Marriage Rate Birth Rate Death Rate
Boston…………………… 23.10 31.24 23.23
Cities over 50,000………… 18.89 29.72 19.49
Rural Districts…………… 13.77 21.76 17.38
5. The Death Rate in Cities is also higher than in the Rural Districts, as the above table has just shown. This is undoubtedly due to the poor sanitary and living conditions of large cities.
6. The Physical Condition of City Populations. Measurements by Dr. Beddoe and others show that the stature and other measurements of men of the great cities of Great Britain are far below those of the rural population. The latest English commission to investigate the conditions of city life also reports that the population of the British cities at least shows marked signs of physical deterioration.
7. Mental and Moral Degeneracy in our Cities. (1) A larger number of insane are found in our cities than in the rural districts. In the United States as a whole there were in 1890 seventeen hundred insane per million of population, while in the cities of over 50,000 there were 2429 insane per million.
(2) The suicide rate is much higher in the cities than in other districts. In general the suicide rate in the United States seems to be two or three times as high in our large cities as in the rest of the country.
(3) Poverty and pauperism are much more common in our cities than in rural districts. About one third of the population of great cities may safely be said to live below the poverty line, while in such cities as New York and Boston from ten to twenty per cent of the population require more or less charitable assistance during the year.
(4) The amount of crime in the cities is about twice as great as in the rural districts.
(5) Illegitimacy in the cities is from two to three times as great as in rural districts, and it is well known that vice centers very largely in our cities.
All these facts show that mental and moral degeneracy is much more common in our urban population than in our rural populations, and that the biological and moral aspects of our city life present pressing problems.