This introduction to the ‘Survey and Speculation’ special issue ‘Empire and Cities’ outlines how this collection came about, summarizes the six contributions and draws general conclusions.

The modern history of Tianjin, a northern port city in China, offers an intriguing urban case for scholars interested in comparative colonial practices. From the 1860s to the 1940s, Tianjin was home to up to nine foreign concessions and a sequence of different Chinese municipalities. While much scholarship on colonial history has focused on the interactive dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized, Tianjin’s colonial past draws attention to the multiplicity, multilateralism and multilayered trajectories at the heart of the colonial experiences of both imperialist powers and the Chinese. At the heart of this short survey are some reflections on the multi-imperial dimensions of the city of Tianjin. It also explains how the multi-imperial dimensions operated in Tianjin in its treaty-port incarnation and offers some considerations of how the Tianjin case contributes to broader historiographical conversations germane to the imperial–global–urban complex.

Gambling has been Macau’s principal industry and a major source of income for the city for nearly 180 years. However, surprisingly little has been said about its urban impact and connections to a wider economy of vice, e.g. opium, pawnbroking and prostitution, which was consolidated in the second half of the nineteenth century mostly by the hands of a Chinese entrepreneurial elite. This article takes a novel approach to examining Macau’s early colonial development by historicizing the city’s modern economy from a different, mostly neglected urban angle. It shows that the development of vice businesses promoted the diversification of commercial activity, real estate development and the creation of public facilities, defining a type of ordinary urbanization, business-led rather than government-oriented, that affected Macau’s urban character and identity in durable ways.

During the opening phase of the Irish civil war, Dublin’s O’Connell Street was subjected to large-scale destruction of properties and businesses for the second time since the 1916 Rising. Utilizing newly available compensation claims as well as state and local government records, this article examines four aspects of the post-civil war restoration of O’Connell Street for the first time: the scale of the destruction; the compensation scheme devised by the Irish government which accorded O’Connell Street a unique status in the Damage to Property Compensation Act of 1923; the context of the town-planning regulations introduced, as well as the concerns of property owners, the local authority and central government; and the process of reconstruction – how compensation was paid, what properties were rebuilt, in what manner and when.

In the 1970s, the Major Urban Fringe Experiment, later known as Operation Groundwork, emerged in response to industrial decline, growing awareness of industry’s environmental impact and grass-roots environmentalism and regeneration activism. Contrary to ideas of concomitant industrial and community decline, Groundwork demonstrates post-industrial regeneration’s community-building potential. Groundwork created bespoke volunteer groups, helped set up others and worked with already existing organizations. Unlike contemporary regeneration initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, these community links were retained even as Groundwork expanded. This article traces Groundwork’s origins and its launch under Labour in the 1970s, its championing by Conservative Minister Michael Heseltine and its successful expansion from its initial test site in St Helens (Merseyside), to the North-West and then nationwide.

Slum clearances expose hostility between municipal authorities and residents fighting to claim urban space. In colonial contexts, these processes created conflicts between rulers and the ruled. Focusing on the ‘semi-colonial’ Shanghai International Settlement, this article examines interactions between the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) and slum-dwellers amid an evolving crisis of urban governance in the 1930s. This case-study, grounded in Shanghai’s complex socio-political climate, reveals how ordinary Chinese residents negotiated with the authorities and points to the frailties of semi-colonial governance, showing how the SMP deployed coercion only when it was unavoidable in slum clearances.

This survey challenges conventional perceptions of colonial suburbs in the early modern Indian Ocean world in general, and those under the rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in particular. Recent urban research advocates re-evaluating suburbs as intricate and diverse spaces, yet this shift has had limited impact on historical studies of early modern colonialism. The survey highlights the importance of recognizing suburban regions in eighteenth-century settlements such as Cape Town, Cochin, Colombo or Batavia, where significant population growth resulted from inter-Asian and internal migration. These areas fostered ethnic and cultural diversity, disrupting normative ideas of segregation. By shifting the analytical focus from the core to the periphery and exploring colonial histories from an outside-in perspective, the contribution emphasizes the potential of a more horizontal approach to sub/urbanity for understanding early modern colonial societies, encouraging scholars to delve into the intersection of ‘the imperial’ and ‘the urban’.

The city of Sapporo, founded in 1869 by the Japanese government as a colonial headquarters in Hokkaido, developed as part of a global wave of settler-colonial urbanism. Like counterparts in North America and Australia, Sapporo facilitated economic, environmental and political transformations across Hokkaido that led to the displacement of Indigenous Ainu society by a soon overwhelming number of ethnically Japanese settlers. However, several historical factors distinguish Sapporo’s settler-colonial urbanism from its peers, including the long history of relations between the Ainu and Japanese; the heavy role of the Japanese state in Sapporo; and the lack of mass relocations of the Ainu to reservations far from their traditional homes.

This survey introduces the reader to the history of international zones. It argues that they offer striking insights into peacekeeping during the transition from a world of formal empires to one dominated by sovereign states. While the study of international zones is not new, there has been little examination of internationalization in practice. The survey suggests some of the benefits of adopting this approach and findings it might unearth.

This exploratory text proposes a US imperial ‘research perspective’ on post-war post-colonial cities – cities that the United States did not colonially occupy, i.e. not cities like Manila, 1898–1946. US imperial actors and interests helped shape such cities, and in turn were shaped by their people and structures. Importantly, the US case seems to strengthen the general recent view, also regarding formal empires, that it makes little sense to posit the existence of an imperial city type, and more sense to use ‘the imperial urban’ as a research perspective.

Handshaking has a long multi-cultural history. This article focuses upon its diffusion in Britain 1700–1850. Two networks boosted the handshaking salutation. One was a mercantile network, extending across Europe’s urban/commercial regions. The other featured ‘middling sort’ Quaker men and women, who shook hands on principle. Gradually, the salutation became widely diffused – and acquired a range of egalitarian meanings. Handshaking was not an elite practice which ‘trickled down’ to the masses. Instead, it spread by social negotiation both ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ from middle-class society. Traditional hierarchy was yielding to an urbanizing and internationalizing world – with multiple individual options.

This survey reflects on the intersections of global and urban history through brief reflections on the Round Table Conference which took place over three sessions in London between 1930 and 1932. Uniting Indian representatives and the British government in London to solve political stalemate in South Asia, the conference provides a dramatic event through which to explore the enfolding of the British empire into the imperial capital. But the conference was also indebted to international and global connections and comparisons which intersected in the intimate spaces of diplomatic networking in the capital.

In the 1860s, the first zoos appeared in the Romanov empire. This article deals with the reasons for their establishment by looking into the early history of St Petersburg’s zoo, which has not been explicitly discussed in the historiography. By situating its history in the global context, it argues that, on the one hand, St Petersburg’s zoo was founded because the city’s officials wanted to enhance the fame of the capital of their empire in the globalizing world of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the founder of the zoo had other motivations and was principally driven by mercantile considerations. Thus, St Petersburg’s zoological garden is presented as one of the important social spaces and points of reference of the Romanov empire’s capital, which could bring fame and fortune to the zoo’s owners and the city in which it was located.

Since merchants typically traded between towns, they had to cross legal boundaries on a regular basis. This article discusses one of the instruments they used in order to deal with the challenges of legal pluralism, namely the instalment of proxies. The proxy had to be recognized as a legitimate representative of another merchant and, for that purpose, he carried with him a procuration letter. These letters look remarkably similar considering that they were drafted in different towns across Europe. An analysis of the procurations shows that common rules and norms developed through the constant exchange between merchants and urban authorities.

This article investigates the dealings of the Aberdeen courts with foreign merchants and mariners to determine whether special policies, laws or procedures were introduced by magistrates administering justice to parties from different international backgrounds, and whether the merchants themselves developed specific strategies to negotiate crossing legal boundaries in the Scottish context. It concludes that there were few restrictions on the ability of foreigners to receive a fair process before the Aberdeen courts, a conclusion which must be considered in the context of the importance of trade for the men making the decisions at the urban courts, and for Scottish society more generally.

The main question of this special issue is how international traders were able to manage their activities and conflicts successfully when they regularly had to cross legal boundaries and were operating in different and overlapping jurisdictions in northern Europe in the period c. 1350–1600. The contributions in this issue approach this central question from a range of perspectives. This introduction identifies these perspectives, as well as common themes and findings, and indicates why it is particularly pertinent to discuss the topic of crossing legal boundaries in the context of urban history. It also discusses relevant historiographical debates and key concepts of urban jurisdiction and jurisdictional boundaries in late medieval northern European towns.

The article analyses the legal position of foreign visitors in late medieval Stockholm through the prism of the concept of legal certainty, which requires public, explicit and clear regulations, an institutionalized jurisdiction and equal, just and impartial judgments in court. The article concludes that the authorities in Stockholm strove to create legal certainty for foreign guests and that the regulated relationship between local hosts and visiting guests both provided a control mechanism for the authorities and security for the guests.

The protection of privileges abroad was a recurring theme in Hanseatic conflict management. Trade rights were to be shielded from outsiders and internal mercantile conflicts were part of its own jurisdiction. However, efforts to maintain privileged trade relations in London and Bruges were complicated by the Hanse’s own transregional organization and the diverging interests of its members. This article explores the tense dynamic between institutional and individual perceptions of the Hanseatic common good. While the increasingly strict rules of membership and jurisdiction were meant to serve Hansards abroad, these regulations were continuously contested by those the Hanse sought to protect.

Ties of trade, credit and family provided the basis for trading networks between Hanseatic towns. They also, however, contained the seed for conflicts over fraud, debt and inheritance. Such disputes between burghers of different Hanseatic cities presented municipal governments with the particular challenge to balance their role as Hanseatic partners with an obligation of externally representing their own burghers. Focusing on relations between the cities of Lübeck and Reval, this article explores the variety of diplomatic strategies and tactics which city councils employed to preserve the political and economic benefits of intercity co-operation.

In the 1920s, the art collector John Hilditch tirelessly undertook a public campaign to have his objects exhibited at the Manchester City Art Gallery. This article uses his struggle as a lens through which to examine how the relationship between the civic museum and its citizens was reshaped during the transition to mass democracy. Historians have explored how civic authorities responded to the challenge of mass democratization by encouraging their citizens to become ‘active’, but we know little about how the citizens responded to this call. Hilditch’s campaign allows us to see what public platforms citizens could negotiate to become ‘active’ citizens, and just how far they could influence civic policy.