Chapter 15 Section 3 The Challenge of the Cities

 Residential communities surrounding cities  Most people lived in the cities  As they made more money and transportation improved, they could live further from where they worked

Suburb

 Low cost apartment buildings designed to house as many families as the owner could pack in  A group of dirty, run-down tenements could transform an area into a slum

Tenement

Dumbbell Tenement

 Named for its dumbbell shape  Each building narrowed in the middle, and gaps on either side formed air shafts to bring light and air inside the rooms  An improvement but…   Still not an open balcony Garbage collected at the bottom of the shafts

Describe living conditions in a dumbbell tenement

 Overcrowded  Unsanitary  Disease ridden  Run down  Low cost

 How did Jacob Riis expose the conditions that existed in tenement houses?

Mastered new technology of flash photography  Showed the photographs to people in lecture halls

What were three technological developments that enabled cities to house more people?

 Elevator  Subway  Cable car  Elevated trains  Electric trolleys  Bessemer process

Political Machine

 An unofficial city organization designed to keep a particular party or group in power and usually headed by a single powerful “boss ”

What contributed to the rise of political machines?

 As city governments grew in size, wealth, and power, they became prizes to control. The machine enabled a local faction of one party to maintain control

Who benefitted most from Boss Tweed’s control of New York City?

 Tweed and his allies benefitted the most  His political machine was self serving and bad for the population of New York City

 The use of one’s job to gain profit

Graft

Why did some people criticize graft?

 Graft is distasteful because it involves using one’s position of power to exploit others.

List 4 challenges that people living in cities faced.

 Overcrowding  Disease  Danger of fires  Contaminated water  Lack in indoor plumbing