Part 4: Model Category: Setting

This chapter begins the investigation of a five-part Model. This Model provides a simple, logical way of organizing historical information. One of its four main elements is Setting, defined in the broadest sense of the word—the entire milieu of an event or situation, both natural and human-made. Setting includes all the environmental phenomena with which the physical and earth sciences deal, plus the products of technology, architecture, and city planning.

After World War II, in many cities across America, city authorities tore down slums and built housing for the poor. New high-rise apartments placed well back from the streets in landscaped parks replaced old, run-down three- to five-story buildings jammed up against sidewalks. Instead of an unsightly mix of stores, bars, businesses and low-rise apartments, the new housing complexes were dedicated to one purpose: providing good, modern apartments in quiet settings for the residents.

A result? Unexpectedly, crime rates soared in the new complexes. Where the old “slums” remained, the crime rates stayed low. In the old slums, businesses and bars kept the streets and sidewalks busy day and night. People watched the street from windows of the low apartment buildings. In this active setting, under the watchful eyes of many, crime was much less likely, and any person doing wrong was likely to be seen and stopped.

It’s been about a half century since the late Jane Jacobs pointed out the relationship between city environments and the behavior of residents. (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York, 1961, Random House). But it has been true throughout time—people shape settings, then the settings shape people.

Some of this is, or should be, obvious. Resources are a part of setting, and play an important role in our lives. The fuel used for cooking and heating in ancient Rome was wood. Forests within reasonable distance of the city were cut down, and fuel eventually became so scarce and expensive that some historians consider this as a major reason for the decline of the city at the end of the classical era.

The development of a spring-steel plow capable of turning the heavy sod of the American prairie was one key to opening the west to farming. Here a tool (part of the human-made setting) interacted with a part of the natural environment to create historical change.

In general, American history books do point to the significance of the “technology” part of setting. Most trace the impact of canals, railroads, steamboats, the cotton gin, McCormick’s reaper, and the like on 19th century America. Tools and technology are such obvious “engines of change,“ we may neglect others such as gradual climate change, the build-up of toxins in the air or water, the appearance of non-native plants, animals or insects, or the deterioration of infrastructure.

The study of history is incomplete without considering the significance of setting.