Urban Transformation Addams & Plunkett

During the major urban transformation occurring in the late 1800s and early 1900s, different individuals held widely varying views on how to handle different levels of change in cities like Chicago and New York City. Forthright to the point of offense, in Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, we get the views of ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt on everything from the difference between honest graft and dishonest graft to hay-seeds from the Bronx being less able to acculturate to New York City than the lowliest Hottentot “Say, I’d rather take a Hottentot in hand to bring up as a good New Yorker than undertake the job with a Brooklynite. Honest, I would” (Riordon 43).

Plunkitt makes many arguments in his speeches, like the fact that he opposes civil service and he believes that Albany is a bunch of hay-seeds who pretends to know how to manage the affairs of New York City. He basically makes the argument that New York City should be self-governed and apply for statehood “The time is comin’ when New York City will break away from the State and become a state itself. It’s got to come. The feelin’ between this city and the hayseeds that make a livin’ by plunderin’ it is every bit as bitter as the feelin’ between the North and South before the war” (Riordon 65). With growing population, wealth and power, Plunkitt argues New York City’s time for statehood has emerged. He also makes the admission that any good poli

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lf to the overcrowded, run-down, and inadequate housing conditions of immigrant tenements in Chicago. Unlike Plunkitt who merely saw New York City as a profitable pie the “bosses” should slice up, Addams appeals to the civic duty, moral sensibilities and humanity of the town leaders to redress the problem. As she says about the higher-than-average death rates in the city “At the present moment the death-rate is constantly above the normal, in certain quarters of our cities; we allow it to be high year after year, knowing that it is excessive. This apathy can only be explained on one of two grounds, either that we do not know the housing conditions which exist, or that we are so selfish as to have no sense of responsibility in this regard” (Addams 103). Addams also proposes new ideas, like Plunkitt’s desire for self-rule for New York City. She believes that the present structure of the tenements with individual, overcrowded houses needs to be reworked so that apartments are constructed that in the long run allow for more square footage and family bonding than small boxes. She also believes that the nature of industry and work is becoming such that city planners and citizens should no longer tie themselves to the belief that
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Approximate Word count = 1256
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)