Evening star., 1939-04-30
A. P. Photo.


sists Of 81 300 inhabitants, but more than
20 per cent of the urban population live
in cities of more than million. The
degree to which various sections of the
country are urbanized differs greatly.
More than three -fourths of the popula-
ton of New England and the Middle
Atlantic States are city dwellers, COM
pared with only little more than one
fourth in the Southeast.
Some Go Over the Hill.
Most of the cities, as has been shown,
acterized by rapid growth. A few, how
ever. already are on their way downhill
These are mostly smaller cities. The
big towns'-New York, Chicago Detroit
and the like-are growing bigger year
by year at the expense of their smaller
rivals. The destiny of the new super
animal seems to be giganticism, in face
of the fact that the growth rate of the
American population on the whole Is
slowing down. A good deal of city
growth in the past has been due to i'm
migration, as a consequence of which
the big town has been polyglot place
where peoples of widely different cultural
backgrounds and ways of life have been
herded together. This source Of human
material for growth now largely has
been eliminated.
So in order to continue growing, or
even to maintain a stable population,
the big city must prey upon the smaller
city and upon rural America. But the
birthrate in the country also is falling,
although by no means so rapidly as in
the city.
Not that the city is necessarily super
organism doomed to an early death.
Probably it isn't. It is too essential in
the life of the world to be allowed to
perish and eventually will make some
self adjustment to the adolescent ills
which threaten it. For one thing it will
become more homogeneous. 1t will pass,
the committee believes, from the hap
hazard and often corrupt system of gov
ernment to the control of experts-men
who have devoted their lives to the
scientific study of municipal problems.
If it is to continue to grow this growth
must be planned. the experts warn.
And they insist, the Federal Govern
ment must pay more attention to its
peculiar problems-comparable to the
attention now paid to the peculiar prob
lens of the farmer through the Depart
ment of Agriculture. At the close of the
Civil War, when the Department of Agri-
culture was set up, the cities were rather
inconsequential in the United States
compared to the millions OF homesteads
and country villages.
Require Ace High Brains.
The problems are numerous and COM
plex, calling for the countrys best brains.
Zone of the most extraordinary and,
in the long run, decisive of the facts
about the urban population is its failure
to reproduce ITSELF says the report.
Throughout history cities have been the
consumers of the man power produced
in the country. Up to the time of the
industrial revolution, urban deaths seem
regularly to have exceeded births, and
even since the urban death rate has been
reduced the rapid growth of the cities
has been largely due to migration from
the rural areas, supplemented IN the
United States by immigration from
abroad.
1.-THE urban population produces con-
siderably fewer children in proportion to
its numbers and the proportion of deaths
in cities is slightly greater than in the
country. The present rate of urban re-
production is below that required to
maintain even stationary population,
and it is lower as the size of the city
increases. This indicates that the city
is not conducive to the type of family life
to which our civilization has been ac-
customed. The physical conditions of
living in crowded quarters are unfavor-
able to wholesome family life and the
rearing OF children. The insecurity to
which large masses of the population
are subject, the atomization of CONNER
cial life, and a declining sense of social
solidarity and individual responsibility,
the emancipation of woman, and possibly
biological changes in the human species
due to the impact of urbanization have
been thought to account for the differ
ences between the rural and usban fam
lily. The family, as household. is re-
stricted to the immediate relatives,
emancipated from the larger kinship
group characteristic Of the country"