Introduction
The twentieth century saw – for the first time ever in the USA – a majority of the population living in cities compared with rural locations. This essay examines the reasons for that phenomenon, to evaluate whether that shift in demographics should be considered as a positive trend, or the reverse.
Factors Affecting the Change
The Great Depression. In the 1930’s the Great Depression had a more significant impact on rural areas than in the urban centers of population. Many farms and other rural businesses failed, their problems exacerbated by droughts in that same period, forcing the occupants to relocate to cities, where it was perceived there were more opportunities to make a living, notwithstanding that industry was also badly hit by economic woes. Even when the U.S. began to recover from the Depression, rural areas lost even more residents as recovering industries meant more jobs available in the cities. In the following decades, population increases in rural areas were outstripped by those in urban locations partly due to the loss of potential parents when entire families had moved into the cities.
Agricultural Technology. Another major reason for the shift of population to our cities is the nature of modern agriculture. Farms, ranches and fields are larger than before, and the use of more and more and larger scale machinery in the farming industry has meant that progressively fewer people (and therefore homes for them) are needed. Whereas in the 19th and early 20th centuries harvesting the crops was an extremely labor-intensive process, that is no longer the case. For example, one man in a combined harvester with one or two support vehicles can harvest vast swathes of cereal crops in a fraction of the time and with far less human involvement compared with those earlier methods.
Concentration of Public Services. Most key public services facilities such as hospitals, colleges, other social services, government offices and so on are located in the cities, meaning that all those using them or employed by them want or need to be within reasonable commuting distance of those facilities.
Higher Wages. Because the costs of living such as housing, food prices, transport, etc are higher in the cities, people are attracted there by correspondingly more job opportunities and better pay rates, perhaps tending to ignore the associated penalties of higher living costs. However, on a cautionary note, in every city there are areas of extreme poverty, perhaps more so than in rural areas, showing that city streets are not necessarily “paved with gold.”
Entertainment and Other Leisure Facilities. In today’s society where more people are fortunate to have sufficient disposable income, cities offer the attractions of entertainment including theaters, cinemas, libraries, art galleries, restaurants, gymnasiums, more public sports facilities and stadia, and so on. For those still living in rural areas, taking advantage of such leisure facilities usually means travelling a considerable distance to do so.
Conclusions
There are undoubtedly many advantages to living in a city, including the perhaps less obvious and consequent advantage to rural dwellers of fewer neighbors living in homes that encroach on their beautiful countryside! On balance it would seem that the trend that has resulted in the majority of our population living in the cities has few negative aspects, other than the fairly obvious ones like air pollution in cities due to road traffic volumes. The demographic shift to the cities is an inevitable and in the main not unwelcome feature of our modern society. It undoubtedly offers more advantages than disadvantages.
