Canal Mania: Did England's Canal Towns Boom, and Do They Still Lead?

Between 1760 and 1830 England built most of its canal network. Did the towns the canals reached grow faster, and does any lead survive today? I date 77% by length of 3,884 km of OpenStreetMap canal in the UK by matching it to Wikipedia's list of UK canals, and follow the 29 largest towns in England in 1801 (London aside) through the census rankings to their 2021 built-up areas and ONS household income estimates. 14 of the 29 lay within 2 km of a canal dated 1830 or earlier. Between 1801 and 1861 these canal towns grew by a median of 4.0 times, against at most 2.7 times for the others; But the canal towns were already rising: only 3 of them were among the 30 largest towns of 1662, against 11 of the 15 others (Fisher's exact p = 0.009). By 2021 the canal towns are larger relative to 1801 (median growth 10.2 against 6.9 times) but not richer: allowing for size, the coast and the North, their mean household income is about 6.9% lower. Across 884 built-up areas in England and Wales, places on a canal of the canal age are about 54% larger than others in their region and about 2.7% lower in income once size is allowed for. The canal premium cannot be read as the effect of canals: canals were dug to towns already growing, the period overlaps the railways, and the samples are small. Size outlasted the boom; income did not. Interactive version: https://tristan-hotham.github.io/canal-mania/. Data and code: https://github.com/Tristan-Hotham/canal-mania. Blog post: https://blog.tristanhotham.com/2026/10/27/canal-mania/.