Everything
it uses is carried to it. Stop transport and the city stops. It lives
off the shelves of stores. The shelves produce nothing. The city cannot
feed, clothe, warm, or house itself. City conditions of work and living
are so artificial that instincts sometimes rebel against their
unnaturalness.
And finally, the overhead expense of living or doing business in the
great cities is becoming so large as to be unbearable. It places so
great a tax upon life that there is no surplus over to live on. The
politicians have found it easy to borrow money and they have borrowed to
the limit. Within the last decade the expense of running every city in
the country has tremendously increased. A good part of that expense is
for interest upon money borrowed; the money has gone either into
non-productive brick, stone, and mortar, or into necessities of city
life, such as water supplies and sewage systems at far above a
reasonable cost. The cost of maintaining these works, the cost of
keeping in order great masses of people and traffic is greater than the
advantages derived from community life.
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