City and Inter-State Migration 125 



slowly 17.1 per cent live in villages; and in the rapidly 

 increasing section 19.1 per cent live in villages. 



This is to be expected from the nature of the factors 

 underlying the rural population movement. With static 

 agricultural conditions and continued concentration of land- 

 ownership in the hands of a few, the growth of the small 

 centers of population is naturally stunted. On the other 

 hand, in actively progressive agricultural areas, with an in- 

 creasing number of prosperous independent farmers and 

 families attached to the land, the growth of the village and 

 small town as the center of community life is naturally 

 stimulated. 



Towns Under 25,000. — The Census enumerates as Urban 

 all towns of 2,500 and over in population. Many of the towns 

 which were mere clusters of houses around a cross-road in 

 1860 are now in this class. A striking example is States- 

 boro, Georgia, which was incorporated with less than 50 

 inhabitants between 1880 and 1890. It had grown, by 1910, 

 to be a town of 2,529 inhabitants. Fourteen such new towns 

 were included in the Urban area of 1910. These are indi- 

 cated by an X on Map III. 



ffie growth of these small town s is largely dependent 

 upon the agricultural conditions o f thfl g^rrnnnHinor rural 

 areas. T his is graphically illustrated by comparing Map III 

 with Map II. It will be seen that the increase in towns 

 under 10,000 corresponds rather closely to the increase 

 in the surrounding rural areas. The towns with the slow 

 rates of increase are mostly in the Black Belt. The rapidly 

 increasing towns are, for the most part, in the Upper Pied- 

 mont and Wiregrass. 



The farming area immediately surrounding the small 

 town, however, loses Negro population by the growth of the 

 town. The Urban counties (those on Map III containing a 

 circle) actually lost 11,537 in Negro population between 

 1900 and 1910, whereas on the basis of excess of births over 

 deaths in their population one would have expected an in- 



