User:Rividian/streetcar suburb

Streetcar suburb is a term that is used to describe areas of a city developed near what are or once were mass transit lines. While most closely associated with the electric trolly, developments called streetcar suburbs may have been built along lines used by cable cars (developed in 1867) or animal-drawn omnibuses, which were present in American and European cities as early as 1815.

Animal-drawn cars
Streetcar suburbs began with pre-electric streetcars.

Cable cars
In 1867 New York City inventor Charles T. Harvey developed an overhead vehicle connected by a releasable grip to a constantly moving cable. He installled a three-block prototype in New York's Greenwich Village, which failed. Andrew Smith Hillidie, a Scottish immigrant who made a fortune in San Francisco, California manufacturing rope, attempted to create an urban duplicate of mining cars which were pulled by long cables. Cars moved along tracks similar to those used by animal-drawn cars, but were pulled by cables connected to steam engines.