Today was a research day. Yay? We have to make powerpoints about our topic. My group is Rachel, Haley, and myself. Our groups section is Chapter 7, section 2, and my topic is Urban Problems.
Notes:
URBAN PROBLEMS-
-Housing: Working-class families in cities had two housing options, either buy a house on the outskirts of town where they had to face transportation problems, or they could rent cramped rooms in a boarding house in the central city. After working-class families left the city, immigrants took over their old housing. These multifamily urban dwellings were called tenements. They were often overcrowded and unsanitary. In 1879, New York City passed a law that set minimum standards for plumbing and ventilation in apartments. Since garbage was picked up infrequently, people sometimes dumped it in the air shafts, causing vermin to emerge as a big problem. To keep out the stench, residents nailed windows shut. The new tenements soon became even worse places to live in.
-Transportation: Innovations in mass transit enabled workers to go to and from jobs more easily. Mass transit are transportation systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes. Street cars became known in 1873 in San Francisco, and electric subways in Boston in 1897. By the 20th century, mass transit networks in many urban areas linked city neighborhoods to one another and to suburbs and other outlying communities. Cities struggled to repair old transit systems and to build new ones to meet the demand of expanding populations.
-Water: Cities faced the issue of supplying safe drinking water. Nasty, huh? I'd have to pass on the brown beverage, but thanks. Cleveland and New York built public waterworks to handle the increasing demand in the 1840's and 50's.
Comments