rough draft

[tubanate]

Throughout history, man has always had a need for social interaction. With the birth of the modern city, not only has he gained that interaction, cities have now become the capitals for economic and political development. With the birth of the Industrial Revolution the urbanization of civilization is nearly at it’s peak. Within the next brief

Comments

[reggaejessie]

Okay, Nate. Here it is, all fixed. There were a few punctuation and grammar problems, which I fixed, so don't change them back; I promise they're right. I wasn't sure quite what you meant by "we are catching up to today’s technology." You shouldn't say that if you don't explain at all what you mean by it. Other than that, I just restructured sentences and changed some words so there weren't so many "urban"s and "growth"s and "steadily"s. If you add more to the paper before you turn it in, I'd be happy to read through that too. High five for education. That's from Mykl.

Throughout history, man has always had a need for social interaction. With the birth of the modern city, we gained that interaction, and cities became our centers of economic and political development. The urbanization of civilization in the US has increased considerably since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The following paragraphs will discuss the migration from rural to urban areas.
As shown in the attached graph, for 50 years after the first census was taken, population of urban areas in the US didn’t see much growth. From about 1850 until 1930 the percentage increased drastically, and peaked at about the time the Great Depression started. From about 1950 until today, the percentage has increased gradually, meaning that we are catching up to today’s technology. The Northeast grew the fastest at first, but was beaten by the West at around 1960. The South was the slowest to catch up to the national average, doing so around the turn of the century. For about 35 years now, the percentage of the population in large cities has been similar in all areas of the US.
The population made a great migration to urbanized areas from the 1850s all the way through the 1930s. The sudden increase in growth can only be explained by the Industrial Revolution. In a Geographical Review article, Allen Pred states, “The phenomena that led to the concurrent emergence of the modern American metropolis and large-scale manufacturing are dynamically involuted and nearly always inseparable” (Pred 1). Because of the Industrial Revolution, more people could move into urbanized areas and become part of the urban economic and social system.
During the 1930s, growth in industrialized areas leveled off. The Great Depression occurred around that same time. During the depression, many people fell deep into poverty, “and at the depth (1932-33) of the depression, there were 16 million unemployed-about one third of the available labor force” (Great Depression). This lack of employment, particularly in city settings, accounts for the leveling off of population in big cities. The slowed economic growth caused slowed population growth in urban areas. In other words, urban growth is predicated upon economic prosperity.
After the depression, World War II started abruptly for the US with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As the war went on, population in urban areas started to increase again as the war helped lift America out of its ten-year depression. People were now moving to cities to become part of the American Armed Work Force, by helping to manufacture weapons to support the war effort. After WWII there came a series of technological advances that helped promote urban living styles. Since the end of WWII, the population of large cities has increased persistently because of economic stability and the desire for an easier way of life than that found in rural areas.
As the data clearly shows, the growth of urban areas has been increasing consistently since the dawn of the industrial age. From tough times like the Great Depression and WWII to times of peace and prosperity like the roaring 20s, people have migrated continuously from rural to urban areas, and populations of large cities will continue to grow in the future.