How did the growth of railroads foster the creation of new urban, Financial and the market centers across the.?

[felicia]

...country?

Railroads, more than any other industry transformed American economic landscape and social fabric in the four decades after the Civil war.

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[muncie birder]

3 paragraphs!!!!!

before railroads, markets were local markets. The sizes of towns were constrained by the fact that food, goods and populations had to travel short distances--within about 20 miles maximum. The railroads changed all of that. The market area for goods especially expanded geometrically so manufacturing centers could also expand geometrically. That enabled geometric expansion of population densities within these manufacturing centers. Not only was Chicago a railroad center but it was also the meat packing capital of the U S. Cattle and hogs were railroaded in from the west, slaughtered, and the slaughtered meet was railroaded to the cities in the east.

Street railroads (streetcars) and later subways allowed larger cities to become very large indeed as people could within a half hour's time travel very long distances. Chicago and New York became the two largest cities in the United States thanks to street railroads.

And of course after the civil war the building and completion of the transcontinental railroads opened the western U S to development which enabled immigration of millions of people from Europe to the U S and expanded the markets for products to serve this greater population.

As for financial empowerment, the wealth that was created by the railroads led to a boom in trading of steel stocks and railroad stocks on Wall Street. Of course steel companies benefited greatly from the building of the railroads. Another industry that grew rapidly because of the railroads was the textile industry centered in New England where there was water power from fast flowing rivers. The railroads allowed for a mammoth distribution of textiles where before it was not possible.