fleeing the big city

For some time people in the United States have been forced to move out of big cities because of high-priced housing. According to researchers and leaders in these big cities, the migration away from big cities has increased in recent years. Many of the nation's major cities are being reshaped by this migration trend. All metropolitan regions lost middle-class families from the years 2000 to 2004. Similarly on the Eastcoast, middle-class families are leaving New York and Boston for the South. The cost of living in their previous homes was far too expensive.

This trend of migration from big cities is similar to urbanization during the Gilded Age. However, urbanization during the Gilded Age is when immigrants and citizens moved into big cities, not out of them. Urbanization resulted directly from Industrialization. Big factories were located in cities to create a central location for workers. Urbanization caused some positive effects like new technologies such as elevators, skyscrapers, street lighting, and sewage systems. However, Immigrants and citizens rural workers moved into the cities in a desperate employment search. Their desperation unforunately caused overcrowding, bad working conditions, child labor, slums, and bad sanitation. Both migrations of people, today and during the gilded age, were caused by financial hardships.