URBAN POPULATION. 



459 



URBAN POPULATION. 



LESSONS FROM THE CENSUS. IV. 



bt caeeoll d. weight, a. m., 



UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF LABOR. 



THE admirable "work of Mr, William C. Hunt, special agent 

 in charge of the Population Division of the Census Office, 

 and of Dr. John S. Billings, U. S. A., expert special agent in 

 charge of the Division of Vital Statistics of the Census, enables 

 one to study the relations of urban to country population, and the 

 social statistics of cities. Taking the work of these skillful statis- 

 ticians and the information "which has been collected from other 

 sources, I am able to dra"w a distinctive lesson relative to congest- 

 ed districts in cities. 



In the census of 1880 urban population "was defined as that 

 element living in cities or other closely aggregated bodies of 

 population containing eight thousand inhabitants or more. The 

 Superintendent of the Eleventh Census remarks that " this defini- 

 tion of the urban element, although a somewhat arbitrary one, is 

 used in the present discussions of the results of the eleventh cen- 

 sus in order that they may be compared directly "with those of 

 earlier censuses." He considers the limit of eight thousand 

 inhabitants a high one, inasmuch as most of the distinctive feat- 

 ures of urban life are found in smaller bodies of population. 

 According to this definition, the urban population of the United 

 States in 1890 constituted 29*12 per cent of the total population. 

 The f ollo"wing brief table gives the proportion for the several cen- 

 suses since and including that of 1790 : 



It will be seen that the proportion of urban population has 

 gradually increased from 3*35 per cent in 1790 to 29T3 per cent, or 

 nearly one third of the total population, in 1890. The number of 

 cities having a population of more than eight thousand increased 



