why was the industrial city such a shock to people coming from agricultural areas

Jurgis and
his group of fellow Lithuanian
immigrants have hardly been outside of the Imperial Forest of
Lithuania and
have seldom even seen a town when they travel to America. They have no context
for
understanding big cities when they arrive in New York and later Chicago.
They have never
experienced anything like them.

At first
they are cheated by officials or
people who seem to be officials in New York.
In Chicago, as they sent to live near the
stockyards, the landscape is
completely different from what they are used to.

The
setting is barren and bleak, and when the train drops them at the stockyards,
they
become aware of the billows of smoke coming from six huge factory
chimneys towering in the sky.
Great streams of thick, black oily smoke rise
from the chimneys. There is an odd, rancid smell
in the air from the
stockyards. And they hear the strange sound of the distant lowing of cattle

and grunting of swine, a constant background noise from the stockyards. Finally, when
they
happily meet up with Lithuanians again, they are taken to a boarding
house that is worse than
anything they have seen in Lithuania. It is filthy
and crowded with people who rent a little bit
of floorspace, bringing their
own mattress and bedding, and sleeping with up to 14 people in a
room. Their
new terrain in Packingtown is dark, bleak, and very crowded.

The
immigrants are disoriented by all the differences, and lacking
language skills or a knowledge of
the law, easily cheated.