ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that analysis of Birmingham as a manufacturing city in the eighteenth century must take outside that standard concept of the industrial city. The context is first that of indigenous regional growth; second, that of commerce and empire. Both of these works are large macroeconomic surveys analysing the relationship between urban and industrial growth within the framework of proto-industrialization and industrialization. Jane Jacobs in her Cities and the Wealth of Nations argues that city regions, especially those which expanded on the basis of import replacement, have a special vitality founded on their diversified yet concentrated markets and the symbiotic relations among producers. Birmingham's own historians have hitherto explained its outstanding creativity by reference to several factors: its absence of guild restrictions, its skilled workforce and its close-knit workshop culture. Jan de Vries argues that the striking feature about early modern Europe's rank-size distribution of cities compared to that of China was the existence of many smaller cities.
