256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tain tendencies are developed and carried to an extreme ; but sooner or 

 later new forces appear which produce a reaction; and the pendulum 

 swings backward. The flood tide of city migration is near; an ebb 

 toward the rural districts may be anticipated. Indeed the stream of 

 population flowing toward the cities is being, in a measure, diverted 

 into suburban channels; and at the same time a counter current is 

 setting in from the crowded tenement-ridden quarters toward the 

 more healthful outskirts of the city, where grass and trees are not 

 wholly unknown. Our modern cities, our great manufactories, our 

 railroads and our enormous trade are the results of the extensive use 

 of steam power. While factories and cities did exist before Watt made 

 his famous invention, conditions were radically different from those 

 of to-day. Steam has molded our present civilization. But in recent 

 years a new distributor of power, electricity, has come into extensive 

 use. As a result the economies and limitations which caused central- 

 ization and crowding during the century of steam are removed to some 

 extent. Electricity is modifying the distribution of population. 



The movement toward the suburbs can be noticed by even a casual 

 observer. Manufactories and residences are being built in the sub- 

 urbs. Factories and homes are no longer erected in close proximity 

 to each other. Shops are now designed to occupy a larger ground 

 area, and are located further from each other. The age of decentral- 

 ization is just ahead; the suburb is absorbing more and more of our 

 city population. 



The suburban type is becoming characteristic; the commuter is a 

 constantly increasing factor among our people. Improved methods of 

 communication and of transportation, better roads, rural mail delivery 

 and new methods of transmitting power are substituting decentralizing 

 for centralizing forces. As the country is covered with a network of 

 trolley and telephone wires, the area available for the residence of city 

 workers is enlarged. The use of elevated roads, inside the city limits, 

 for suburban electric lines will still further lengthen the radius of 

 the circle. Country or suburban homes, equipped with many city 

 conveniences and advantages, are now available for the man engaged 

 in business in the city. Country life of the immediate future is not 

 to be what it was in the ' good old times ' ; new forces and new influ- 

 ence are infusing- new life into the rural communities. Eural isola- 

 tion will soon be a thing of the past in nearly all sections of the eastern 

 and north central states. 



The American people are beginning to recognize vaguely that life 

 in a crowded city is not the best and most wholesome for men and 

 women. Many individuals are buying homes in the country for purely 

 sentimental reasons. But behind this sentiment is an unerring instinct 

 TPhich leads us back to contact with the soil and to communion with 



