The Maturing Urban System in the United States, 1840–1910∗

Analysis of bank correspondent linkages reveals that the urban system of the United States achieved maturity between 1880 and 1910. The shift from a primate financial flow system to a modified four-level hierarchy with highlevel interdependencies was based on initial advantage, cumulative concentration, inertia, regional specialization, and hinterland competition among rising regional centers. Extension of the banking fields of individual cities was related to the changing efficiency of the correspondent system, reserve city status, urban specialization in wholesaling or manufacturing, and changing comparative advantage. Hierarchical nesting of bank hinterlands under New York's general influence developed simultaneously with nonhierarchical linkages that tied subsystems laterally to each other. This banking integration of the urban network paralleled the more general economic reorientation of the late nineteenth century.