In America, the development of canals helped lead to the increase in population for several towns/cities that were very seldom settled before. A perfect example of this would be the development of the Erie Canal in New York. Thanks to the Erie Canal, several cities population grew immensely during this time (like Utica, Rochester, and Albany).
Along with this, connecting canals with other waterways made for convenient way of shipping goods and materials. This reduced the cost of shipping goods, making for lower prices for American consumers.
City planners adopted railroad technology in the Industrial Age to help out commuters. Since a lot of factories were not located close to homes, people took the train to get to work as their way of transportation.
