![]() ![]() ![]() The final section of the book, titled "The Geography of Capital" examines the spatial dynamics of Chicago's place in a "second nature" of capital relationships. In the case of meat, a vast meatpacking industry (enabled by the rise of refrigerated railroad cars that "annihilated" distance) took animals and disassembled them into discrete parts, utilizing more and more of the animal parts and further distancing consumers from the flesh-and-blood reality of the animal itself. In the case of grain, a standardized grading system and the rise of the grain elevator meant farmer's grain could be mixed together in a standard, liquid way. One central theme of this interaction was commodification, how natural products lost their ecological identities and were turned into capital. ![]() Railroads also catapulted Chicago up the urban hierarchy by becoming the conduit between eastern and western railroads, a place through which western products flowed to eastern markets. He goes on to explore three industries ( grain, lumber, and meat) as case studies for how Chicago interacted with the surrounding region. Railroads fundamentally altered people's relationship with space, as they dismantled the previous sense of seasonality and time that was necessary for river and road transportation (which was curtailed in winter months). Central to Chicago's rise was the expansion of the railroads which routed themselves through Chicago. ![]()
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