The Economic and Social Factors Leading to Urban Growth

The Economic and Social Factors Leading to Urban Growth

HST-327

In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were many fears about urbanization. In 1818 Estwick Evans wrote that cities contribute to the corruption of morality, partly through access to and acceptance of drinking too much alcohol, and the prevalence of gambling, leading people “down the stream of pleasure to the gulf of remorse.” Likewise, Jefferson and Tocqueville warn against the dangers of urbanization as pollutants of a natural and healthy human life. These men argue that, within cities, disease, both moral and physical, runs rampant. However, in spite of these concerns, cities continued to grow and flourish. The key social and economic factors of this were the introduction of new technology, transportation, the presence of jobs, and the high volume of trade.

The introduction of new technology immensely influenced urban development. Take for example communication and the introduction of the post office. With the development of cities came the post office. Communication was further enhanced through the development of the postal service. People could now write to others and have their letters delivered to them within the same day. In addition to the postal service, within cities, the presence of media greatly increased. Hays informs us that “mass communication shaped an even denser network: the mass-circulation newspaper in the form of the penny press, the movies, radio, and television.”

Transportation and the availability of horses to the masses also encouraged the growth of cities, this time in an outward manner. When the horse was introduced, people began moving towards the outskirts of cities and building houses there. They were able to reposition themselves because they had a horse to travel back and forth with. People could now travel to other cities and towns that they were unfamiliar with and see that in spite of the dire warnings about the dangers of cities, there...