Ticket to Ride: Social Geography and Railroads in Nineteenth-Century London

The development of a complex railway system in the heart of a bustling industrial city such as London had profound effects on shaping the city’s social geography. The railway system, primarily funded and built by the British... [ view full abstract ]

The development of a complex railway system in the heart of a bustling industrial city such as London had profound effects on shaping the city’s social geography. The railway system, primarily funded and built by the British capitalist middle class, reflected their interests as the iron roads spread throughout the city. Necessarily, to lay track in an environment as densely populated as London, people had to be removed. London’s poor were ousted from their homes to make way for the railroads and shuffled into dwellings that were often exorbitantly expensive and unsanitary. As the population density of London increased, the conditions throughout the city decreased accordingly. Many well-to-do middle-class families fled the urban mire of the city for the comfort and safety of the suburbs, commuting to work via mass transportation such as the railroad. This exodus to the suburbs changed the nature of the concept of “suburbs” and created a new domain of the middle class. London’s railroads geographically and socially stratified its residents, redistributing them and linking class with physical location throughout the city. This endeavor seeks to link three formerly separate topics (railroads, class history, and social geography) to present the complex impact of railroads.