ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the urbanization of the nation has resulted in a new society, which in turn has produced problems of a scope and intensity. There is emerging, perhaps indeed there has emerged, a new metropolitan society to whose needs many of the institutions and values rooting in a rural past are almost wholly inadequate. The new society possesses one pre-eminent feature that makes it unique in American experience—traditional thinking about the division of governmental responsibilities has but limited relevance to the problems it generates. The problems consequent on America's metamorphosis into an urban society stem largely from the number, kind, distribution, and way of life of the cities' people. An important difference between farm folk and urban dwellers concerns national origin. More than 90 per cent of all farm residents were born of native parentage, as compared with only 77 per cent of urban residents.
