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ECONOMICS OF GEOGRAPHY

From time immemorial, societies have always located near water bodies. The primary

reason attributable to this scenario is the fact that water enables more active travel compared to

going over land. Waterways have always been of great importance to the transportation of people

and goods throughout the world from ancient times. However, sea alone cannot meet all the

human needs in transport and therefore it has to be used alongside land or air to make the

transport system more efficient. The complex transport network connects coastal ports, rail, and

truck routes. This system of interconnections is what forms the foundation of material economic

wealth worldwide (McGuire 88).

The history of goods transportation is closely linked to the history of civilization. The

ancient form of trade was barter, and therefore movement of commodities from one place to

another was critical. Eight hundred years ago is a very long time and much of the transport

system in the world today had not been developed. Movement of goods and people was very

difficult, and trading perishable goods was close to impossible. Transportation of animals was

challenging, and the early means of transport only favored durable goods. The human desire to

create a reliable transport system to facilitate movement of people and goods is directly related to

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humanity’s ultimate transition from a nomadic existence of hunters and gatherers to the

sedentary life of an agrarian society (Paine 33).

The evolution and emergence of major ancient and modern cities and human settlement

can be attributed to comparative advantages of the location with respect to trade. The

comparative advantage was due to ease of people and goods movement to trade centers with

respect to other relevant areas. The parts explored in this paper are on major transportation

technology that facilitated the trade for the last eight hundred years. Transportation systems

made tremendous shifts in the business institutions that led to extensive changes to the structure

of goods transport than original technological change.

Prehistory of transportation

For the first two million years of human existence, societies were primitive and

composed only of hunters and gatherers living a subsistence life. As humans continued to evolve,

human power, on foot was the only mode to transport life necessities to where they were needed.

The early nomad human tribes did not have to carry food and water over a long distance since

they were just located along river banks or oasis. They also moved along with food and water

sources they shifted over a long distance until the need to find water and food arose again. As

human civilization led to agrarian, agricultural settlements was established near lakes and rivers

with fresh waters (Paine 67). Water served two primary economic needs; it was an absolute

necessity for growing crops and sustaining human lives. Moreover, water offered increasing

mobility to expanding sedentary communities.

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The development of early human civilization dependent upon water sources was

complimentary with the first crucial revolution in goods transportation. The water-borne

movement was on the rise, and it had predated agrarian society. Societies were living adjacent to

water bodies built rafts that they used for fishing over a reasonable distance over water. The rafts

were peddled using human power. Sail ships also supplemented waterborne travel, and it

enhanced fisheries and hunting experiences. The invention of sail ships is estimated to have

occurred 2000BC in Polynesian in eastern Asia. The society used sails to move around enormous

bodies of water to trade.

The invention of the wheel that was attached to a cart by Sumerians radically transformed

the early nomadic societies. Trade goods could now be loaded onto large domesticated animals

like camels, donkeys, horses and oxen. Wheel invention also changed the nature of human

existence. In the first instance, the wheel led to the building of large wagons that could carry

more goods than were necessary for the well-being of the traders. The wheel further led to

another human transition from mere subsistence to a barter economy (Smil 18). With the

wheeled carts that were either pulled by humans or animals, people could grow more crops than

they needed themselves. This is what led to barter trade with other individuals for other food or

materials. The greatest barrier to the use of the wheeled cart for business was that the system

needed much more efficiently if a smooth dirt or stone trail was available.

Romans handled the development of identifiable road network to facilitate movement

throughout the growing empire. They were also the first human civilization to use more efficient

means of land transport in the form of horses and mules on a widespread basis. During the

Roman era, there was an effective movement of goods by boats and oar via a network of

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navigable waterways of Europe and Asia. The Roman transport system also allowed a messenger

service that facilitated good communication throughout the empire.

Transport network stagnation characterized the middle ages and the development of trade

economies in Europe. The middle ages in Europe due to some reasons. The first reason is that the

road network throughout Europe was based upon the old Roman Empire paths. Secondly, road

constructions activities were very costly than the value of the goods transported. The major

transportation technology breakthrough of the time was the development of draft harnesses that

were borrowed from Chinese Empire. The draft allowed horses to pull heavier loads more

efficiently. Therefore, animals could perform labor for longer times.

During the European rule by Roman Empire, inland canals in some parts of Europe had

been developed mostly for military needs. As the efficiency of land transport over travel by

water became apparent, some of the inland canals systems were reestablished. In the early 1100s,

England had functional inland canal systems. Further, in the middle of the thirteenth century, a

more commercially viable inland canal system was created in the Po River Valley in Italy. Cogs

(small ships) were used to transport bulk goods over these canals.

The middle age era also says the development of human society beyond tribal classes into

states and cities. The legal institutions to protect property rights were still uncommon. Traders

still had the fear of moving goods over a long distance since they could be seized. Merchants had

a personal obligation of protecting their goods as they moved from settlement to settlement. The

frequent seizures were carried out by robbers, noblemen, and kings and to them it was a common

way of life. The England land and water transportation system was taxed and protected by the

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monarch. Merchant compliance with this process ensured that trade throughout England was

carried out in relative safety compared to continental Europe.

The ports and harbors acted as collection points for payments by the merchant for the

right to conduct maritime trade in the England Kingdom. Tolls were efficiently collected over

well-established routes of inland waterways. The same practice was replicated in Asia.

Waterborne transport was thus subject to repeated tolling, and this made it a very expensive

mode of transportation. The numbers of tolling centers were rising rapidly such that by 1500

there were over sixty tolls along Rhine River alone. The standard commodities that were carried

by water were grains and salt since they were bulk. However, due to the tolls, the cost of paying

fees could even exceed twelve times the value of cargo in transit.

Police often had difficulty in controlling violence and seizure of assets over the water

bodies. In some places in Europe, water piracy was sanctioned by the European states that were

developing. Venice rose to become a trade hub due piracy being under control. However, over a

long distance in large water bodies, it was had to be monitored, and it was thus riskier for

merchants. Merchants who engaged in longer voyages, their freight capacity had to be traded off

against the addition of crew to ward off the attack. Another way to ward off attack was through

organized freights, but the problem with such an arrangement was logistical challenges. Sailing

ships of the time were difficult to maneuver and thus hard to keep in a convoy. Wars were a

frequent occurrence and these often disrupted voyages.

Transportation in the pre-industrial era (pre the 1800s)The process of globalization is

closely linked to transportation. Efficient movement of freight and people has always been an

important element for maintaining the cohesion of economic systems from empires to modern

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nation-states and economic blocs. With transportation technological advancements prior 1960s, it

was possible to move cargo and people more efficiently, faster and in large volumes long

distances. The section will be split into four parts to discuss technological advancements in the

transport sector; the pre-industrial times, the industrial revolution era, Fordism, and post-

Fordism.

Prior to the critical technical transformations brought forth by industrial revolution at the

end of the eighteenth century, there were no forms of motorized transportation that was in

existence. As already mentioned above, traffic was mainly limited to harnessing animal labor for

land transport and the wind for marine and inland transportation. Both the quantity transported,

and speed of traffic was very limited. Some of the ancient civilizations that developed along the

rivers include Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Indus, Huang He and The Ganges. The international trade

of the time only involved precious goods such as silk, ornaments, spices and wine.

The reduced efficiency of land transport limited the scope of most trades to be local.

Economies that were based on autonomy and mere substance could not generate much business.

The location of ancient cities was strategic. This ensured that such cities took advantage of the

defensible of commercial advantage. The trade of perishable agricultural products was limited to

a radius of about fifty kilometers at most. Walking around the cities was uncommon given the

inherent limitation of human speed. The famous cities such as Venice, Rome, and Beijing never

exceeded twenty square kilometers. The only cities that had a population of over one-hundred

thousand were few, and it was due to maritime and land trade networks.

Prior to the industrialization era, there were very few urban systems. Rather, there were

only sets of relatively self-sufficient economic systems with the very limited trade. Shipping of

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commodities from one place to another was difficult and this further limited trade. Roman and

Chinese had done exceptionally well to revolutionize their transport systems, and this ensured

that they were able to control extensive territory for a long time. For the case of Romans, the

Empire grew an intricate network of coastal shipping and roads. The Roman road network

interconnected a set of large towns around the Mediterranean basin. Consequently, the Roman

Empire was able to trade with India and China. The Chinese Empire built an efficient water

transport system by interconnecting artificial canals to form a Grand Canal.

The economic benefits and geopolitics of transportation were recognized early enough

especially the maritime transport system. Shipping was the most convenient way to move freight

and passengers around. Some of the great ancient empires were established with the marine

transportation network. The early ships were commonly peddled and later sailing ships propelled

by the wind were developed but as a complementary form of propulsion. Shipping also helped

ease movement of bulk goods such as salt, timber, and grains. The advent of the fourteenth

century saw galleys being replaced with fully fledged sail ships. The sail ships were smaller and

required the fewer crew to be on board. The Portuguese discovered the trade winds in 1431 on

North Atlantic, and this increased the usage of sail ships. A similar discovery of monsoon winds

was made in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the trade channel was disrupted, and

merchants had to find alternative routes from Europe to Asia. One of the prominent ways was

Vasco de Gama made the one that was followed by Columbus in 1492 (sail to the West) and the

other in 1497 to the East. While Vasco da Gama found a route to India through the Cape Town,

Columbus landed on the American continent. European colonization and exploration soon

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followed the discoveries by Columbus and Vasco da Gama. Initially, it was by Spain and

Portugal but they were later joined by Britain, Netherlands and France. Europe was now able to

master maritime and built better efficient ships and thus they could control international trade

and colonization. Dutch East India Company handled establishing trading networks that spanned

the world. In the early 18th century, most of the world’s territories were under European rule.

The vast area provided wealth and markets to thriving metropolis through a system of colonial

trade.

Pre-industrial revolution ear was dominated by a small quantity of freight that was

transported between nations. In fact, compared to today’s cargo shipment, they are negligible.

There was mercantilism between the 15th and 18th, but it only improved the volume but not the

speed of trade. The payments along the inland transportation were so high, and it frustrated many

traders. The European permission of bulk movement of cargo along the inland ways expanded

regional trade. Maritime and fluvial transportation dominated the pre-industrial era as the

dominant mode of transportation.

The industrial revolution and transportation (1800-1870) Critical series of changes took

place in Europe that would later transform the world’s economic, political and technological

landscape. The changes are what later came to be known as industrial revolution. Four factors

are attributable to the industrial age. The first factor is the scientific method that evoked a

rational approach to the laws of nature and formalization of technical professions such as

physics, chemistry, and engineering. The process in turn fostered several significant innovations

and the application of these innovations. The second factor is the property right. The Democratic

institutions were strengthened, and private ownership was protected. Property owners had a good

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representation in elected legislature, and capital accumulation was able to expand. The third

driver was capital markets. Bank and other financial institutions grew and were able to gather

capital pools and invest them in economic ventures. The emergence of financial institutions was

becoming increasingly rational and institutionalized. The last and most crucial factor was

communication and transport infrastructure. The markets could interact more freely due to the

setting of mechanized transport systems that supported the distribution of resources and setting

up of comparative advantages.

The majority of technical innovations took place between 1760 and 1800. The transport

modification system occurred in two faces. The first took place in the development of canal

systems while the second was centered along railways. The same period was marked by the

development of the steam engine. The steam engine was an external combustion engine that

converted thermal energy into mechanical energy that propelled trains and ships. The first steam

engine was developed in 1765, but it was used to pump water out of mines. The first self-

propelled steam engine was developed by Cugnot (French engineer). The first mechanically

propelled an American inventor Flitch built a maritime vehicle in 1790, and it was used as a

method of transport on the Delaware River. Early 1800 were marked by the manufacturer of

steamboats. These events now marked a new era where mechanization of land and maritime

transport system.

Ground transportation was not readily developed due to the well-established inland

transportation. Most of the roads were unpaved, and this made it hard to carry heavy loads.

Inland distribution system was unable to accommodate the growing quantities of raw materials

and finished goods, and this is what prompted Europeans to rethink about the roads. In the era of

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horse-drawn carts, a road economy was very disadvantageous to merchants. Bulk commodities

could be transported over a given distance but at a very slow, costly and inefficient manner. For

example, four horses could pull a wagon weighing one ton for just twelve miles a day along an

ordinary road.

England and the United States were among the emerging economies that built a set of

freight shipping canals. England built Bridgewater Canal I 1761 while the United States built

Erie Canal in 1825. The canals made use of locks to overcome elevation challenges. Thus, they

could efficiently link different parts of fluvial systems into a comprehensive waterway system.

Specialization and economies of scale (the foundation of modern industrial production) became

widely applicable in the fluvial canals. Canal network was constrained by geographical location

and physical obstacles. Technological advancement in the second half of the nineteenth century

made the canal era short lived.

Railway system first appeared in 1814. Coal was used to heat water that produced steam

that was used to propel trains. Merchants readily welcomed the railway transport since by the use

of steam engine on smooth rails required less power and could carry heavier loads. The first rail

system that linked Manchester and Liverpool were built in 1830 and stretched over a distance of

sixty-five kilometers. The tracks soon became famous in Europe and developed countries and

national systems were also developed. One benefit of rail transport was speed since a train could

travel at a speed of thirty to forty kilometers per hour which was like three times the rate of

Stagecoach services. The railway system required massive resources and many governments left

its constructions to the hands of private sector. Nevertheless, there was public involvement when

it came to loans and land grants.

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The grants included the right of way, building, maintenance and operating costs. By early

1850s, railways were changing the structure of the society. Towns began to emerge along the

railroads add access to resources and markets were better than the past ages. In the 1850s, a

railway stretching over 10,000km was already functional in England while North America was

constructing its first ever rail system. Standard railway time was adopted to ensure that there was

a smooth operation of the trains. There modern Greenwich Mean Time was created as the

standard reference time in 1855.Railroads offered an efficient inland transport system that was

very flexible in its spatial coverage and it could also carry bulkier loads. The canals collapsed

since they were unable to compete with the railways. In North America, railroads reduced

transport time for passengers who were traveling over a long distance. For instance, moving from

New York to Chicago initially took three weeks but with railway system passengers could take a

maximum of three days. The railroads thus closely linked many cities thus further favoring

specialization and economies of scale (Montgomery and Alok Kumar 67). The railroads were

also responsible for opening the eastern parts of the United States a vast pool or new agricultural

resources. Canada built trans-Canada railway while Russia developed trans-Siberian railway in

1904.International transportation in the 19th century was improved after the establishment of

first maritime routes that linked harbors across the world. However, active transportation was

mainly between America and Europe. Composite ships were built and were partly used in the

trade between Europe and America until they were phased out. There Savannah was the first

steamship that closed the Atlantic, and it took twenty-nine days to link Liverpool and New York.

Helix replaced the manual paddles, and transatlantic passengers transport steamships started in

1838. Steam engines were still undergoing development and each generation of the steam

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engines permitted longer and safer voyages. By the late 19th century, steamships were the

dominant mode of maritime transport.

The emergence of modern transportation systems (1870-1920) the end of the 19th century

marked a shift from steam engines to oil as new propulsion mode. Inventors started experiments

on engines that could be propelled by oil. Oil increased the speed of ships and trains as well as

maritime capacity. Further, oil reduced energy consumption by ships by a factor of ninety

percent of the coal that was earlier used. The construction of Suez Canal made Asia and

Australia more accessible than before. Diesel was the typical oil that propelled engines. Due to

more power of petroleum, larger ships were built resulting in massive voyages and increased

transportation of goods across the world. More harbors and docks were constructed to cater for

rapidly increasing shipments. Regular international passenger transport services were started in

the 1880s and dominated up to 1950s after which air transportation became the dominant mode.

The diesel engine era marked an era in which railway transport systems blossomed to

become the premier transport mode for freight and passengers. Diesel engines increased speed

and locomotive power above one-hundred kilometers per hour. As the commodity market was

expanded, railroads became specialized for the transport of either passenger or freight. The

railway transportation seemed to have reached maturity phase by the early 20th century.

With time passage and many European countries underwent demographic transitions that

resulted in rapid population growth and migration pressures. The growth of urban population

favored the constructions of public urban transport systems (Montgomery and Alok Kumar 45).

Tramways were introduced in Western Europe and America, and they profoundly improved the

urban transport system. They were also responsible for economic specialization between the

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workplace and residence. The development of bicycles in 1863 was an important innovation that

changed the urban transport in the late 19th century. The rich initially used bicycles for leisure,

but the working class adopted them as a cheap and reliable mode of transportation.

Development in telecommunications also marked the industrial era. The telegraph

replaced messengers, and it was the first reliable method of communication that interconnected

many markets. There United States was the first country to build telegraph lines that opened a

new era of information transmission after it was completed. In 1866, the first intercontinental

telegraph network was developed. The growth of telecommunication is intertwined with the

growth of railways and international shipping. Telegraphic communications made it easier to

manage continental transport systems. Many countries built railroads and telegraph lines

concurrently.

Harbor crane technology is another technology that made a tremendous impact on

maritime transportation. The first harbor crane was built during the middle Ages, and it was a

stationary crane at the harbor powered by treadwheels. The Romans and Greeks, however, did

not use the crane since they had enough reservoirs of saves that they were exploiting.

Commercial use of harbor cranes first appeared in Flanders, Holland and Germany in the 13th

century. In England, harbor cranes date back to the 14th century. With harbor cranes in place,

offloading and loading of ships was made easy. Crane technologies continued to evolve such that

by the 1600s a crane that allowed horizontal movement of the lead was built.

The 19th century was marked by the creation of iron cranes instead of wood. Iron made

the cranes stronger and efficient. In 1824, the iron rope was invented that made it safe to offload

and load heavy cargo. The first steam powered crane was developed in 1851, and it redefined the

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future of the cranes. Subsequent generations of the cranes used the mechanical power that

reduced the loading time. More cargo could be loaded and offloaded, and maritime

transportation became friendlier to merchants.

Conclusion

Transportation has undergone tremendous changes from ancient times. It started with

walking and running since human needs were still limited at that time. Necessity prompted

humanity to seek better means to satisfy their wants. As the population increased, the available

means of transport needed expansion and in some cases it needed to be replaced. Every

discovery was a giant footstep to the future of better transport system. The importance of

investing rafts is the same as that of discovering steam ships.

The dominant modes of transportation from ancient times have always been landed and

water. However, none of the methods is more efficient on its own, and the two modes are thus

complementary. Most of advanced transport technologies took place in the late 19th century and

early 20th century. Discovery of steam engines was one bit of bit, but nothing can defeat the

invention of oil engines. With diesel propelled engines, speed was significantly improved, and

more cars developed. Also, diesel engines handled the emergence of the aviation industry

(Nebeker 44).

Major transportation technologies were invented in Europe. However, with the discovery

of America by Columbus, a lot of technological inventions were made by the United States.

When a new transport technology was discovered, it was quickly replicated in other nations. A

good example is railway which quickly spread from Europe to America. Also, colonization led to

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spread of transport technologies in new continent such as Africa. Colonials mainly relied on rails

to transport goods to various destinations. As transport technologies continue to evolve, more

sophisticated modes are emerging to make transport easier and faster.

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Work cited

Montgomery, Scott L and Alok Kumar . A History of Science in World Cultures: Voices of

Knowledge Paperback. Routledge, 2015.

Paine, Lincoln. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. n.d.

Smil, Vicla. Prime Movers of Globalization: The History and Impacts of Diesel Engines and Gas

Turbines . The MIT Press, 2013.

McGuire, Michael J. The Chlorine Revolution: Water Disinfection and the Fight to Save Lives. ,

2013. Print.

Nebeker, Frederik. Dawn of the Electronic Age: Electrical Technologies in the Shaping of the

Modern World, 1914 to 1945. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2009. Internet resource.