>>1103660The other anon is right about why people have and do move to cities, but the Industrial Revolution is also largely about 'push' factors in migration.
People often didn't want to move from rural areas to cities, but were forced to by extreme poverty. In most of the Europe, such a large portion of income from farming was taking by feudal lords that peasants frequently could not survive on the income from farming alone, so they also made and sold handicrafts, especially textiles. These handicrafts, particularly weaving, were essential to the survival of European peasants.
The Industrial Revolution then comes along and manufactures many of the same goods, especially textiles, that were made as handicrafts in the countryside. These manufactured goods undercut the price of the traditionally made peasant handicrafts and largely wiped out much of this rural peasant manufacturing.
The peasants now no longer had the sale of handicrafts and textiles as an additional source of income and many could not support families on the income from farming. So, many young peasants travelled to cities (to die young in horrible working conditions) because they had no other options. Bad harvests increased the numbers of peasants forced to move because of poverty.
Britain is kind of an exception to this pattern because it passed a series of 'Enclosure Acts' before the Industrial Revolution, which turned common land into private land and made it much more expensive and difficult for smallholders to support themselves. So, in Britain, the movement to cities wasn't about the destruction of traditional handicraft economies, but about not being to afford to be peasant even prior to Industrialization.
