Urbanization and Tenements

Adam Whisner, Todd Oravitz, Joe Donovan, Jalen Thomas, Paul

Sandberg

Urbanization

Urbanization is the movement of people to cities

The Industrial Revolution caused rapid urbanization Changes in farming, population growth, and a great

demand for workers led to many people to migrate to the city

The British town of Manchester went from a population of 17,000 in the 1750's to 70,000 by 1801

A "cloud of vapor" formed from the many factories The air became polluted and rivers became filthy

How it Started

Tenements

Tenements are multistory buildings divided into apartments

New York

Tenements The first tenements were built in the

1860s and 1870s Landlords realized that sizable profits

could be made from building cheap housing for the poor

Hundreds of tenements were built on the Lower East Side of Manhattan

More tenements were built as more poor immigrants arrived in New York City

By 1900 more than 80,000 tenements had been built in New York City

They housed a population of 2.3 million people in New York City

Landowners tried to put as many tenaments on a single lot as possible

Conditions Sometimes the tenements had no

electricity Some of them didn't have windows

either Until 1867, there were no federal,

state, city laws requiring developers to provide their tenants with running water, gas, or adequate light and ventilation

The New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 was one of the first such laws to ban the construction of poorly built tenement buildings in the state of New York.

The tenements had no water There were no windows No yards There were 4-5 children per room There was an outbreak of cholera More than 31,000 people died in 1832 Parliament eventually improved them They added sewers, streets, and lights

Conditions in England