STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE DECREASE OF RURAL POPULATION IN THE SOUTHERN 

 PENINSULA OF MICHIGAN. 



DR. CHAS. H. COOLEY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 



It is very well known that the proportion of the people of the United 

 States that live in cities, as compared with those who live in the country 

 or in small towns, is quite rapidly increasing. The census classifies as 

 urban that part of the population which dwells in cities of more than 

 8.000 inhabitants. The per cent dwelling in such cities was 4.0 in the year 

 1800. In 1880 it had become 22.G, in 1890, 29.2, in 1900, 33.1. It is worth 

 noting that the cities did not gain quite so much upon the country during 

 the last decade as they did during the one preceding. The urban per- 

 centage increased G.G between '80 and '90, but only 4.1 between '90 and 

 1900. 



About the same is true in a general way in Michigan. Our per cent of 

 urban population was 16.8 in 1880, 31.2 in 1890, 37.2 in 1900. Here again 

 the gain of the cities is less during the last decade. 



This method of comparing city with country population is not alto- 

 gether a fair one, for this reason : even if all parts of the population 

 increased at precisely the same rate, the selection of a fixed limit, like 

 8,000, to separate the city from the country would always make the 

 former appear to be increasing more rapidly than the latter, because 

 a larger number of towns with a little less than 8,000 would be continually 

 passing that mark and so coming all at once to be reckoned as urban. 

 A better way is to take a particular list of cities and follow them from 

 one census to another, comparing their growth with that of the rest of 

 the population. 



Thus if we take the IGl cities that now have over 25,000 people and 

 trace their progress we find that they increased 49.5 per cent between 

 '80 and '90 and 32.6 x)er cent between '90 and 1900. During the same 

 periods the population of the country at large increased 24.9 and 20.7 

 per cent. Here again we see that although the large cities are still 

 growing faster than the rest of the country the difference is not as great 

 as it was in the preceding decade. About the same relations hold true 

 in our own State. The growth of our five large cities, Detroit, Bay City, 

 Grand Rapids, Saginaw and Jackson, fell from 85 per cent to 30 per cent; 

 while that of the State fell only from 28 to 16. On the whole we may 

 perhaps conclude that the aggrandizement of great cities is not quite 

 so alarming as is sometimes supposed, and not relatively so rapid now 

 as it was some time ago. I may add that the census shows that very 

 large cities are increasing no more rr:\pidly than those of moderate size. 

 The rate of increase 1890-1900 for each of "the four classes of cities above 

 25,000 is almost precisely the same, — about 33 per cent. 



Let us now turn our attention to rural population, first in the country 

 at large and then in our own State. 



The general fact i« that the population of settled rural districts in 

 the northern states is actuallv diminishing, and has been for twentv-five 



