Borderlands of the local state

Research on borderlands and border landscapes has concentrated heavily on those associated with international boundaries and has given scant attention to ones between local-state units. Many of the processes at work in the former, however, may also operate at the local scale. A review of the literature on international borderlands identifies models of a number of such processes. An examination of published studies suggests that they can indeed manifest themselves at the local or municipal level as well, and that whether they do or do not depends heavily on historical and geographical context. Both conclusions are supported by a case study of a medium-sized American industrial city, Worcester, Massachusetts, and its environs during the last decade of the nineteenth century.