ABSTRACT
The cities became the birthplace of American nationality and, in general, towns came to dominate the rest of colonial society. This chapter provides an overview of aspects of the colonial town. Location was the crucial factor in the growth and success of colonial towns. The chapter deals with urban problems. Nevertheless, town life had much compensation. In the seventeenth century colonial towns, like their European models, limited the right to do business or to work in them to legal residents those who had received the freedom of the town. Traffic problems developed as early as the seventeenth century and only increased in the eighteenth. Most of the colonial intellectual, cultural, and artistic achievements were produced in the towns. Townspeople typically had the money and leisure to read books, magazines, and newspapers. Sewage disposal was, to put it mildly, inefficient. Most sewage was deposited in the closest body of water.
