Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1891 — City Populations. [ARTICLE]

City Populations.

The census of 1890 shows that 18,235,670 persons out of a total of 62,622,250 reside in cities having a population of 8,000 and over. But this one-third of our people by no means represents our entire urban population. When we take the suburban villages and the population of towns below 8,003 we shall hive enough to state with certainty that one-half our country’s population is essentially urban in character. The accelerating tendency of our population to city and village life may be seen in the following table:

•P • Census «r 3 Years. pPd p*. « Q OJ2 Q O o OS ® ©Oft a, a. o 1790 3,929,214 131,47 a 8.35 18J0 5,308,483 210,873 8.97 1810 7,2 >9,881 356,920 4.93 1820 9,633,822 475,185 4.93 1830 12,866,020 864,5.9 6.72 IMOI 17,069,453 1,453,994 8.52 1850 23,191,876 2,897,586 12.49 1860 81,433,821 5,072,256 16.13 1870 38,558,371 8.071,875 20.93 1880 50,155,783 11,318,547 22.57 1890 62,622,250 18,235,670 29.12 There are now 443 cities in this country having a population of 8,000 and over. The present population of New York is 1,515,301, of Chicago 1,099,850, of Philadelphia 1,046,964, of Brooklyn, 806,343, of St. Louis 451,770, of Boston 448,477, of Baltimore 434,439, of San Francisco 298,997, of Cincinnati 296,908, of Cleveland 261,353, of Buffalo 255,664. of New Orleans 242,039, of Pittsburg, 238,617, of ■Washington, D. C., 230,392. Mechanical industry and the rapid expansion of manufacturing have had very much to do with this increasing urban population. Improved agricultural machinery has liberated hundreds of thousands from the fields and farms to engage in other activities; the order of society has radically changed. The machinery and engines in this country are doing work that would require the hand labor of 1.000,000,000 men, or three times the adult male population of the world. Every member of civil society is profited by this work, and all society enormously benefited by it. This mechanical work means better homes and conditions for all, and the best conditions for highest life can only be found in cities; they do not exist in barnyards. Cities must continue to grow with increasing rapidity during the next ten years.