The impact of industrialization and urbanization

Urbanization is the social process whereby cities grow and societies become more urban. The impact of industrialization and urbanization on economic and social life The more industrialization matured, the more opportunities were created for work and investment, and this brought more people to cities as consumers and as workers. America’s urban and industrial growth changed economy and released dependence on European resources and manufactured goods. As cities grew larger they began to subdivide into districts: working – class and ethnic neighborhoods, downtown, and a ring of suburbs. Technological advances:

Mass transportation began to replace horse drawn carriages. Cable cars came firs then electric – powered streetcars began to replace cables. Tracks were raised onto trestles enabling vehicles to travel over jammed downtown streets. These elevated tracks were expensive to constrict and only appeared in few cities, because of lower cost underground subways advanced in most cities. Another form of transportation, the electric interurban railway linked cities with growing populations. Business practices:

When consumers moves outward business followed, branches of department stores, grocery stores, banks, theaters and taverns joined to create neighborhood shopping centers. Businessmen believed that the government should not interfere or regulate in economic affairs. Immigration and migration:

Low crop prices and high debt drove farmers off the land and to the cities for better work opportunities. Many African Americans moved cityward seeking better employment and escaping racial violence and political oppression. Most African Americans found jobs in service such as cleaning, cooking, and driving, because few factories would employ them. Immigrants from Europe and smaller numbers from Asia, Canada, and Latin America fled foreign countries to the New World, for the goal to make enough money then return home to live in greater comfort. Immigrants first anchored their lives to their cultures; people practiced religion, held traditions and married within their race. Reactions of the populists and other critics:

The southern and western agricultural people came together to demand voice, these were the populists. Their concern of money, agricultural issues and control of transportation. Frustrated with federal regulations, the party’s Omaha platform reform document demanded government ownership of railroads and telegraphs. They urged the government to regain all the land owned for speculative purposes by foreigners and railroads and demanded the expansion of currency by printing money to be made available for farm loans by basing the money on free and unlimited coinage of silver.