Le Bras (2000) afirma que a vida das populacoes em cidades e um fato muito antigo, mas que o crescimento e densificacao acelerada destas iniciaram-se no Reino Unido, a partir dos anos 1720 com o inicio da Primeira Revolucao Industrial, a politica oriunda do
Inclosure Act de 1773 e dos Enclosure Acts de 1845-82 e a emergencia do liberalismo economico reforcado pelas propria politica economica liberal a qual tem no economista escoces Adam Smith e sua obra The Wealth of Nations de 1776 os maiores expoentes.
The Open Spaces Society was formed, as the Commons Preservation Society, in 1865, just at the end of the
inclosures, when the commons began to be taken for development.
Why is the common itself so bare-worn, and cropped so differently from the adjoining
inclosures?' The reason was that, if one person put more cattle in their own field which had only a 'sufficiency of pasture', there would be no net benefit.
"MARSDEN is surrounded by mountains and moors, cold and dreary; the houses and
inclosures are made of stone, the fields bald and rocky."
Where great numbers by force endeavour to remove certain persons from the king, or to lay violent hands on a privy counselor, or revenge themselves against a magistrate for executing his office; or to deliver men out of prison or reform religion or the law, to pull down all bawdy-houses, or throw down all
inclosures in general, etc.
While the proclamation of 30 May 1607 announces "suppression of persons riotously assembled," that of 24 July 1607 declares pardon for "offenders about
inclosures." Finally, 2 June 1608 saw a proclamation for "preventing and remedying the dearth of corn and other victuals." (52) Perhaps this was the result of a growing awareness that popular rebellion could not always be suppressed when the grievances were real.
The
inclosures to the despatch of 16 October, 1874 (also reproduced as Parliamentary Papers of 1876, Volume LIV), are particularly illuminating.
Congress passed the Unlawful
Inclosures Act in 1885.
The English Chancery Court recognized this principle over 300 years ago when it wrote, in the context of what today would be termed a defendant class action, 'If the Defendant should not be bound, Suits of this Nature, as in the case of
Inclosures, Suit against the Inhabitants for Suit to a Mill, and the like, would be infinite, and impossible to be ended.' (5.) Chippewas of Sarnia Band v.
Against
Inclosures, 9 NOTES AND QUERIES, at 230-131 (2nd ser., Feb.
Miles of broad streets shaded by trees and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuous blocks but set in larger or smaller
inclosures, stretched in every direction.
Heslop concludes that while enclosed land can be more productive than open field agriculture, in Bucks, "the increase of
inclosures has not increased the quantity of grain" (Heslop iii).
