The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

illinois and others of our richest farming
 states. In Indiana, Iowa and Missouri,
 more than half of the counties have fallen off in population. The same condi- tion holds true of eastern Kansas and others of our most important farming sections.
 How the Cities Grow
 On the other hand, the cities are grow ing faster than Jonah's gourd, which sprouted up into shade tree in night. Those which contained 25,00O and over in- creased more than 35 per cent between 1900 and 1910. and this notwithstanding there had been an increase of 32 per cent curing the census preceding. Some of the cities have had on seven-league boots. The growth of Birmingham has been
 more than 245 per cent in decade, that of Los Angeles 2l1 per cent and of Se- attle 194 per cent. Spokane has grown
 1Ss per cent in the last 10 years, Portland 129 and Detroit 63.
 All of our biggest cities are growing. New York, which Is now fast climbing to 100000. increased over 3S per cent be-
 tween 1900 and 1910. Chicago then in
 creased almost 27 per cent and Philadel-
 pha almost twenty per cent. St. Louis
 has now almost 100000 people and Cleve- land more than 50o000. while Baltimore
 and Pittsburgh are close upon Cleve-
 lands heels. One of the fastest growing
 cities of all is Cleveland, which has gained almost 47 per cent in the last ten years. Not all of this growth Is from he farms. Some is by immigration nd some from other sources but pat deal of it is from the rural districts! md it means less number or prool CTS
 and more of consumers. Indeed, we are fast becoming a na lon of city dwellers We have 240o to ms each of which has more than 250O poptla- tion. We have three cities of more than
 million, five which run from half q mil lion to a million in slze and in the quar- ! ter million grade there are eleven, while of those from 100000 to 25o,00O. we find 3l. New York and Chicago have now twice as many people as the whole United States had 100 years ago, and New York alone has a million more inhabitants than 1.-the whole nation had when the first cen | sus was taken in 1790 Indeed 1t was not until 1920 that we had single city which contained 100000. and in 1S00 we had only l 34 municipalities all told. At that tlihe New York had COCO, Philadelphia about l 26 coo, Boston 25,O00 and Baltimore 26,Ooo. The smallest incorporated town mentioned | in the list was Erie, Pa. which then had only S1 souls. so few that 1t would be |. | village in the census of today
 From the Farm to the Factory Moreover, the figures giving the size of theS cities do not indicate the enormous growth of our manufacturing centers. l New York has factories all about it, and the suburban. towns dependent directly upon 1t give it population of more than six million. In this sense Boston mas 1 twice the size mentioned in the census and Pittsburg may possibly be bigger than st. Louis. The urban center of San
 Francisco has radii including 65o'Ooo peo- ple while Philadelphia is enormously larger than the census figures show.
 From this standpoint of urban centers we have at least ten which are of 5O0.0OO
 and upwards In size. All of these centers are rapidly increasing in population, and the increase Is largely made up of the
 rush from the farms to the cities. The