200,000, fifty cities over 100,000, and ninety-eight over 50,000.
It was no uncommon occurrence for a city to double its population
in a decade. In ten years Birmingham gained 245%, Los Angeles,
211%, Seattle, 194%, Spokane, 183%, Dallas, 116%, Schenectady,
129%.


The governmental framework of the American city is based on the
English system as exemplified in the towns of Colonial America.
Their charters were received from the Crown and their business
was conducted by a mayor and a council composed of aldermen and
councilmen. The mayor was usually appointed; the council elected
by a property-holding electorate. In New England the glorified
town meeting was an important agency of local government.

After the Revolution, mayors as well as councilmen were elected,
and the charters of the towns were granted by the legislature,
not by the executive, of the State. In colonial days charters had
been granted by the King. They had fixed for the city certain
immunities and well-defined spheres of autonomy. But when the
legislatures were given the power to grant charters, they reduced
the charter to the level of a statutory enactment, which could be
amended or repealed by any successive legislature, thereby
opening up a convenient field for political maneuvering. The
courts have, moreover, construed these charters strictly, holding
the cities closely bound to those powers which the legislatures
conferred upon them.

The task of governing the early American town was simple enough.
In 1790 New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston