Problems Of Rapid Urbanization In The United States

In the late 1880s, there was a growth of cities never experienced before in the Northeast and Midwest regions of America. This rapid urbanization was caused by a great amount of immigration to the United States, and by improvements in the farming industry. Even though immigration and inventions helped to increase the rate at which cities grew, rapid urbanization brought many problems having to do with housing, transportation, water distribution, crime, and fire. To counter these problems, city governments and others came up with solutions to the problems such as tenements, mass transit systems. Rapid Urbanization caused many problems of which only a few were satisfactorily solved.
Immigration and the development of new innovations in the farming industry contributed greatly to rapid urbanization. Many European, Japanese, and West Indian peoples …show more content…
Advancements made to solve these problems were: effective mass transit systems, filtration and chlorination of water, sewer lines, and a salaried police force. Streetcars and subways contributed to the ease with which workers could travel to their respective workplaces. In 1870, water was being filtered (didn't do much, just took out the big chunks) to make water cleaner. Chlorination was introduced long after that in 1908(it actually prevented disease). Sanitation was addressed by the creation of sanitation departments. However, these departments could not fully cope with the gargantuan task of keeping the cities clean. New York was the first city to have a full-time emeployed police force. However, this police force was too small to have a visible impact in the amount of crime that went on. Even though solutions were created to problems such as crime, water quality, and sanitation, they weren’t very effective at answering the issues that came to be a problem with rapid