THE LARGEST CITIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue VII, 15 August 1896, Page 216

THE LARGEST CITIES.

The population of the great cities of the world advances so quickly that the figures of the accepted books of reference need re vision about as soon as they are published. For example, according to all the latest annuals and year books, the population is within 2,500.000, but the census taken last March shows it to be 2,511,955, or 87,250 inhabitants more than was shown by the census of 1891. That is to say, Paris is

growing at the rate of 17,450 inhabitanta per annum. Thia, however, is less than the rate of growth of other European capitals, and it is considerably less than the antecedent growth of Paris itself. Between 1872 and 1876 that amounted to an annual increase of 34,753 ; between 1876 and 1881 of 45,840, and between 1886 and 1891 of 32,752 inhabitants. The figures of the population of London must also be revised in view of the fact that they are now 4.392 346—an increase of 180,603 in five years, or at the rate of 36,120 per annum. Berlin, to which the almanac makers give 1,579,244 has actually 1,677,135 inhabitants, or more than

two and a-half times wbat it had about the beginning of the era of Prussian greatness in 1864. Vienna keeps growing at the rate of 25,000 a year, but St. Petersburg barely reaches half this rate of annual increase. Till the Greater New York is a more positive entity than can be created by psrmissive legislation, Paris must continue to rank as the second city of the world, leaving New York at the bead of the nine cities whose population is between the 1,000.000 and the 2,000.000 mark.

There is one tendency of the Parisian population, as shown by the recent census.

which is probably common to all civilised capitals—the movement from the centre to the suburbs. In spite of the influx of 87,250 new inhabitants since 1891, there has been in all but two of the central * arrondissements ’ a positive loss of population. For the whole ten of these divslons, the loss amounts to 10,205 inhabitants. This has been noted as a proof of the desire of Parisians to desert the crowded quarters of the city for those where they can find more light and air. It appears that the movement has gone on in spite of the obstinate determination of the Municipal Council to obstruct it. The growth of London is almost entirely on the outer rim. and the lower wards of New York have, for years, manifested the Parisian tendency to depopulation. But New York has the compensation which Paris has not, of seeing the assessed valuations of its thinly-populated quarters grow with the multiplication of costly office buildings, even faster than the movement of its people up town and to outlying suburbs.