Geography of Ohio 
189 
Erie and the upper Ohio basin. In this region are several other 
cities which contain over 10,000 population. Geographically 
that is the liveliest part of Ohio; it is the area to which profit 
accrues directly and indirectly from the ore and steel business, 
connecting the Superior mines and western Pennsylvania. Active 
trade routes are not in operation long before population centers 
commence to appear along them. 
In the next decade, this hour-glass region of Ohio will make just 
as rapid progress as it has in the last ; even if the conditions basal 
to its industry were changed, its present business momentum 
would continue several years. But this region is liable to suffer 
with the decline of the steel business in western Pennsylvania, in 
case its cities are slow in making the necessary readjustments. 
In addition to the cities already mentioned, Ohio has four others. 
East Liverpool, Mansfield, Portsmouth, and Steubenville, each 
of which contains between twenty and twenty-five thousand in 
population; also 18 cities each having between ten and twenty 
thousand; and 42, ranging from five to ten thousand in popu- 
lation. 
PROBLEMS OF LARGE CITIES 
Markets and urban density. The concluding part of this dis- 
cussion has to do with particular problems that are associated 
with centers of dense population. In large cities markets are 
generally found; in smaller towns only stores. The market is 
a response to the advantage of eliminating the greatest possible 
number of middlemen who stand between producers and con- 
sumers. In the market usually the producer and consumer come 
face to face, the man with the hoe and the woman with the bas- 
ket, and they discuss prices. Wherever population is congested 
the most important question of all is food, its quantity, quality, 
and price. The market helps to keep prices moderate. The 
chief market-buyers are laboring people and a small percentage of 
middle folk, the sturdy people of some means, who believe in 
saving if they can, instead of buying everything over the tele- 
phone, and paying the added prices. The market and itinerant 
hucksters are essential to the welfare of industrial centers. It is 
important that the actual necessities of life be reasonable in 
price, because the major part of the population in every large 
city consists not of bankers, merchants, and professional men, 
but of laborers. 
