Changes in 20th Century United States Urban History

Changes in 20th Century United States Urban History

Introduction

In economically advanced, postindustrial countries such as the United States, the proportion of people living in towns, cities, and metropolitan areas reached 75% or more by the late 20th century in developed countries. In the world as a whole, the proportion of urban population rose from less than 5% in 1800 to slightly more than 50% of a much larger aggregate world population by the early 21st century. Numerically, world urban residents expanded from perhaps 30 million in 1800 to about 3 billion in 2000. Matters of urban spatial structure, which pertain to the geographical patterns and characteristics of urban places, thus concern a very large and expanding share of the world's people.

Themes

Unemployment

According to Carl Abbott's book a major factor in the prosperity of the 1920s was low unemployment rates (Abbott, 2007). Unemployment started out at 9 percent in 1921 but fell all the way to 4 percent by 1926. In fact, six years during the decade saw rates between 4 and 5 percent. This meant plenty of jobs to go around, and with the rising GNP is also meant workers had money to spend, leading to mass consumption that helped further create even more jobs and more demand for products to buy.

The Great Depression began in 1920 although the full effects wouldn't show up until the 1930s. October 29, 1929, marked the crash of a stock market boosted over a decade by many middle and working class people who invested their entire savings. Unemployment nearly doubled, jumping from under 5 percent to all the way up to just under 9 percent. Banks in the 1920s lent out more money than they had, causing the banking crash when people tried to withdraw their savings, ...