In 1900 the population of St. Petersburg numbered nearly one and a half million. Each year up to one hundred thousand seasonal workers arrived in the city. The city kept growing but in a chaotic manner, especially in the outskirts.
Apartment blocks remained the principal type of new building, but living space, especially cheap ones, could not keep up with demand. Overnight shelters were overcrowded. While running water had long been available and electric lighting and the telephone were being introduced in the central part of the city, in the outlying districts water was still taken from wells and streets were lit by gas or kerosene lamps. The authorities were opposed to the city annexing the areas beyond the Neva and Narva gates, the Chernaya river and the Vyborg district, even though in fact these areas had long been part of the city.
The prevailing architectural style of that time was modernism, for which ferroconcrete structures, cast iron, glass, tiles and enameled brick were characteristic. Marvelous works in this style were created by Suzor, Shreter, Leonty Benua, Lidval, Lyalevich, Peretyatkovich, Goguin, Baranovsky and others.
Modernism is very well illustrated by Kamennostrovsky Avenue, one of the few streets built in one period and one style; in the late 19th century it became one of the city's main arteries. The new style was employed not only for mansions and apartment houses, but also for banks, firms, educational institutions, and industrial and trading enterprises.
The growing city needed a good transportation network. In 1903, a new permanent bridge across the Neva, the Troitsky bridge, was built. Horse-drawn trams and the still numerous carriages remained the basic means of transport, but the first automobiles were already appearing in the streets. In winter, tram lines were laid across the frozen Neva. In 1901, the first St. Petersburg subway project was designed. Plans for bus service projects were also under development.
In the late 19th - early 20th century the city saw a rapid growth of technical-educational institutions. The Polytechnic Institute and a number of secondary technical schools were opened. Commercial schools with advanced teaching methods and curricula became a new type of secondary school. The most popular of them was the famous Tenishev school. At the same time, the number of private educational institutions was also growing (the best known of them was K. May gymnasium and "real" school). The journals "Obrazovaniye", or "Education", "Russkaya Shkola", or "Russian School", and other special publications were issued in Petersburg, the center of Russian pedagogical thought.
The educational system included elementary schools of more than 30 types, which were run by different departments, varying in curricula and terms of education. Women's education also made rapid progress. Women's commercial and vocational schools, and new women's gymnasiums (mostly private) were opened. Higher education was provided for women in the Women's Medical Institute, Women's Higher School for Construction, Higher Courses for Female Teachers and Physical Training Instructors (Lesgaft courses).
By the beginning of the 20th century St. Petersburg had 48 museums. The most frequented of them were the Hermitage, the Alexander III Museum (the Russian Museum) and the Zoological Museum. Public donations made it possible to build and open the Suvorov Museum. To expand the Russian Museum, a new exhibition building (the Benois building) was constructed. Special facilities were built for a new entertainment, roller skating. The first cinemas opened. A new type of public cultural institution, the People's House - a prototype of future houses of culture - came into existence. The largest of them was the People's House on Kronverksky avenue.