CHAPTEE XIV 



STATUS AND TENDENCIES IN MICHIGAN RURAL 



LIFE 



A SUMMARY statement of census findings will 

 afford us a measure of the State's resources and 

 will show how near we have yet come to reaping the 

 capabilities of the land. Between these results and 

 a fair optimism lie the possibilities of the produc- 

 tion of the State; and the figures of different periods 

 show the tendencies. 



The aggregate population of Michigan in 1920 

 was 3,668,412, a decided increase from the returns 

 for the previous decade which showed 2,810,173. 

 Of the total, the one city of Detroit had 993,678, an 

 increase of 113.3 per cent over the 1910 figure of 

 465,766. On the other hand, the population of 

 Michigan in 1920 dwelling in the rural sections, rep- 

 resented by places of less than 2,500 inhabitants, was 

 1,426,852, which was 38.9 per cent of the total popu- 

 lation. Evidently Michigan had ceased to be pre- 

 dominantly a rural commonwealth after the manner 

 of its pioneer period. Only twenty years before, the 

 rural inhabitants had numbered 60.7 per cent of the 

 whole. Thus in a score of years the rural had yielded 

 to the urban element in its composition. Of the 



440 



