North Carolina's Growth in Last Decade in Cities, Towns, Not Farms, 1921

Absorbed by the Cities

Practically the only gain in population shown by Mecklenburg county during the past 10 years has been absorbed either by Charlotte or by the small towns and villages in the country. There has been no real gain in rural population. Some of the townships actually lost as compared with their showing 10 years ago.

There has, perhaps, been about two per cent gain in the number of farmers who are operating in Mecklenburg county as compared with the number thus engaged in 1910, but the growth of the city of Charlotte has been 10 times that great, showing that the absorption of population gains has been in the consuming city and not in the productive county.

We have long held the notion that if this city ever expected to reach the destiny which seems to be carved out for it, the county must be populated along with it. Just so long as the city is growing at the expense of the ruralside, just so long as it goes out and gets the people who are now producing and brings them in as consumers, the development will lack an organized or permanent basis. The county needs farmers who can produce as much as the city can consume just as acutely as the city needs industries.

From the Charlotte News, May 1, 1921