Urban life

“ Do you live out of town, and quite removed from the attractions of a metropolis? Ah! your home, then, is under clearer skies, which the city artists can only imitate; you live amidst the decorations which highest Nature imparts but to country landscapes. Without the especial occupations of city life, you escape its rush and tumult. You are being taught by slower, yet as attractive, methods, the grand lessons of life. ”

“ But for the other half of the year I am not only willing but anxious to be hemmed in by brick and stone walls in the heart of the city; to get in close touch with the crowd's ignoble strife, to follow the human trail, to catch the scent of gasolene, to hear telephones ringing, taxis tooting, and all the rattle, rush, crash, bang that is different from the Simple Life and the Silent Places. The more different, the better. ”

“ As cities ceased to be regarded simply as centres of trade and money-getting, and became habitual homes for the richer and more cultured; as men woke to the pleasure and freedom of the new life which developed itself in the street and the mall, of its quicker movement, its greater ease, its abundance of social intercourse, its keener taste, its subtler and more delicate courtesy, its flow of conversation, the stately and somewhat tedious prose-writer of days gone by passed into the briefer and nimbler essayist. ”

“ The attraction of the metropolis is due in part, however, to the fact that in the long run every individual finds somewhere among the varied manifestations of city life the sort of environment in which he expands and feels at ease; finds, in short, the moral climate in which his peculiar nature obtains the stimulations that bring his innate qualities to full and free expression. ”

“ Wherever in the world, as an incident of the highways and wharves along its river banks, a city has provided opportunity for the people to walk and sit under pleasant conditions, where they can watch the water and the life upon it, where they can enjoy the breadth of outlook and the sight of the open sky and the opposite bank and the reflections in the stream, the result has added to the comeliness of the city itself, the health and happiness of the people, and their loyalty and local pride. ”

“ THE CITY’S HEART
“Bosh!” said my friend, jabbing impatiently with his stick at a gaunt cat in the gutter, “all bosh! A city has no heart. It’s incorporated selfishness; has to be. Slopping over is not business. City is all business. A poet’s dream, my good fellow; pretty but moonshine!”
We turned the corner of the tenement street as he spoke. ”

“ SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT The city, from the point of view of this paper, is something more than a congeries of individual men and of social conveniences—streets, buildings, electric lights, tramways, and telephones, etc.; something more, also, than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative devices—courts, hospitals, schools, police, and civil functionaries of various sorts. ”

“ It is, I suspect, motives of this kind which have their basis, not in interest nor even in sentiment, but in something more fundamental and primitive which draw many, if not most, of the young men and young women from the security of their homes in the country into the big, booming confusion and excitement of city life. ”

“ But the physical conditions of the city life are so novel to them, the bustle and violence of it all so insistent, the effect of the mechanical labour, the little leisure, mostly consumed in transit, the grey, similar streets of tiny houses so desolating, that it is hard to stimulate a high political, social, or religious aspiration. ”

“ The life of the city seems to be compressed and made more intense by this barrier; and on passing within it you do not breathe quite so freely, yet are sensible of an enjoyment in the close elbowing throng, the clamor of high voices from side to side of the street, and the million of petty sights, actions, traffics, and personalities, all so squeezed together as to become a great whole. ”

“ Out in the country, one is usually awakened at dawn by one's bird neighbors saying "Cheap, cheap," though it is not. Nor is the writer the only one who can sleep better in cities than anywhere else, save at sea. Ask your neurologist. Not from the noisy town but from the silent farm comes the greater relative proportion of our insane.
I emphasize this first and all-important advantage of city life, because whatever else a home may become it should ever be a sweet haven of rest. ”

“ A sudden residence in a vast metropolis, after a life of rural seclusion, has without doubt a very peculiar effect upon the mind. The immense population, the multiplicity of objects, the important interests hourly impressed upon the intelligence, the continually occurring events, the noise, the bustle, the general and widely-spread excitement, all combine to make us keenly sensible of our individual insignificance ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, again, they become accustomed to the street and its varied scenes, and the daily excitement of life in a large city becomes such a matter of necessity to them, that they find the country lonesome. ”

“ All this tends to give to city life a superficial and adventitious character; it tends to complicate social relationships and to produce new and divergent individual types. It introduces, at the same time, an element of chance and adventure, which adds to the stimulus of city life and gives it for young and fresh nerves a peculiar attractiveness. ”

“ Standing at any street-corner of the city, you will see wide avenues of fine business houses or elegant residences, and, where the latter, a wealth of neatly-trimmed shrubbery, and long lines of overarching maple trees merging into pretty vistas which seem to invite you beyond to the beautiful hills, uplands and valleys, with their murmuring streams, sloping farms and well-kept homes, where both plenty and contentment seem to be waiting to give you a right hearty welcome. ”

“ The city until recently has occupied a very isolated position, and has depended upon itself for society. It is therefore sociable, friendly, and hospitable; and though there is gossip—for where is it not to be found?—I never knew any in which there was so little of ill-nature. The little world in the upper part of the city is probably the most brilliant to be found anywhere in so small a compass. ”

“ Then “stills” of its principal buildings, and its principal citizens.
Then the main streets, full of business life, autos chugging, electric cars clanging back and forth, all of the bustle of a modern town that is growing rich and growing rapidly. ”

“ Under the complex influences of the city life what may be called the normal neighborhood sentiment has undergone many curious and interesting changes, and produced many unusual types of local communities. ”

“ Urbanized Literature.—Most books, magazines, and papers are published in cities, hence most of them have the flavor of city life about them. They are made and written by people who know the city, and the city doings are usually the subject matter of the literary output of the day. Children acquire from these, even in their primary school days, a longing for the city. The idea of seeing and possibly of living in the city becomes "set," and it tends sooner or later to realize itself in act and in life. ”

“ Street sounds come surging up to us—the hoarse Voice of the City—a confused blur of noise—clanging trolley-cars, rumbling wagons, and familiar cries—all the varied commotion of the home-going hour when the city's buildings are pouring forth their human tide of laborers into the clogged arteries. ”

“ Any lover of the city could live as far out as this. I have no quarrel with the city as a place to work in. Cities are as necessary as wheat-fields and as lovely, too—from twenty miles away, or from Westminster Bridge at daybreak. The city is as a head to the body, the nervous centre where the multitudinous sensations are organized and directed, where the multitudinous and interrelated interests of the round world are directed. The city is necessary; city work is necessary; but less and less is city living necessary. ”

“ The city has many charms and many conveniences as a place of residence; and there are those who, having accustomed themselves to the methods of life that prevail among the dense populations of the great towns, can hardly find happiness and comfort elsewhere. ”

“ Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found, cities degrade us by magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and with them, sobriety and elevation. ”

“ The social and intellectual attractions of city life, especially for the brighter and more active-minded of the country youth, are unquestionably powerful factors in building up the cities at the expense of the country districts. ”

“ Every great city has become but the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the one the seat of business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. Between the two, night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middleclass population. ”

“ In this day of great wealth and wonderful inventions we realize more and more the value of the city to mankind, and the quality of the city as a means of culture. Cities are not merely marts of commerce; they stand for civility; they are civilization itself. No untried naked Adam in Eden might ever pass for a civilized man. The city street is the school of philosophy, of art, of letters; city society is the home of refinement. When the rustic visits the city he puts on his best clothes and his best manners. ”

“ Thronged streets where jostle theatre and hotel,
And stately terraces where rich folk dwell....
It has black alleys, and most dismal plains
Crossed by long, steady, fire-emitting trains;
Foul slums and palaces, prisons and spires
And suburbs where the jaundiced clerk expires.
But love and hope are always with us, too:
And such bright eyes, to make the sky seem blue! ”

“ The streets of the great towns of antiquity, the streets of the great towns of the East, the streets of all the mediæval towns, were not intended for any sort of wheeled traffic at all—were designed primarily and chiefly for pedestrians. So it would be, I suppose, in any one's ideal city. Surely Town, in theory at least, is a place one walks about as one walks about a house and garden, dressed with a certain ceremonious elaboration, safe from mud and the hardship and defilement of foul weather, buying, meeting, dining, studying, carousing, seeing the play. ”

“ He had found that life in the country and town, was life in very different spheres, with different manifestations, and each a different set of lights and shadows. Life in the country was more natural, spontaneous and quiet; life in the town was more artistic, ambitious, and flushed with fever heats. Life in the country was picturesque, like the green, lovely landscapes in which it bloomed; life in the town was statuesque, like the flocking forms that pressed upon its sight and jostled it on its crowded way. ”

“ As the city grows, it must of necessity climb the steep bluffs by which it is encompassed; and on these it is not too much to imagine, at no far period, the squares, terraces, and crescents of a wealthy and public-spirited community ”

“ Much of what we ordinarily regard as the city—its charters, formal organization, buildings, street railways, and so forth—is, or seems to be, mere artifact. However, it is only when and in so far as these things, through use and wont, connect themselves, like a tool in the hand of a man, with the vital forces resident in individuals and in the community that they assume the institutional form. As the whole the city is a growth. It is the undesigned product of the labors of successive generations of men. ”

“ Country life as at present organized does not afford the best opportunity for the satisfaction of this social instinct. The great variety of social attractions [Pg 22] constitutes the lure of the city—it is the powerful social magnet. ”

“ The first cause was the superior attractions of the cities as places for profitable employment and as [92] places for the enjoyment of life. The cities rapidly became socialistic in their policy, and constantly extended the scope of the functions of the government. The municipality soon acquired the ownership of the lighting plants, the water works and street car lines. ”

“ We have, until very recently, given much consideration to the temptations of city life, but we have not given the same consideration to the effects of inhibitions and suppressions of natural impulses and instincts under the changed conditions of metropolitan life. ”

“ To-day the city is the same city no longer, nor is the man who writes this the market boy who toiled up the long hill in the blossoming spring, with the seeds of the future quickening in brain and heart. ”

“ So riding, he came to the heart of the city—a vast open space, where the shops seemed brighter, the crowds gayer; and, by contrast, the human rag and bone heaps, beggars and cripples, more terrible to behold. ”

“ The roar and clatter of the great city reach his window but fitfully, as the sounds are hurried hither and thither on the wings of wayward breezes, the while great stretches of urban landscape are plunged into purple shadow or bathed in golden sunlight as the fleeting clouds chase one another across the great dome of sky. ”

“ In the paper read on Monday at a meeting of the Sociological Society by Professor GEDDES—an abstract of which we print—are contained ideas of practical value to be recommended to the study of ambitious municipalities. This is the age of cities, and all the world is city-building. Almost everywhere is a flow from the country town-ward. ”