"Growing a town" Topic

Historically speaking how would a town grow? What would be the first few things there that would attract more growth? My guess is some sort of traveling waypoint by a source of water. Then a hotel (bed & breakfast) and a saloon (bedding & booze) then a livery / blacksmith shop. What might come next?
sky

A trading post, some housing or perhaps athe odd farm lieing a little further away.

I'd ask first how the town came into existence at all, was it a roman outpost in ancient times, a crossroad along an important trade route, close to fertile farmland or mineral resources, a fishing village…?

Tent city.

Listen to Dire straits, The Telegraph Road.

It will answer you question :-)

Oooh JJ,
A ferry is a great idea. Of course it has been replaced by a bridge but the heavier freignt still uses the ferry. As you might guess I am thinking of a town that started on one side of a river but spreadout in all directions.
sky

Or look at this…

I think your travel stop theory is more common in North America.

Most towns in Britain, and I suspect Western Europe, probably started as small farming communities. A few buildings for housing people and livestock and that's about it. The next stage of development would likely be a market, so people from smaller settlements nearby would come to trade agricultural surpluses. No new buildings needed for this though.

A successful market would begin to attract craftsmen and other traders. Most would work out of their house. Only a small number would need specialist buildings, such as a blacksmith.

As the town grows it will begin gain all that other stuff. Places for travellers to stay, places for people to get drunk, somewhere for the town council to meet, etc, etc!

Kind of been said already, but -- industry! Farming, mining, commerce, etc. A town grows up around a reason. As it grows, additional reasons spring up and morph the way it grows. Sometimes they compete, sometimes they coexist.

In the "old west" towns often sprang up virtually overnight as "boomtowns". This was prompted by precious metal "strikes", being in close proximity to railroad
construction or as a convenient place to meet the RR with cattle. Many started as "tent cities", catering to an almost 100% male population (with alcohol and females being the most in demand items). Some went on to grow (Kansas City) some shrunk to tiny towns and others were abandoned.

Barring Boom Town in the Old West, you will find numerous factors at play. Usually there is something there that someone wants, and one of the first things to arrive will be some sort of store, followed by saloons (often in the same place for a while). If the place is on some kind of trade route (river, trail, stage line, railroad, etc.), then you'll need hotels, restaurants, warehouses (even small ones, just to hold stuff a day or two until it can be shipped elsewhere), teamsters, blacksmiths & livery stables, and then you get even more service industries. These include laundries, specialty shops (men's clothing, gunsmiths, candy, etc.). And, of course, vice (saloons, gambling houses, prostitution), which will usually pre-date the nicer shops.

And don't forget the importance of churches, undertakers, courthouses, jails, banks, doctors, and other services that will tend to draw people of a more refined nature.

A very common 'start' to towns in the US was a water course in need of a crossing, a ford begins, and then someone comes along and realizes economic opportunity, thus the ferry mentioned above. As more people use the ford, then a small store opens, then a pioneer decides he's had enough – or his nagging wife demands it – and decides to settle nearby and start a farm with his cow and calf rather than go all the way to distant Oregon. The rest, as they say, is history. What with all the castles in Europe built to protect income from a water crossing, I expect something similar happened there – just further back in time.

I wonder what the typical stages were in the development of an Old West frontier town:

TMP link

Dan