The
opening up also of new and fertile regions which were very productive in
the nineteenth century had a similar effect.
Every improvement in agricultural industry instead of keeping men on the
farm has tended to drive them from it. Scientific agriculture carried on
with modern machinery necessarily lessens the need of a great proportion
of the population being employed to produce the foodstuff and other raw
materials which the world needs. Hence it has tended to free men from
the soil and to make it possible for a larger and larger number to go to
the city. Therefore the relatively diminishing importance of agriculture
has been one of the prime causes of the growth of the cities in the
nineteenth century; and so far as we can see this cause will continue to
operate for some time to come.
2. _The Growth and Centralization of Manufacturing Industries._
This is perhaps the most vital cause of the growth of cities. The great
city, as we have already said, is very largely the product of modern
industrialism.
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