The second half of the nineteenth century, however, saw Brookline develop from a purely rural town to, essentially, a residential neighborhood for wealthy Bostonians. The town had quickly changed: it no longer supplied raw materials for the city; it now supplied land for the city's elite. The property in Brookline had become too valuable for the large plots required for farming, so farmers, who only needed to visit Boston sporadically and thus did not necessarily rely on their proximity to the city, moved away from the state's economic hub. Farmland was converted into estates for affluent upper class and upper-middle-class families. The men who headed these households were often lawyers, businessmen or other highly educated professionals who had offices in Boston and thus commuted there on a daily basis.