What Victorian England Tells Us About Pollution and Urban Development

By now, a particular image of cities during the industrial revolution’s peak is settled in the popular mind. It’s a bustling Victorian metropolis, sooty and poverty-stricken, where pollution was an ever-present but necessary evil. City-dwellers may have coughed up black phlegm at every turn as they battled their way through constant coal smoke, but these poor conditions laid the groundwork for the prosperity and better conditions we enjoy today.

That picture of the filth is accurate enough, but the unchecked pollution had a bigger negative economic impact than many realize, according to a new study from the U.K.’s National Bureau of Economic Research. Instead of being a necessary byproduct of wealth creation in the industrial era, that pollution actually stood in the way of economic development.