Choose the best answer: What does the passage mainly talk about?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 28 to 34.

The  main  difference  between  urban  growth  in  Europe  and  in  the  American  colonies  was  the  slow evolution of cities in the former and their rapid growth in the latter. In Europe they grew over a period of centuries  from  town  economies  to  their  present  urban  structure.  In  North  America, they started  as wilderness communities and developed to mature urbanism’s in little more than a century.

In  the  early  colonial  day  in  North  America,  small  cities  sprang  up  along  the  Atlantic  Coastline, mostly in what are now New America, small cities sprang up along the Atlantic United States and in the lower Saint Lawrence valley in Canada. This was natural because these areas were nearest England and France,  particularly  England,  from  which  most  capital  goods  (assets  such  as  equipment)  and  many consumer goods were imported Merchandising establishments were, accordingly, advantageously located in  port  cities  from  which  goods  could  be  readily  distributed  to  interior  settlements.  Here,  too,  were  the favored locations for processing raw materials prior to export. Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and other cities flourished, and, as the colonies grew, these cities increased in importance.

This  was  less  true  in  the  colonial  South,  where  life  centered  around  large  farms,  known  as plantations,  rather  than  around  towns,  as  was  the  case  in  the  areas  further  north  along  the  Atlantic coastline. The local isolation and the economic self-sufficiency of the plantations were antagonistic to the development of the towns. The plantations maintained their independence because they were located on navigable streams and each had a wharf accessible to the small shipping of that day. In fact, one of the strongest factors in the selection of plantation land was the desire to have it front on a water highway.

When the United States became an independent nation in 1776, it did not have a single city as large as 50,000 inhabitants, but by 1820 it had a city of more than 10,000 people, and by 1880 it had recorded a city of over one million. It was not until after 1823, after the mechanization of the spinning and weaving industries,  that  cities  started drawing young people away from farms. Such migration  was  particularly rapid following the Civil War (1861-1865).

What does the passage mainly discuss?

• A. Factors that slowed the growth of cities in Europe.
• B. The evolution of cities in America
• C. Trade between North American and European cities
• D. The effects of the United Sates’ independence on urban growth in New England.