Introduction
How have American urban spaces changed in the last three centuries? Using Rochester, New York as our case study, this project seeks to investigate the continuities in spatial use and change within urban areas. Instead of typical urban histories examining different periods of urban history, like early resource extraction, frontier activity, the arrival of the railroad, or the obsession of car culture, our project searches for the overarching themes of these periods in spatial terms.
For example, below are two captured images of historic maps showing Rochester in 1822 and 1971. By moving the slider of the overlapped two images, we can see the shape and perimeter of the mill clusters in early Rochester, represented by the black dots, form the same shape of the inner loop, a state-level infrastructure project from the late twentieth century.
There is a clear link, over one-hundred years, that this same space was used and aided the development of Rochester as a city. This project examines the stories and more-fine details of this spatial continuity.