Excerpt from The Modern City and Its Problems In so far as this volume carries a message it is that the American city lags behind the work it should properly perform. It is negative in its functions, rather than positive in its services. It has been stripped of power and responsibility. It is politically weak and lacks ideals of its possibilities. It has so little concern for its people that they in turn have little concern for it. We have failed to differentiate between those activities which are private and those which are public. We have failed, too, to provide protection to the individual from inequalities of power and position, and have left him a prey to forces as dangerous to his life and comfort as those against which the police are employed to protect. Further than this, we have failed to shift to society the burdens of industry which the coming of the city has created. We have permitted the sacrifice of low wages, irregular employment, and disease to be borne by the individual rather than by the community. Those who suffer from these conditions are in reality a vicarious sacrifice; a sacrifice which society has no right to accept. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.