Government in the United States, National, State and LocalGarner, James Wilford
History
Government in the United States, National, State and Local
Garner, James Wilford
United States -- Politics and government
_Social Results._--Another result of the movement of the people to the
cities is the evil of overcrowding. Manifestly where the area of a city
is limited, as is often the case, there must come a time when the
population will be massed and crowded together under circumstances that
are dangerous to the health, morals, and comfort of the people. In some
of the large cities to-day the conditions resulting from overcrowding
are truly shocking. According to the census of 1900, while the average
number of persons to a dwelling throughout the country as a whole was
about five, the number in New York city was nearly fifteen, and in the
boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx it was more than twenty. In several
parts of the city there are blocks containing more than 1,000 persons to
the acre. Under such circumstances the rate of mortality is necessarily
high, and immorality and vice are encouraged. In the great cities one
finds a large floating population with no local attachment or civic
pride, and thousands of persons, foreigners and natives alike, with low
standards of life. There also the individual is lost in a multitude,
and the restraining influence of public opinion, which is so powerful in
the country, is lacking. Thus the tendency to wrongdoing is greatly
accentuated.
_Political Results._--Finally, the growth of the cities has had
important political consequences, in that it has given rise to
conditions that have increased enormously the problems of local
government. As long as the population of the nation was predominantly
rural and the cities few in number and small in size, the difficulties
of local government were not serious. But the presence of such
conditions as those described above, together with the task which
devolves upon the city of performing so many services for the people
that are not required in sparsely settled communities, has made the
problem of city government the most difficult of all governmental
problems.
=Movement to Check Immigration to the Cities.=--The abandonment of the
farms and the movement of the people to the cities is viewed by many
persons with regret, not to say alarm. There are some who think that the
cities are the plague spots of the country, that city life tends to
produce an enfeebled race with low moral standards; that they are
tending to make of us a nation of tenants, tramps, anarchists, and
criminals; and that the economic welfare of the country is being
endangered by the drift away from the farm. Such a view, of course,
represents an exaggerated conception of the dangers, though it will be
readily admitted that the change is not without serious evils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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