposed as a model for other types of policies and projects in order to improve economic and financial risk assessment and management in policy and planning.

In the spring of 1959 the City of Winnipeg ordered the removal of fourteen families, mostly Métis, from land needed for the construction of a new high school in south Winnipeg. For at least a decade, the presence of Rooster Town, as the squatters’ shantytown was known, had drawn complaints from residents of the new middle-class suburbs who objected to the proximity of families of mixed ancestry who seemed indolent, immoral, and irresponsible and whose children brought contagious diseases into the elementary school. Suburban anxieties gave expression to a much deeper municipal colonialism that since the incorporation of Winnipeg had denied Aboriginal people a place in the city. Various agencies of municipal governance and the processes of urban development dispossessed indigenous peoples and pushed them farther onto the edges of the city until no space remained for them. The removal of Rooster Town erased the last visible evidence of a continuing Métis community that had survived in ...

The conversation between economic geographers and political economists has not made much progress. The former focus on exchange, markets and efficiency, as can be seen in work on urban economies. We want the field to pay more attention to two processes crucial to the growth of cities often lying outside market exchange and agglomeration economies: how resources are managed across time and space and how the urban environment creates challenges demanding collective responses. We first make the case for the two processes using historical examples and then argue for the importance of similar processes today. We do not propose to make a definitive argument, but rather to challenge economic geographers with an expanded research agenda for the future. The Journal of Economic Geography (JEG) was founded with the aim of encouraging discussion and exchange of ideas among economists and geographers who are concerned with issues of economic development and change. Or, as the mission statement puts it, 'The Journal of Economic Geography seeks to redefine and reinvigorate the links between the disciplines of economics and geography.' Everyone agrees that progress has been hard due to deep epistemological and ontological divides. Each side thinks the other gets it wrong and each tends to stay within its comfort zone (Garretson and Martin, 2011). While there has been progress since the JEG was founded, we think it is important to continue to push the boundaries of debate outward. In particular, we note that economic geographers and economists alike focus overwhelmingly on exchange, markets and efficiency. We suggest that this blinkers the field of economic geography/geographical economics in crucial ways. This limitation can be seen in one of the most important contemporary fields of economic geography, urban economics, and its reliance on the theory of agglomeration economies. The model, in brief, is this: people cluster together to reduce the cost of searches and transactions, to share infrastructure and intermediate suppliers, and to facilitate matching of labor and employers (a more productive division of labor, and productivity is further enhanced because cities attract skilled workers and unskilled workers learn

This paper explores how theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may be used to conduct quality control and due diligence in project management. First, a much-neglected issue in project management is identified, namely that the front-end estimates of costs and benefits – used in the business cases, cost-benefit analyses, and social and environmental impact assessments that typically support decisions on projects – are typically significantly different from actual ex post costs and benefits, and are therefore poor predictors of the actual value and viability of projects. Second, it is discussed how Kahneman and Tversky’s theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may help explain and remedy this situation through quality control of decisions. Third, it is described what quality control and due diligence are in the context of project management, and an eight-step procedure is outlined for due diligence based on the outside view. Fourth, the procedure is tested on a real-life, multibillion-dollar project, organized as a public-private partnership. Finally, Akerlof and Shiller’s recent discussion in economics of “firing the forecaster” is discussed together with its relevance to project management. In sum, the paper demonstrates the need, the theoretical basis, a practical methodology, and a real-life example for how to de-bias project management using quality control and due diligence based on the outside view.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery and the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus sponsored a 2011 voting rights suit, Lowery v. Deal, that demanded the disincorporation of several majority-white cities in Georgia’s Fulton and DeKalb Counties and preemption against attempts by affluent and majority-white north Fulton to secede from the rest of the county. Secession would have severe consequences for racial equity in the metropolitan area. Lowery’s 2011 dismissal by the district court reflects ascendant color-blind racial ideology that defends white privilege in metropolitan space by attributing it to culturally and legally legitimate race-neutral processes. Historical analysis challenges this colorblind interpretation, identifying the nominally class-based interests of north Fulton residents with systemic racial discrimination and the politics of secession with historic patterns of spatial politics that have sought not only to exclude but also to manipulate political space to limit the ability of black voters and officials to make decisions affecting whites and their property.

There is increasing evidence that the built environment has an influence on physical activity; however, little is known about this relationship in developing countries.This study examined the associations between attributes of the built environment and walking patterns among the elderly.A multilevel cross-sectional study was conducted in 2007. Fifty neighborhoods were selected and 1966 participants aged ≥60 years were surveyed. Objective built environment measures were obtained in a buffer of 500 m using GIS. Environmental perceptions were assessed via questionnaire.People who lived in areas with middle park area (4.53%–7.98% of land) were more likely to walk for at least 60 minutes during a usual week (prevalence OR [POR]=1.42, 95% CI=1.02, 1.98). Those who lived in areas with the highest connectivity index (1.81–1.99) were less likely to report walking for at least 60 minutes (POR=0.64, 95% CI=0.44, 0.93). Participants who reported feeling safe or very safe from traffic were more likely to report walking for at least 60 minutes (POR=1.50, 95% CI=1.11, 2.03). The presence of Ciclovía (recreational program) was marginally associated with having walked at least 150 minutes in a usual week (POR=1.29, 95% CI=0.97, 1.73).This study showed that certain built and perceived environment characteristics were associated with walking among older adults living in Bogotá. Further studies should be conducted to better understand the potential influence of the built environment on physical activity among the elderly population in the context of Latin American cities.

This article examines the combination of circumstances which transformed the appearance, representations and social practices of the city during the course of the eighteenth century. Through these changes, it will be argued, the traditional practice of collective promenade as a sign of ‘social visibility’ developed into the new form of the individualized figure of the promeneur. Three successive time periods – and three types of evidence – are used to testify to this evolution from earlier patterns of social comportment into a new urban habit: first, the development and the transformation of the ritual of the polite promenade; second, the construction of open promenades around the city (notably, the boulevards and the Champs-Elysées); and, finally, the definition of the identity of the promeneur, as elaborated by writers such as Louis-Sébastien Mercier and Nicolas-Edmé Rétif de la Bretonne.

Two of the most celebrated black neighborhoods in the United States—Harlem in New York City and Bronzeville in Chicago—were once plagued by crime, drugs, and abject poverty. But now both have transformed into increasingly trendy and desirable neighborhoods with old buildings being rehabbed, new luxury condos being built, and banks opening branches in areas that were once redlined. In The New Urban Renewal, Derek S. Hyra offers an illuminating exploration of the complicated web of factors—local, national, and global—driving the remarkable revitalization of these two iconic black communities.

How did these formerly notorious ghettos become dotted with expensive restaurants, health spas, and chic boutiques? And, given that urban renewal in the past often meant displacing African Americans, how have both neighborhoods remained black enclaves? Hyra combines his personal experiences as a resident of both communities with deft historical analysis to investigate who has won and who has lost in the new urban renewal. He discovers that today’s redevelopment affects African Americans differentially: the middle class benefits while lower-income residents are priced out. Federal policies affecting this process also come under scrutiny, and Hyra breaks new ground with his penetrating investigation into the ways that economic globalization interacts with local political forces to massively reshape metropolitan areas.

As public housing is torn down and money floods back into cities across the United States, countless neighborhoods are being monumentally altered. The New Urban Renewal is a compelling study of the shifting dynamics of class and race at work in the contemporary urban landscape.

Niccolò Machiavelli, the founder of modern political and administrative thought, made clear that an understanding of politics requires distinguishing between formal politics and what later, with Ludwig von Rochau, would become known as Realpolitik. No such distinction has been employed in the study of rationality. Yet I will argue that distinguishing between formal rationality and real rationality is as important for the understanding of rationality and planning as the distinction between formal politics and Realpolitik has been for understanding politics.

THE LOS ANGELES BASIN is drained by two major river systems and one minor stream: the Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel River, and Ballona Creek. As a result of flood control works, these drainages no longer resemble rivers or creeks but wide, relatively straight concrete-lined channels. Many regret the permanent channeling of streams in Los Angeles County, remembering fondly when the rivers meandered between willow-covered banks and children spent summer afternoons wading in the mud or catching crayfish in the deeper pools. This feeling of nostalgia, however, is misplaced. In contrast to the friendly winding streams many remember or imagine the rivers of the Los Angeles Basin were like before they became dammed and channeled, these drainages often became destructive tor- rents of muddy water, rocks, gravel, and other debris that caused millions of dollars in property damages and left hundreds dead and homeless. Controlling the flood menace of the Los Angeles County Drainage Area did not come easy. It was achieved over a 65-year period, costing millions of dollars and no small amount of trial and error, yet without it, the development of greater metropolitan Los Angeles could not have occurred.

This article examines the evidence for production activities in the cities of Roman North Africa and shows how the importance of urban craft production has been largely overlooked in many discussions of the ancient economy. It is usually difficult to determine the true scale of urban production activities without extensive excavation, since workshops were often quite small; they may, however, have been numerous and scattered throughout a city. Excavations of the scale required are rarely achievable with today's techniques; two sites excavated in the first half of the twentieth century, however, reveal a situation characterized by a number of workshops: 22 fulleries at Timgad and 18 establishments for salting fish in Sabratha. Urban surface survey is suggested here as the best method to investigate sites where it is feasible, in order to identify the extent of the deposits of waste production, with the help of geophysical surveys to locate ovens and furnaces, and excavation to investigage specific areas. This combination of techniques has been successfully tested at Leptiminus, Meninx and Thamusida, and has allowed us to identify the presence of production activities for ceramics, metal working, and the extraction of purple dye. The evidence emerging from recent archaeological investigations suggests that the contribution of craft manufacture to the economy of Roman cities was potentially significant, while the aggregate scale of production in the sites discussed indicates a much larger role for craft activities than has usually been considered. The model of the 'consumer city' does not seem suitable for many Roman cities, and attempts to describe the economy of Roman urbanism should pay more attention to the role of cities in networks of local, regional, and long-distance trade.

Questo articolo esamina l'evidenza per le attività industriali nelle città del nord Africa romano e dimostra come l'importanza della produzione artigianale urbana sia stata largamente sottovalutata in molte discussioni di economia antica. Di solito è difficile stabilire la giusta scala delle attività produttive urbane senza effettuare degli scavi estensivi, visto che i laboratori erano molto spesso piuttosto piccoli; ciò non toglie che essi potrebbero essere stati comunque numerosi e distribuiti all'interno della città. Scavi della estensione necessaria non sono irrealizzabili con le tecniche odierne; due siti scavati nella prima metà del ventesimo secolo hanno infatti portato alla luce un quadro caratterizzato da numerosi laboratori: 22 fulloniche a Timgad e 18 stabilimenti per la salatura del pesce a Sabratha. La ricognizione di superficie viene qui indicata come il metodo migliore per effettuare ricerche nei siti che lo consentono, al fine di identificare l'ampiezza dei depositi di rifiuti di fabbricazione, con l'aiuto di indagini geofisiche per trovare forni e fornaci, e scavi di alcune aree specifiche. Questo tipo di tecniche è stato sperimentato con successo a Leptiminus, Meninx e Thamusida, e ha permesso di identificare la presenza di attività di produzione ceramica, lavoro dei metalli e dell'industria per l'estrazione della porpora per la tintura. L'evidenza che emerge dalle recenti indagini archeologiche suggerisce che il contributo dell'industria cittadina all'economia delle città antiche fosse potenzialmente significativo, mentre la scala di produzione nei siti discussi indica un carattere artigianale della vita di queste città molto più consistente di quanto non sia stato di solito ritenuto. Il modello della 'città di consumo' non sembra adattarsi completamente a molte delle città romane, e i tentativi di descrizione dell'economia dell'urbanismo romano dovrebbero prestare più attenzione al ruolo delle città nelle reti di commercio locale, regionale e su lunga distanza.