Progress in Metropolitan Integration

Abstract

veniently. Fifty years ago nearby suburbs were peopled by steam-railroad commuters and customers of the rapidly developing trolley lines. Up to that time, however, the outward movement of population in search of cheaper rents and precious light and air had not been so rapid but that city growth by annexation had been able to keep up with it. With the development of the automobile and the paved highway city population has literally exploded over the surrounding country until in many places more of the population which economic forces have drawn to the city live outside of it than in it. This result is most notable, of course, in the case of our great population centers, but there is scarcely an urban community so small or of such slow growth that it is not evident. The effects of this outward sweep of city workers by bus, streetcar, subway, steam train, and automobile have been complicated further by the movement of industry into the outskirts so that in numerous instances the morn-