Editing Refrigeration (section)

==Impact on settlement patterns in the United States of America==
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In the last century, refrigeration allowed new settlement patterns to emerge. This new technology has allowed for new areas to be settled that are not on a natural channel of transport such as a river, valley trail or harbor that may have otherwise not been settled. Refrigeration has given opportunities to early settlers to expand westward and into rural areas that were unpopulated. These new settlers with rich and untapped soil saw opportunity to profit by sending raw goods to the eastern cities and states. In the 20th century, refrigeration has made "Galactic Cities" such as Dallas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles possible.

===Refrigerated rail cars===
The refrigerated rail car ([[refrigerated van]] or [[refrigerator car]]), along with the dense railroad network, became an exceedingly important link between the marketplace and the farm allowing for a national opportunity rather than a just a regional one. Before the invention of the refrigerated rail car, it was impossible to ship perishable food products long distances. The beef packing industry made the first demand push for refrigeration cars. The railroad companies were slow to adopt this new invention because of their heavy investments in cattle cars, stockyards, and feedlots.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Danes-Wingett|first=Lind|title=The Ice Car Cometh: A History of the Refrigerated Rail Car|journal=The San Joaquin Historian|volume=10|issue=4|pages=2}}</ref> Refrigeration cars were also complex and costly compared to other rail cars, which also slowed the adoption of the refrigerated rail car. After the slow adoption of the refrigerated car, the beef packing industry dominated the refrigerated rail car business with their ability to control ice plants and the setting of icing fees. The United States Department of Agriculture estimated that, in 1916, over sixty-nine percent of the cattle killed in the country was done in plants involved in interstate trade. The same companies that were also involved in the meat trade later implemented refrigerated transport to include vegetables and fruit. The meat packing companies had much of the expensive machinery, such as refrigerated cars, and cold storage facilities that allowed for them to effectively distribute all types of perishable goods. During World War I, a national refrigerator car pool was established by the United States Administration to deal with problem of idle cars and was later continued after the war.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Danes-Wingett|first=Lind|title=The Ice Car Cometh: A History of the Refrigerated Rail Car|journal=The San Joaquin Historian|volume=10|issue=4}}</ref> The idle car problem was the problem of refrigeration cars sitting pointlessly in between seasonal harvests. This meant that very expensive cars sat in rail yards for a good portion of the year while making no revenue for the car's owner. The car pool was a system where cars were distributed to areas as crops matured ensuring maximum use of the cars. Refrigerated rail cars moved eastward from vineyards, orchards, fields, and gardens in western states to satisfy Americas consuming market in the east.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Danes-Wingett|first=Lind|title=The Ice Car Cometh: A History of the Refrigerated Rail Car|journal=The San Joaquin Historian|volume=10|issue=4|pages=3}}</ref> The refrigerated car made it possible to transport perishable crops hundreds and even thousands of kilometres or miles. The most noticeable effect the car gave was a regional specialization of vegetables and fruits. The refrigeration rail car was widely used for the transportation of perishable goods up until the 1950s. By the 1960s, the nation's interstate highway system was adequately complete allowing for trucks to carry the majority of the perishable food loads and to push out the old system of the refrigerated rail cars.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Stover|first=J.|title=American Railroads|url=https://archive.org/details/lifedeclineoft00stov|url-access=registration|journal=The Chicago History of the Railroad Refrigerator Car|year=1970|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lifedeclineoft00stov/page/214 214]}}</ref>

===Expansion west and into rural areas===
The widespread use of refrigeration allowed for a vast amount of new agricultural opportunities to open up in the United States. New markets emerged throughout the United States in areas that were previously uninhabited and far-removed from heavily populated areas. New agricultural opportunity presented itself in areas that were considered rural, such as states in the south and in the west. Shipments on a large scale from the south and California were both made around the same time, although natural ice was used from the Sierras in California rather than manufactured ice in the south.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Danes-Wingett|first=Lind|title=The Ice Car Cometh: A History of the Refrigerated Rail Car|journal=The San Joaquin Historian|volume=10|issue=4|pages=7}}</ref> Refrigeration allowed for many areas to specialize in the growing of specific fruits. California specialized in several fruits, grapes, peaches, pears, plums, and apples, while Georgia became famous for specifically its peaches. In California, the acceptance of the refrigerated rail cars led to an increase of car loads from 4,500 carloads in 1895 to between 8,000 and 10,000 carloads in 1905.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Oscar Edward|title=Refrigeration in America; a history of a new technology and its impact|year=1953|publisher=Published for the University of Cincinnati by Princeton University Press|location=Princeton|isbn=978-0-8046-1621-8|pages=156}}</ref> The Gulf States, Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee entered into strawberry production on a large-scale while Mississippi became the center of the [[tomato industry]]. New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada grew cantaloupes. Without refrigeration, this would have not been possible. By 1917, well-established fruit and vegetable areas that were close to eastern markets felt the pressure of competition from these distant specialized centers.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Oscar Edward|title=Refrigeration in America; a history of a new technology and its impact|year=1953|publisher=Published for the University of Cincinnati by Princeton University Press|location=Princeton|isbn=978-0-8046-1621-8|pages=158}}</ref> Refrigeration was not limited to meat, fruit and vegetables but it also encompassed dairy product and dairy farms. In the early twentieth century, large cities got their dairy supply from farms as far as {{convert|400|mi|km|order=flip}}. Dairy products were not as easily transported over great distances like fruits and vegetables due to greater perishability. Refrigeration made production possible in the west far from eastern markets, so much in fact that dairy farmers could pay transportation cost and still undersell their eastern competitors.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Oscar Edward|title=Refrigeration in America; a history of a new technology and its impact|year=1953|publisher=Published for the University of Cincinnati by Princeton University Press|location=Princeton|isbn=978-0-8046-1621-8|pages=168}}</ref> Refrigeration and the refrigerated rail gave opportunity to areas with rich soil far from natural channel of transport such as a river, valley trail or harbors.<ref name="Schimd">{{cite web|last=Schimd|first=A.|title=The Economics of Population Settlement: Cost of Alternative Growth Patterns|url=http://www.soc.iastate.edu/Extension/ncrcrd/NCRCRD-rrd172-print.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100504154836/http://www.soc.iastate.edu/extension/ncrcrd/NCRCRD-rrd172-print.pdf |archive-date=2010-05-04 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Rise of the galactic city===
"Edge city" was a term coined by [[Joel Garreau]], whereas the term "galactic city" was coined by [[Lewis Mumford]]. These terms refer to a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district in what had previously been a residential or rural area. There were several factors contributing to the growth of these cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston, and Phoenix. The factors that contributed to these large cities include reliable automobiles, highway systems, refrigeration, and agricultural production increases. Large cities such as the ones mentioned above have not been uncommon in history, but what separates these cities from the rest are that these cities are not along some natural channel of transport, or at some crossroad of two or more channels such as a trail, harbor, mountain, river, or valley. These large cities have been developed in areas that only a few hundred years ago would have been uninhabitable. Without a cost efficient way of cooling air and transporting water and food from great distances, these large cities would have never developed. The rapid growth of these cities was influenced by refrigeration and an agricultural productivity increase, allowing more distant farms to effectively feed the population.<ref name="Schimd"/>