The History of Industrial Real Estate, featuring Dr. Joshua Freeman

The modern day warehouse is undeniably more advanced than early factories from the 18th century, but there are also many similarities (beyond both being 4 walls and a roof!).  Not just for the buildings themselves, but how towns and cities have been shaped as a result of industrialization. In fact, our societies have been shaped in large part due to the industrial revolution.

To understand how we got where we are today, I interviewed Dr. Joshua Freeman, a professor, former executive officer, and author who literally wrote the book on the topic. After reading his book, Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World (which I highly recommend!), I reached out to see if he would be willing to chat about it.

To my delight, he agreed and we had an amazing conversation about the first factory in 1721, to how Richard Arkwright pioneered the factory system in the 1760's.  From textiles, to iron, to more recent manufacturing systems and warehousing, industrialization has left an indelible mark on mankind.

And while I'm unwaveringly passionate about this industry - and attribute much of our high standards of living (at least historically speaking) to the industrial revolution -  I also recognize it has come at a cost. Dr. Freeman provided a detailed explanation of just how remarkably complex this topic is, with some sage wisdom on what we need to do going forward.

Time stamps:

0:00 - Introduction

1:25 - The first factory (Derby Lombe's Mill)

5:10 - The factory system (Richard Arkwright)

8:32 - The importance of labor

14:31 - The second industrial revolution 

17:17 - Shift from textiles to iron

19:00 - Offshoring of manufacturing

26:54 - Is robotics the future?

32:30 - Multi-story industrial properties

34:54 - Buildings change, yet similarities remain

36:49 - Negative externalities of the industrial revolution

42:02 - Is there a fix for the environmental issues?

46:32 - Is there another book in the works?

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Dr. Freeman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Freeman

Behemoth book: https://read.amazon.ca/kp/embed?asin=B073SFV8DK&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_TBE0YGMXKV070SW4MB49

If you're interested in learning more, I have an article about the etymological history of "industrial real estate": https://industrialize.com/blog/f/industrial-real-estate-a-linguistic-and-historical-investigation

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🙋 Chad Griffiths, MBA, SIOR

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