Germany’s Urban Frontiers: Nature and History on the Edge of the Nineteenth-Century City (Pittsburgh Hist Urban Environ)

In an era of transatlantic migration, Germans were fascinated by the myth of the frontier. Yet, for many, they were most likely to encounter frontier landscapes of new settlement and the taming of nature not in far-flung landscapes abroad, but on the edges of Germany's many growing cities. Germany's Urban Frontiers is the first book to examine how nineteenth-century notions of progress, community, and nature shaped the changing spaces of German urban peripheries as the walls and boundaries that had so long defined central European cities disappeared. Through a series of local case studies including Leipzig, Oldenburg, and Berlin, Kristin Poling reveals how Germans on the edge of the city confronted not only questions of planning and control, but also their own histories and futures as a community. "In an era of transatlantic migration, Germans were fascinated by the myth of the frontier. Yet, for many, they were most likely to encounter frontier landscapes of new settlement and the taming of nature not in far-flung landscapes abroad, but on the edges of Germany's many growing cities. Germany's Urban Frontiers is the first book to examine how nineteenth-century notions of progress, community, and nature shaped the changing spaces of German urban peripheries as the walls and boundaries that had so long defined central European cities disappeared. Through a series of local case studies including Leipzig, Oldenburg, and Berlin, Kristin Poling reveals how Germans on the edge of the city confronted not only questions of planning and control, but also their own histories and futures as a community"-- Provided by publisher Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 14 1 Picturing the City: Urban Panoramas on the Leipzig Ring 26 2 Conquering the Wasteland: Oldenburg’s Urban Empire in the Northwestern Moors 55 3 Taxing the Urban Border: The Persistence of Prussian City Walls 89 4 The Shantytown Frontier: City Planning and Wild Settlement on Berlin’s Urban Periphery 121 5 Urban Histories and National Futures in the German Empire 155 Conclusion 183 Notes 188 Bibliography 218 Index 254 Chapter 1. Picturing the city: urban panoramas on the Leipzig Ring -- Chapter 2. Conquering the wasteland: Oldenburg's urban empire in the northwestern moors -- Chapter 3. Taxing the urban border: the persistence of Prussian city walls -- Chapter 4. The shantytown frontier: city planning and wild settlement on Berlin's urban periphery -- Chapter 5. Urban histories and national futures in the German empire