Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1892 — How Great Cities Grow. [ARTICLE]

How Great Cities Grow.

fChicago Daily Newa-Record.) Unthinking people suppose that big cities grow like jelly fishes, gradually expanding from a single center. But they don't. They coverthe ground just' tin a crop of parsley spreads over a new-ly-hoed garden. Shoots springup hero and there from a great number of cenR gradually extends until the ground is completely covered. The various root centers are plainly dfseerniDle about Chicago, and the vacant spaces between them are just as plain. Leave the city and you run through a rapidly fill ing blank spot before you strike Engleyssood; a blank, then Auburn Park; another blank, then Pullman to theSouth Chicago to the east, and .rust beyond you Hammond, with vacant spaces between each of them. Another blank and then you come to Griffith —a rapidly growing new center. This leads one to inquire what la 1 necessary to make a root-center? What determines where they will grow? Evidently railroads, The junction of two or tin oo railroads la the vicinity of any large city Is sure to develop into a suburb. Therefore land near to a junction which is twenty miles from tho coutcr of a eity is often worth more than land nearer the city but remote from any railroad or only on one. Griffith is at the junction of four great railroads and two fuel oil pipe lines; One of Its railroads is a complete belt linoyt»ncircling Chicago and bringing twenty-four more railroads into immediate switch connection'., It is strange such an important point was overlooked for so long. When a few months ago Jay B. Dwigglns & Co., of Chicago, laid out a town there, four factories immediately located, and liuuses and stores are springing up like magic.