I don't like to be pedantic, but...

This, from an author, in a blog post:

"Right after World War I, the country started urbanizing, and as of the 1920 census, just over half the U.S. population lived in cities for the first time ever. Barely fifty years before, only five percent of the population had."

Well, no.  In 1870, according to the Census, 25.7% of the US population lived in what the Census called "urban places."  In fact, in 1790, 5.1% of the population lived in "urban places."  Urbanization was a continuous process through the 19th and 20th centuries, not something that began after World War I.  (This matters to me because I teach US economic history, and I really prefer that people get things right.  The part of the blog post dealing with what happened in agriculture in the 1920s, I want to emphasize, is just fine.)  Here are the data:

 

The Urbanization of the US Population

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States)

Year	United States	Northeast	Midwest	South	West
1790	5.10%	8.10%		2.10%
1800	6.10%	9.30%	0.00%	3.00%
1810	7.30%	10.90%	0.90%	4.10%
1820	7.20%	11.00%	1.10%	4.60%
1830	8.80%	14.20%	2.60%	5.30%
1840	10.80%	18.50%	3.90%	6.70%
1850	15.40%	26.90%	9.20%	8.30%	6.40%
1860	19.80%	35.70%	13.90%	9.60%	16.00%
1870	25.70%	44.30%	20.80%	12.20%	25.80%
1880	28.20%	50.80%	24.20%	12.20%	30.20%
1890	35.10%	59.00%	33.10%	16.30%	37.00%
1900	39.60%	66.10%	38.60%	18.30%	39.90%
1910	45.60%	71.80%	45.10%	25.50%	47.90%
1920	51.20%	75.50%	52.30%	28.10%	51.80%
1930	56.10%	77.60%	57.90%	34.10%	58.40%
1940	56.50%	76.60%	58.40%	36.70%	58.50%
1950	64.00%	79.50%	64.10%	48.60%	69.50%
1960	69.90%	80.20%	68.70%	58.50%	77.70%
1970	73.60%	80.50%	71.60%	64.80%	83.00%
1980	73.70%	79.20%	70.50%	66.90%	83.90%
1990	78.00%	84.00%	73.90%	71.50%	87.60%
2000	79.00%	84.40%	74.70%	72.80%	88.60%
2010	80.70%	85.00%	75.90%	75.80%	89.80%