Newspapers, business houses, and mail-order houses in particular have published numerous discussions and graphic statements of their circulation or their trade relations with the surrounding territory. Such documents are to be found in numerous specialized trade and commercial journals. In addition there are government reports and publications of chambers of commerce bearing on this question.
2. One of the outstanding prerequisites of any city is a local transportation system which makes possible ready access of the population living in diverse sections to their places of work, the centers of trade, of culture, and of other social activities. The city consists of not merely a continuous densely populated and built up area, but of suburbs and outlying regions which by means of rapid transit are within easy reach of urban activities. This area has been termed the commuting area. Although the inhabitants of this larger area of settlement may not be under the same taxing, policing, and governing authorities as the inhabitants of the city proper, they think of themselves as part of the same metropolis and actively participate in its life.
Edel, Edmund. Neu Berlin, volume L in “Grossstadt Dokumente Series,” edited by Hans Ostwald, Berlin, 1905.
Discusses the changes brought about by recent growth in the city of Berlin, with emphasis on the recently built-up suburbs. (VII, 1, 2, 4.)
Lueken, E. “Vorstadtprobleme,” Schmollers Jahrb., XXXIX (1915), 1911–20.
Discussion of the governmental and technical problems brought about by the rise of the suburbs. (IV, 3; V, 1; VI.)
Wright, Henry C. “Rapid Transit in Relation to the Housing Problem,” in Proceedings of the Second National Conference on City Planning (Rochester, 1910), pp. 125–35.
Considers the possibility of distributing the urban population in the suburbs by building up a rapid transit system. (VI, 2, 3, 10.)
3. That part of the inhabitants of a given metropolitan area who actually are under the same administrative machinery may constitute only a relatively small part of the inhabitants of the metropolitan district as a whole. The size of the administrative unit tends to lag behind the size of the metropolis proper. Suburbs are incorporated gradually, and changes in charters and legal organization often do not keep pace with the rapid expansion of the district. The city of London proper is only a relatively small part of metropolitan London. As a result of such anomalous situations many difficulties occur in interpreting statistical data compiled by governmental agencies.
Gross, Charles. Bibliography of British Municipal History (New York, 1897). (I, 2; VI, 7.)