Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1896 — GROWTH OF GREAT CITIES. [ARTICLE]

GROWTH OF GREAT CITIES.

Increase in. Population More Rapid in Europe than in This Country. It is a mistake to suppose that only American cities show phenomenal growth. Take Paris for instance. According to Dr Albert Shaw, in hls work upon “Municipal Government In Europe,” the population of Paris, now nearly 3,000,000, was only 600,000 at the time of the revolution, a hundred years ago. London, with a population to-day of 6,000,000, had then less than a million. Glasgow, now the second city in Great Britain, with a population of 900,000, had less than 25,000 In 1750 and only 75,000 at the beginning of this century. The population of Manchester, when it was granted a municipal charter in 1838, was only 250,000, It being a -city smalldr than Cleveland to-day. Fifty years ago Birmingham had 180,000 inhabitants. Liverpool, Sheffield, Bradford, Leeds, are, as great cities, entirely modern. Lyons, the largest town in France apart from Paris, with a population of 450,000, had only 100,000 at the opening of the century. Leipzig has doubled in population in the last twenty years, and so has Munich, both growing at a much higher rate than American cities of corresponding size. Hamburg is an interesting city to consider in this study of population, because It can be so well compared with Boston. The population of the two cities in 1875 was almost exactly the same, Hamburg 348,000, Boston 342,000. In 1890 Hamburg had 569,000, and Boston 448,000. Hamburg had gained more than 200,000 in fifteen years, and Boston only a little more than 100,000; yet Boston’s growth has been considered remarkable. In 1870 New York was a more populous city than Berlin. In 1880 Berlin had outgrown New York, and In 1890 it still maintained the lead, having 1,578,794 pepole against New York’s 1,515,301. Chicago's relative gain has been high er; but Berlin In the past twenty-five years has added as many actual new residents as has Chicago.