For at least a century, food markets have been disappearing from our urban landscapes. Beginning in the early 19th century, cities began to uproot food markets and place them in the suburbs or even further away. It has only been within the last two decades that fresh food is reappearing in the form of farmers markets. Why was food removed from the cities in the rst place? The story of the removal of the Smith eld live cattle market suggests an answer to that question. In 1855, London's live

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... le market, the world's largest meat market, closed and moved to Islington, a suburb of the City. It took fty years of arguing in Parliament before a bill was passed to remove the cattle market. Surely, an investigation of why it took so long would illustrate how cities modernized in the nineteenth century. Food markets, the heart and soul, if not stomach, of urban centers were central and visible representations of urban communities. Throughout history, cities appeared as provisioning entrepôts, often located near transportation networks such as rivers and oceans. London, rst to experience an industrial revolution, was also rst to reconsider how its food markets t into a new, modern conception of urban identity. The removal of London's live cattle market heralded similar relocations of food markets in other cites, such as Paris, New York, Boston, and Chicago. These cities reacted to the