Excerpt from Census of England and Wales, 1911, (10 Edward 7 and 1 George 5, Ch. 27), Vol. 1: Area, Families or Separate Occupiers, and Population; Administrative Areas, Counties, Urban and Rural Districts, &C

It is obvious that a falling-off in the rate of increase, or even an actual diminution of the population resident within the limits of a town, does not necessarily imply any corresponding decline in its prosperity. Unless the boundaries of the town are periodically adjusted, the relation between its area and its population must constantly alter as the latter increases. Thus, as the population resident within the boundaries of the town approaches more and more nearly that density which under the local circumstances may be regarded as the point of saturation, the tendency is for further increase to slacken within, and probably to accelerate without, the town limits, simply because there is less and less room left within for new buildings. This tendency has been markedly accentuated in the past decennium by the provision of improved means of transportation, enabling the city worker to enjoy the advantages of residence outside the city limits. If at.the same time overcrowded slum areas are rebuilt with more generous provision of light and air and if residences are, owing to increasing site value, replaced by railways, warehouses and business premises in the central portion of the town, it may well be that even an actual decrease in population represents not decrease, but increase of the town's prosperity. The growth of large urban communities can only be measured by considering jointly the population of the central area and of all its suburbs, whether the latter do or do not happen to be under the same local government as the central area.

The cases of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester illustrate this. The population of the city of Birmingham, as constituted at the date of the census of 1911, was an increase of 05 per cent. On the numbers returned at the census of 1901. Since the taking of the census, the Provisional Order for the extension of the city has been con? Firmed by Parliament, and the population of the whole of the area now included within the new city amounts to at the census of 1901, persons were enumerated within the same area. The rate of increase within the limits of the city as extended is therefore per cent.

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