America’s Big City

New Zealand Tablet, 24 November 1910, Page 1915

America’s Big City

. The consecration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, niuch took place early in October, directs attention to tlie great city itself, and its phenomenal growth within recent years. In 1860 the population of New York was in lound numbers 800,000. By the incorporation of neighboring territory and by immigration and natural increase almost four millions have been added to this total. To-day J 1 P°PU latlou ot "hat is known as Greater New York is 4,/bb,BBB, or once and two-thirds as great as the total population of the whole of the United States at the time V cu the soldiers of Washington were drawn up near the site ot the present City Hall to listen to the reading of tlie Declaration of Independence. The struggling town of 1776 which hardly reached what was then known as the field, which is now City Hall Park stead., v moved northward each decade, until it crossed the Darien and became coterminous with the City of Yonkers. luiit to Long Island by gigantic bridges and tunnel, it 1 °fi'J o-S Bl ’ooklyn, which of itself has a population of }’, ,f° , and Queens County, Richmond County, Staten island, with a population of 85,969, was also added to swell the population of the second greatest city in the world, which bids fair to outrival London itself before the .century is much older. A comparison of the ratio of growth of the two cities warrants this . belief. The poputie lc ? n i ;f e ? t n t mn ltory - of Greater New York was 43;, 202 in 1900; in 1910 it is 4,766,882, an increase, as expressed in percentage, of 28 per cent, in the last decade, ir. ii increase .in the population of Greater London, which had been growing at the rate of about 20 per cent a decade during - the nineteenth century, fell off to 17 per cent. S ion ‘ • + ls expected that when the English census i i Ti ls , taken, the rate of increase probably will fall Wow the 17 per cent, of 1001. What unknown w ‘ Muni' opal London, which constitutes the administrative county of London, had grown at the rate of only 7 per cent, in 4 861 non V in t ion rate Jt Wlll hav ® a Population of about 4,861,000 in 1911, or an excess of 94,118 over the present population of Greater New Y 7 ork.

Ihere is however, another London known as ‘ Metropolitan London, covering an area of more than 700 square miles and having an _ estimated population of 7,500,000 J o institute a comparison with this we must take in the aiea lying within twenty miles of New York City Hall According to the State census of 1905 this area, which may of IS™ “ Metropolitan New York, had a pop,.latum of 5,640,000. It -V s estimated that at the present rate of nnn°^ rOP i < (rI t -" 11 nr York will have a population of 7,800,000 ill 1910, which will give it the load of Metropo .tan, London. As much of the territory comprised within it lies in the State of New Jersey there can of coniso, never be that political unity which is possible’ for Metiopolitan London. Though not connected with poliNew Vnrt 5 ,1 r „ 16 communities constituting Metropolitan JV u \oik are so closely connected by rail and by tunnels as to make one community for all intents and purposes U will iVoin 10 i near future bo the greatest assemblage of human beings living on any one spot under the sun.