6. With the advent of modern methods of communication the whole world has been transformed into a single mechanism of which a country or a city is merely an integral part. The specialization of function, which has been a concomitant of city growth, has created a state of interdependence of world-wide proportions. Fluctuations in the price of wheat on the Chicago Grain Exchange reverberate to the remotest part of the globe, and a new invention anywhere will soon have to be reckoned with at points far from its origin. The city has become a highly sensitive unit in this complex mechanism, and in turn acts as a transmitter of such stimulation as it receives to a local area. This is as true of economic and political as it is of social and intellectual life.
Baer, M. Der internationale Mädchenhandel, Vol. XXXVII in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Shows that the large city is the center of the world white-slave traffic. (III, 4; VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Bernhard, Georg. Berliner Banken, Vol. VIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
While primarily a study of Berlin banks, shows the large city as the center of the economic life of the world. (III, 4; V, 1; IX, 1, 4.)
Jefferson, Mark. “Distribution of British Cities and the Empire,” Geog. Rev., IV (November, 1917), 387–94.
“English cities are unique in that they have taken the whole world for their countryside.... The conception of the British empire as the direct result of English trade in English manufactures, which in turn are largely a response to English treasures in coal and iron, is strongly reenforced by the distribution of her great cities.” (III, 4; VI, 8.)
Olden, Balder. Der Hamburger Hafen, Vol. XLVI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The influence of world-commerce on the city. (III, 3, 4; IV, 4; V, 1; IX, 1, 4.)
Penck, Albrecht. Der Hafen von New York, Vol. IV of the collection, “Meereskunde” (Berlin, 1910).