ABSTRACT
Urbanization on this scale within the United Kingdom produced a baffling mixture of responses. The supposed connection between the 'city' and 'degeneracy' had deep roots in English literary culture. Pessimistic observers felt gloomy about the swelling 'masses' who inhabited the cities and felt that the link between 'urban' and 'urbanity', the 'city' and 'civilization' was about to dissolve. Some visionaries would not wait for the working out of social and economic improvements over a long period. Ebenezer Howard, for example, deplored the fact that men still flooded into any city, whether York, London or Glasgow. Neither what he called the 'town magnet' nor the 'country magnet' represented 'the full plan and purpose of nature'. The countryside, it seemed, had to surrender before the inexorable advance of urban attitudes and values. The social hierarchy in the countryside was thus still very evident even though the structure of local government was becoming more democratic.
