Since the beginning of time, the transportation and irrigation of water has proven to be a great problem for cities. This crucial transportation of H2O can potentially make or break the future of a city, leading to success or failure. In Homberger’s The Historical Atlas of New York City he mentions in his piece “Croton Water” about this very significant development. He writes “By the 1830s, the city faced a crisis. Water for cooking and consumption could no longer safely be drawn from wells within the city boundary” (Homberger 82). This quotation emphasizes the severity of this problem. For a city such as New York to survive and provide for its inhabitants, water had to reach the people. At first, only the rich were able to have access to water resources and the poorer families would be forced to use tainted and polluted supplies. “In 1830 there was one death per 39 inhabitants” (Homberger 82). Without the ready access to safe, clean water for everyone in the city, New York would have went from becoming the most successful cities of all time to a polluted death-trap.
The solution to this dilemma was a system of irrigation pipes and dams. The revolutionary changes made at the Croton River was a milestone for city developers and residents citywide. With this lack of water came the spread of poor hygiene behavior and spread of disease. Unfortunately, the families suffering from poverty were not able to immediately reap the benefits of these newly installed water transportation systems. It would take “more than a half century” for public baths to reach everyone in the city (Homberger 82). This Croton water development also had inadvertent plusses that the whole city benefitted from. Flooding from the lack of internal water use in the city led to the building of sewers citywide. This benefitted everyone in town because it raised the overall quality of life in the city for all who lived there. Now, everyone could benefit from clean, drinkable water and live in a disease free city.