Transit Technology and Urban Development, Late 19th – Early 20th Century

By the middle of the nineteenth century, many affluent families had relocated to relatively rural locations and the heads of households, typically businessmen, commuted by rail into the city centre. The "commutation" of their fares to lower prices when purchasing tickets in monthly quantities introduced the term "commuter" to the English vocabulary. During the last half of the nineteenth century, public transport improvements fundamentally changed accessibility, which in turn extended the diameter of the city and changed the shape of cities from more-or-less circular to star-shaped. Trackside suburbs developed at railway stations that were located up to 30 km away from the city centre, and linear strips of medium-density, mixed land use occurred along electric streetcar routes, creating in essence the first commercial strips.