Printed Page 524 Chapter Chronology
City Growth and City Government
How did municipal governments respond to the challenges of urban expansion?
Private enterprise, not planners, built the cities of the United States. With a few notable exceptions, cities simply mushroomed, formed by the dictates of profit and the exigencies of local politics. With the rise of the city came the need for public facilities, transportation, and services that would tax the imaginations of America's architects and engineers and set the scene for the rough-and-tumble of big-city government, politics, and bossism.