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European History: 1600s-1800s

City Life

City Life
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.24

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    housing, influenza, sewage, sewers, unsanitary, crossing, runoff, extremely, maze, affected, solution, especially, mass, toilet, better, running

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City Life
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     People poured into the cities of England, each one ready to begin a new life working in the factories or in one of the other jobs now available in the fast-growing cities. It would be a big change from life in the country. In the early 1800s, few people traveled far from home, and for many this would be their first time in a big city. Yet, most of these people had come to stay. They soon found that life in the city was much different from the life they had known in the country.
 
2     The first thing they noticed was that it was crowded, very crowded. The increase in population had brought about a need for new housing. One solution in crowded city neighborhoods was to build more small houses in the back yards of houses that were already there. These new dwellings were often extremely small. A family of factory workers often lived in a one-room house or apartment.
 
3     Many of the new city residents soon noticed something else. Especially if their home was on a dead-end court or on a narrow alley, they began to see that it was not the safest place to live. These neighborhoods had become a favorite hiding places for thieves and other criminals because it was easy to escape the police in the maze of courts and alleys. These rookeries, as they became known, were dangerous and scary places to live.

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