CITIES EXPAND AND CHANGE
14.2
OBJECTIVES
Analyze the causes of urban growth in the late
1800s.
 Explain how technology improved city life.
 Evaluate how city dwellers solved the problems
caused by rapid urban growth.

KEY PARTS
America Becomes a Nation of Cities
 Technology Improves City Life
 Urban Living Creates Problems

INTRODUCTION
Read section 14.2
 Answer Questions 4-6

AMERICA BECOMES A NATION OF CITIES
In the late 1800s America experience a period of
urbanization.
 The number of cities and people living in them
increased dramatically.
 Cities were manufacturing and transportation
centers clustered in the Northeast, Pacific Coast,
and the Midwest. All connected by the new
railroad lines.

CONT.
Cities became magnets for immigrants and rural
Americans because of the jobs in factories or the
service industry.
 By 1900 more than six times as many people
lived in cities of 25,000 or more than in 1870.
 Women’s opportunities were dramatically
expanded in urban areas.
 Many city jobs offered only hard work for little
reward, but for many it was better than the
alternative.

CONT..
By 1900 most city’s population was 40% foreign
born. (meaning immigrants)
 Many farmers moved into the cities in the 1890s
so they didn’t have to wait for pay from the
harvest or worry about slow seasons. In the city if
you worked you got paid. (very little)

TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES CITY LIFE
As cities swelled in size, politicians and workers
struggled to keep up with the demands of growth
to provide water, sewers, schools, and safety.
 The middle and upper classes benefited most
from the innovations but every city dweller was
affected. Electric trolleys, subways and building
codes kept the cities from slipping into chaos.

CONT.
In the late 1800s skyscrapers began to shape
progressing cities.
 These buildings had steel frames and used
artistic designs to magnify their imposing height.
 The only true way these massive buildings could
function effectively was by the invention of the
elevator by Elisha Otis in the 1850s as well as
central heating systems in the 1870s.

CONT..
In 1888, the city of Richmond Virginia introduced
a revolutionary invention; street cars powered by
overhead electric cables.
 This was the beginning of mass transit, which
are public systems of transportation that carry
large numbers of people relatively inexpensively.
 Streetcars in some ways were impractical, the
electric cables often posed issues of blocking fire
trucks and many types of construction.

CONT…
In 1897 Boston solved this problem by running
the cars underground in the nations first subway
system. New York City followed in 1904.
 This allowed people to live outside this cities and
commute into the city. These areas were known
as suburbs.
 Cities during this time were being flooded with
people so to keep up with the growth city
planners were needed.

CONT….
City Planning services were designed to make
cities more functional and visually appealing.
 Architect Daniel Burnham designed the ideal city
for Chicago in 1893, it included boulevards,
parks, buildings and electric streetlights.
 City planners also realized the importance of
parks. Frederick Law Olmsted a landscape
engineer designed Fairmount Park in
Philadelphia and also Central Park in New York
City and parks similar to that in many other
cities.

URBAN LIVING CREATES PROBLEMS
Growing cities faced many problems caused by
overcrowding and poverty.
 In 1890, New York’s Lower East Side had a
population of more than 700 people per acre.
 Most lower class workers lived in tenements; low
cost multi-family housing designed to squeeze in
as many families as possible.
 Tenements were unhealthy and dangerous.

CONT.
Late 1800s cities were filthy, the unpaved streets
were littered with trash and rutted up by transit
and even had dead horses in the street laying
there to rot. Alleys between tenements were
clogged with food waste and trash.
 During the 1880s planners attempted to regulate
housing, sanitation, sewers, and public health.

CONT..
They began to use a water filtration system to
improve water quality.
 Fires, Crime, and Conflict were major issues in
early cities.
 In 1871 a fire destroyed Chicago, killing roughly
300 people and left more than 100,000 homeless.
 In the late 1800s planners had to develop city
police officials to keep crime rates down.
 During this period neighborhood gangs began to
skyrocket. (typically based on race, country of
origin, or type of job)
