Industry will decentralize. There is no city that would be rebuilt as it
is, were it destroyed--which fact is in itself a confession of our real
estimate of our cities. The city had a place to fill, a work to do.
Doubtless the country places would not have approximated their
livableness had it not been for the cities. By crowding together, men
have learned some secrets. They would never have learned them alone in
the country. Sanitation, lighting, social organization--all these are
products of men's experience in the city. But also every social ailment
from which we to-day suffer originated and centres in the big cities.
You will find the smaller communities living along in unison with the
seasons, having neither extreme poverty nor wealth--none of the violent
plagues of upheave and unrest which afflict our great populations. There
is something about a city of a million people which is untamed and
threatening. Thirty miles away, happy and contented villages read of the
ravings of the city! A great city is really a helpless mass.
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