One For The Road: The Day We Became The Second City
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 29, 2012 10:40PM
On this date in 1889 the city annexed the Hyde Park, Lake View and other surrounding areas, becoming the second-largest city in the United States.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago writes:
The largest single annexation followed an election on June 29, 1889, when Chicago gained 125 square miles and 225,000 people. It became the (then) largest city in the United States in area and passed Philadelphia to become second in population. That annexation indicates why some suburbs elected to relinquish their autonomy, and others retained theirs.The rapid growth of urban populations and technology in the late nineteenth century increased public demand for urban services. A larger jurisdiction, the result of annexation, was expected to reduce the cost of providing existing services and provide tax revenues to pay for additional ones. Many suburbs were unable to provide all the services their residents demanded. There were two common problems. First, many suburbs were unable to borrow money for improvements because they were already at their debt limit (typically 5 percent of their assessed valuation). Second, to be cost-effective, the new technologies required populations much larger than most suburbs were likely to have.