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urban center, and as regards the large cities in very few cases do these boundaries exactly define the urban area. In the case of many cities there are suburban districts with a dense population outside the city limits, which, from many standpoints, are as truly a part of the city

TABLE I

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE POPULATION LIVING IN PLACES OF
8,000 INHABITANTS OR MORE

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COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE POPULATION LIVING IN PLACES OF
2,500 INHABITANTS OR MORE SINCE 1880

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as the districts which are under the municipal government. These suburbs are bound to the cities by a network of transportation lines. Many of the residents in the suburbs have their business or employment in the city, and, to a certain extent, persons who reside in the city are employed in the suburbs.

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PER CENT URBAN (PLACES OF 2,500 OR MORE) IN TOTAL POPULATION, BY STATES: 1910

The census of 1910 made a computation concerning so-called metropolitan districts in the United States. These districts were twenty-five in number, made up of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco-Oakland, Baltimore, New Orleans, Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas), Louisville, Rochester, Seattle, Indianapolis, Denver, Portland (Oregon), Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Providence, and Washington. A metropolitan district was for this computation made up of cities having within their own boundaries 200,000 inhabitants or more, plus those sections and adjacent territory within ten miles of the city boundary which might properly be considered as urban in character-that is to say, which had a density of population of not less than 150 per square mile.

The following table shows the extent to which our population in 1900 and 1910 was clustered in these metropolitan districts and it also shows that the rate of increase in population in these districts was greater outside the central cities than it was in the cities themselves.

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It will be noted that two cities of more than 200,000 inhabitants, Newark and Jersey City, did not appear in the list of metropolitan districts. They are included within the metropolitan district of New York.

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One of the conclusions derived from the statistics of urban growth is that the process of concentration of population is centralizing in its tendencies; that is, the large cities are growing more rapidly than the small cities and absorbing the great bulk of the urban increase.

The ancient world was acquainted with great cities whose magnificence and wickedness do not yield to modern capitals. There are no accurate figures concerning the population of Thebes, Memphis,

1 Adapted by permission from A. F. Weber, "The Growth of Cities," Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, XI (1899), 446–51.

Babylon, Nineveh, Susa, and Egbatana; but the fact that the Greeks spoke of them with wonder argues their magnitude. For the Greeks themselves had several cities exceeding 100,000 in population. In the fifth century, both Athens and Syracuse certainly surpassed this figure, and Syracuse had not then touched the zenith of her power. Carthage probably reached the figure of 700,000. At the beginning of the Christian era, Alexandria contained 500,000, possibly 700,000, inhabitants, and a considerable number of Roman cities reached the 100,000 class; but all of them, with the exception of Rome herself, were outside of Italy. Rome's population was 600,000-800,000; certainly not over 1,000,000; and during the first three centuries of the present era it fluctuated about the number 500,000. After Rome's decay, Constantinople was the only European city whose population exceeded 100,000; but Constantinople in the early Middle Ages was overshadowed by Bagdad and rivaled by Damascus and Cairo. The modern period was well begun (1600) before Paris wrested the first place from Constantinople, only to be overtaken and passed by London before the end of the seventeenth century.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century Europe had six or seven cities of the 100,000+ class; at its end some 13-14. This century was the period of commercial expansion and New World conquests. The seventeenth century was the period of the civil and religious The great cities did not increase in number, Vienna and Madrid merely taking the place of Antwerp and Messina, which dropped out of the class. But their population increased about 40 per cent during the century while Europe's population was nearly stationary.

wars.

During the eighteenth century the population both of Europe and of the great cities increased about 50 per cent, and the number of great cities rose to 22. Their aggregate population in 1800 constituted about 3 per cent of Europe's population (say 4,000,000 in 120,000,000).

During the nineteenth century the number of great cities has increased tremendously. In Europe alone the increase is calculated. by Meuriot as follows:

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It is estimated that today more than 10 per cent of Europeans dwell in great cities. In individual countries the proportion is much larger. Thus in England one-third of the entire population are inhabitants of great cities, while in the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Victoria 40 per cent of the people are resident in such cities (suburbs included).

260. THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE MODERN CITY'

While it is generally true that the unprecedented increase of population during the present century has been a condition of the rapid growth of cities, it has not necessarily been a positive cause of their relatively rapid growth as compared with the remainder of the population-a cause, that is, of the phenomenon of concentration.

It is now clear that the growth of cities must be studied as a part of the question of distribution of population, which is always dependent upon the economic organization of society-upon the constant striving to maintain as many people as possible upon a given area. The ever-present problem is so to distribute and organize the masses of men that they can render such services as favor the maintenance of the nation and thereby accomplish their own preservation. When the industrial organization demands the presence of laborers in particular localities in order to increase its efficiency, laborers will be found there; the means of attraction will have been "better living❞— in other words, an appeal to the motive of self-interest. Economic forces are therefore the principal cause of concentration of population in cities; but there are other motives exhibited in the "Drift to the Cities," and these will also receive consideration.

The industries of the human race may be conveniently grouped thus: (1) extractive, including agriculture, mining; (2) distributive, including commerce, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, communication, and all the media of exchange; (3) manufacturing; (4) services and free incomes, including domestic servants, government officials, professional men and women, students, etc.

The extractive industries generally require the dispersion of the persons engaged therein. In particular, agriculture, the principal extractive industry, cannot be prosecuted by persons residing in large groups. It is conceivable that transportation methods might be so perfected as to permit the cultivator of the soil to reside in a city, but it is very unlikely.

I

Adapted by permission from A. F. Weber, "The Growth of Cities," Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, XI (1899), 157–224.

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