Shrinking Cities

[Sidebar] American society has become almost entirely urban, technological and SOCI~I change has drastically reduced the population of many older central cities. What is to be done? The first half of the twentieth century can be characterized as a period that saw the widespread emergence of large cities in the United States. In 1900, there were only six cities with more than half a million inhabitants; only fifty years later there were seventeen ‘. such cities. It is worth noting that much of this urban growth reflected the artificial stimuli of two world wars and the government-supported expansion of war-related industries, most located in the big cities of the Northeast and Midwest. The largest cities also benefited from the fact that for more than a decade after the Second World War the United States was the only country in the world with its manufacturing facilities intact. It was inevitable that eventually things would change. Europe and Japan rebuilt themselves and challenged the dominance of U.S. urban manufacturing. The previous rapid growth of large cities began to level out, and new urbanization patterns emerged One of these patterns was a change in the kind of cities Americans chose to live in. We differentiate between small cities (100,009 to 500,000 inhabitants) and large cities (more than 500,000 inhabitants). In 1900, eight million Americans were living in large cities as compared to less than five million in small cities. Over the next fifty years, the total population of the large cities increased at a faster rate than that of the small cities, and by 1950, the large cities were home to more than 26 million people, compared to about 13 million for the small cities. However, after 1950, tbis pattern began to reverse, and the total population of small cities grew more quickly. By 1990, for the first time in the twentieth century, there were more Americans living in small cities than in large ones (see Table I). This situation is likely to continue for some time. For example, between 1980 and 1990 the total population of the small cities increased by a remarkable 17.3 percent, compared to 6.0 percent for large cities, and 9.7 percent for the nation as a whole.