The development of mass public transportation often accompanied urban planning, further enhancing living conditions. In the 1870s many European cities authorized private companies to operate horse-drawn streetcars, which had been developed in the United States. Then in the 1890s the real revolution occurred: European countries adopted another American transit innovation: a streetcar that ran on the newly harnessed power of electricity.

Electric streetcars were cheaper, faster, more dependable, cleaner, and more comfortable than their horse-drawn counterparts. In 1886, the horse-drawn streetcars of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, and Great Britain carried about 900 million riders per year. By 1910, electric streetcar systems in those four countries were carrying 6.7 billion riders.2

Mass transit helped greatly in the struggle for decent housing. The new boulevards and horse-drawn streetcars facilitated a middle-class move to better and more spacious housing in the 1860s and 1870s; after 1890, electric streetcars meant people of even modest means could access new, improved housing. Though still densely populated, cities expanded and became less congested. On the continent, many city governments in the early twentieth century built electric streetcar systems that provided transportation to new housing developments for the working classes beyond the city limits. Suburban commuting was born.