Urbanization

1. What is Urbanization?
Urbanization is the growth of cities. After the technological boom immigrants from all over the place influxed into mostly the Northeast and Midwest, and resulted in a rapid urbanization. As the immigrants came in they moved to the cities and they became overcrowded. They came to the cities because it was cheaper to live and easier to find a job or jobs; especially if they were unskilled they could work in the factories.


2. For what reasons did a number of Americans move from the country to the cities?
Many Americans moved from the country to the cities because of the inventions in farming, such as the McCormick reaper, laborers working on farms were no longer needed and laid off so they went to the cities for industrial work and it was cheaper in the cities to live.


3. What were the housing problems that many poor city dwellers faced?
The housing problems that many poor city dwellers faced were crowded housing, poor ventillation in the home, transportation, dirty water, and bad hygeinic issues in the cities. The homes in cities were first meant for a single family but the immigrants squeezed in three families. Then the city government tried to make ventillation in the homes by putting a small window in them, but the people would put their garbage in the windows because they had no other place to put it. The cities weren't capable of replacing old transportation, like electric subways in Boston. Some homes couldn't get plumbing for water so they would have to go to faucets out in the streets and even the people that did have plumbing it wasn't very sufficient. Lastly, there was very bad sanitation in the cities. The people would put their raw sewage in the gutters, horse manure was piled in the streets, factories put hazardous smoke into the air, and garbage was just put in the streets. Eventually there became paid "scavengers" that would sweep the streets, pick up garbage, and clean outhouses but they never did their job properly.