Urbanization

& Industrialization
The process of Urbanization is defined in many distinguished ways, some from the
economical perspective, some from social and some in other contexts. We will be trying to
decipher the Urbanization from the social perspective, ignoring the others (maybe not
sometimes). So, first of all, we are going to start with some different definitions of
Urbanization, gathered from different sources. The description sewn with definitions as
follows below;

Urbanization is the movement of population from rural to urban areas and the resulting increasing
proportion of a population that resides in urban rather than rural places. It is derived from the
Latin 'Urbs' a term used by the Romans to a city. Urban sociology is the sociology of urban living;
of people in groups and social relationship in urban social circumstances and situation.
Thompson Warren has defined it as the movement of people from communities concerned chiefly
or solely with agriculture to other communities generally larger whose activities are primarily
centered in government, trade, manufacture or allied interests. Urbanization is a two-way process
because it involves not only movement from village to cities and change from agricultural
occupation to business, trade, service and profession but it also involves change in the migrants
attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior patterns. The process of urbanization is rapid all over the
world. The facilities like education, healthcare system, employment avenues, civic facilities and
social welfare are reasons attracting people to urban areas.

Urbanization or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change.
Urbanization is also defined by the United Nations as movement of people from rural to urban
areas with population growth equating to urban migration. The United Nations projected that half
of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008. Urbanization is closely
linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization.
Urbanization can describe a specific condition at a set time, i.e. the proportion of total population
or area in cities or towns, or the term can describe the increase of this proportion over time. So
the term urbanization can represent the level of urban relative to overall population, or it can
represent the rate at which the urban proportion is increasing.

Urbanization is a population shift from rural to urban areas, and the ways in which society adapts
to the change. It predominantly results in the physical growth of urban areas, be it horizontal or
vertical. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing and 86% of the developed
world will be urbanized. Urbanization is relevant to a range of disciplines,
including geography, sociology, economics, urban planning, and public health. The phenomenon
has been closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of
rationalization. Urbanization can be seen as a specific condition at a set time (e.g. the proportion
of total population or area in cities or towns) or as an increase in that condition over time. So
urbanization can be quantified either in terms of, say, the level of urban development relative to
the overall population, or as the rate at which the urban proportion of the population is increasing.

So, as the phenomenon of Urbanization is recognized, we can devise that its an on-going
process rather than a solo-turned event. Its in the process since medieval times, but
blossomed boomingly after the era of Enlightenment & the introduction of
Industrialization, where the latter is more highlighted than the earlier one. As this
process has drifted the changes which revamped the way the societies worked in earlier
time, we can similarly deduce that this process has brought an air of social and socioeconomic changes with it. Now we are going to identify some of the spot-lighted changes
uprooted by this synthetic phenomenon, and how this mechanism originated, what caused
it, and what impacts it has on the face of societies.
The Process
Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation
of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being
rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. The first major change in settlement
patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many thousand years ago.
Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate relationships, and communal
behavior whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodlines, unfamiliar relations,
and competitive behavior. This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue
and intensify in the next few decades, mushrooming cities to sizes unthinkable only a
century ago. Today, in Asia the urban agglomerations
of Dhaka, Karachi, Jakarta, Mumbai, Delhi, Manila, Seoul and Beijing are each already home
to over 20 million people, while the Pearl River Delta, Shanghai-Suzhou and Tokyo are
forecast to approach or exceed 40 million people each within the coming decade. Outside
Asia, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, New York City, Lagos and Cairo are fast approaching being, or
are already, home to over 20 million people.
The rapid growth of cities like Chicago in the late 19th century and Mumbai a century later
can be attributed largely to rural-urban migration. This kind of growth is especially
commonplace in developing countries.
The rapid urbanization of the worlds population over the twentieth century is described in
the 2005 Revision of the UN World Urbanization Prospects report. The global proportion
of urban population rose dramatically from 13% (220 million) in 1900, to 29% (732 million)
in 1950, to 49% (3.2 billion) in 2005. The same report projected that the figure is likely to
rise to 60% (4.9 billion) by 2030.[4] However, French economist Philippe Bocquier, writing
in THE FUTURIST magazine, has calculated that "the proportion of the world population
living in cities and towns in the year 2030 would be roughly 50%, substantially less than
the 60% forecast by the United Nations (UN), because the messiness of rapid
urbanization is unsustainable. Both Bocquier and the UN see more people flocking to cities,

but Bocquier sees many of them likely to leave upon discovering that theres no work for
them and no place to live."
According to the UN State of the World Population 2007 report, sometime in the middle
of 2007, the majority of people worldwide will be living in towns or cities, for the first
time in history; this is referred to as the arrival of the "Urban Millennium" or the 'tipping
point'. In regard to future trends, it is estimated 93% of urban growth will occur in
developing nations, with 80% of urban growth occurring in Asia and Africa.
The Causes
Now, we will be recognizing the causes which led to, and leading to the Urbanization, the
causes are all made up of different societal ingredients, labeled as social cause, economical
cause, socio-economic cause, time-related causes & humanitarian causes, but in the
following passage, we will not be dividing these changes into their respective categories,
rather we will be examining them in key points. Then this causes can also be divided as pull
factors and push factors, where the pull is because of the incentives offered by urban
areas, and push is caused by the difficulties faced in rural areas, we will try to identify
this division in the following key points (causes).

To begin with, it is a good point to dig up the reasons for people to come to larger cities. First of all, by
all accounts, cities are perceived to offer a wide variety of job opportunities on the grounds that there
are very different branches of businesses in cities. In as much as unemployment level is hugely high in
the rural areas and the work is only about farming in contrast to countless business sectors in chief
cities, more and more people choose searching for their chances in the metropolises. (A Pull Factor)
Secondly, comes another significant reason: There are better services in cities. As a matter of fact,
transportation is extremely developed so as to make use of time efficiently. Medical services are
supported with the latest technological improvements, there are unbelievably modern hospitals.
Besides, education is taken into account seriously. There are very high-quality schools with excellent
teachers, teaching with up-to-date techniques. None of these can be found in the rural areas, at this
stage. (A Pull Factor)
Apart from these pull factors causing migration to big cities, there is a strong push factor stemming from
absence of enough land. It would be very hard and useless to cultivate the land if it is too small to make
an agricultural production. One important thing triggers this incident increasingly during the last years;
namely, division of land. To explain, in the rural areas when someone dies, the inheritance would
usually be the land. Yet, the land is divided into many parts due to the fact that in the countryside it is
common to have lots of children and they all have rights to take one part of the inherited land.
Therefore, what they get are useless small lands rather than a gigantic land which is capable of making
a great deal of agricultural production itself. The inability to do the only thing, farming, again brings
about migration to big cities with the hopes of making money. (A Push Factor)

Then there are factors generated by people also, as most of the times, People dislike where they live,
they want to switch rural area from urbanized one. This factor can be stimulated by the disadvantages
of living in rural areas. These causes may include; the lack of public services and utilities (schools,
hospitals, electricity, clean water supply, no work - unemployment, & poor labor wages). Another
reason is the fear of natural hazards, such as droughts, Floods, earthquakes, & famine. As the rural
areas are not properly developed, and don't contain proper infrastructure to deal with these problems,
people find it hard to live in rural areas, and strive to migrate to urban ones. (A Push Factor)
The last Push Factor is the integration of rural areas into urban areas by the expansion of urban areas.
This cause can be summed up by a picture below.

Types of Urban Residents

The quality of city life depends on many factors, but one of the most important factors is
a persons social background: social class, race and ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual
orientation. As earlier chapters documented, these dimensions of our social backgrounds
often yield many kinds of social inequalities, and the quality of life that city residents
enjoy depends heavily on these dimensions. For example, residents who are white and
wealthy have the money and access to enjoy the best that cities have to offer, while those
who are poor and of color typically experience the worst aspects of city life. Because of
fear of rape and sexual assault, women often feel more constrained than men from
traveling freely throughout a city and being out late at night; older people also often feel
more constrained because of physical limitations and fear of muggings; and gays and
lesbians are still subject to physical assaults stemming from homophobia. The type of

resident we are, then, in terms of our socio-demographic profile affect what we

experience in the city and whether that experience is positive or negative.
This brief profile of city residents obscures other kinds of differences among residents
regarding their lifestyles and experiences. A classic typology of urban dwellers by
sociologist Herbert Gans (1962) is still useful today in helping to understand the variety of
lives found in cities. Gans identified five types of city residents.
The first type is cosmopolites. These are people who live in a city because of its cultural
attractions, restaurants, and other features of the best that a city has to offer.
Cosmopolites include students, writers, musicians, and intellectuals. Unmarried and
childless individuals and couples are the second type; they live in a city to be near their
jobs and to enjoy the various kinds of entertainment found in most cities. If and when
they marry or have children, respectively, many migrate to the suburbs to raise their
families. The third type is ethnic villagers, who are recent immigrants and members of
various ethnic groups who live among each other in certain neighborhoods. These
neighborhoods tend to have strong social bonds and more generally a strong sense of
community. Gans wrote that all of these three types generally find the city inviting rather
than alienating and have positive experiences far more often than negative ones.
In contrast, two final types of residents find the city alienating and experience a low
quality of life. The first of these two types, and the fourth overall, is the deprived. These
are people with low levels of formal education who live in poverty or near-poverty and are
unemployed, are underemployed, or work at low wages. They live in neighborhoods filled
with trash, broken windows, and other signs of disorder. They commit high rates of crime
and also have high rates of victimization by crime. The final type is the trapped. These are
residents who, as their name implies, might wish to leave their neighborhoods but are
unable to do so for several reasons: they may be alcoholics or drug addicts, they may be
elderly and disabled, or they may be jobless and cannot afford to move to a better area.

The Consequences
Although after reading the causes of urbanization, it would seem a good idea to get
urbanized, but the causes stated earlier actually paint a false rosy picture of urbanization,
it may contain some good clauses, but urbanization is not without its faults, and these
cracks in the urbanization give birth to some adverse problems, which we are now going to
identify.

Rapid urbanization can result in a sudden rise in poverty. Impoverished individuals moving from rural
areas to the city may experience homelessness, hunger and lack of health care. An increase in violent
crimes, such as robbery, slayings or domestic abuse, may result from these conditions or lack of a
familial support system.
Loss of woodlands and the natural hazards cause by it. As woodland areas must be cleared to make
room for urban populations. New buildings and paved roadways replace the forest. The result is a loss
of habitat areas for woodland creatures, such as deer, bears, wolves and birds. Humans may have
negative run-ins with hungry wildlife that lead to injury. In addition, 40 percent of rainfall is evaporated
from forest treetops. When a forest is cleared, nearly all rainfall falls to the ground and cannot be
absorbed. Where the ground is covered with pavement, areas with high levels of rainfall can be prone
to flooding. Drinking water may also be prone to contamination due to rainwater runoff.
Urbanization can lead to a shift in gender roles, with female-led households. The ramifications may be
many if women heads-of-households face discrimination and lack of access to jobs, financial credit,
healthcare and education. Children may suffer in a single parent home where the parent cannot find
work because of her gender.
Not all consequences are negative, as earlier urbanization (in 18th century) led to the industrial
revolution, which gave birth to industrial societies, which with the cycle, lead to the introduction of
information era, which resulted in contemporary society. And it has lead to a massive leap towards
mass communications, introduction of modern technology, the idea of computers, and modern
sciences. All of these ignitions have made the world a global village, and has brought its residents to a
common connecting platform through web-networks.

Now as we have in detailed covered the specifics, and introduction of urbanization, plus its
causes and its effects, ergo we will be taking urbanization & industrialization from
sociological perspective, onwards.
The Industrialization
The Industrialization has born primarily from the Urbanization (and on the contrary,
Urbanization is also caused by industrialization, so methodically, both of these phenomena
are connected and are dependent on each other) which took place in Great Britain in the
17th and early 18th century, and it has infused with urbanization from then on and has
impacted the sociological structures of society and families in the contemporary era. But
it understand it more crystally, lets just over-look some of the definitions of
Industrialization, again gathered from different sources.

The process in which a society or country (or world) transforms itself from a primarily agricultural
society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and services. Individual manual labor is
often replaced by mechanized mass production and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines.
Characteristics of industrialization include the use of technological innovation to solve problems
as opposed to superstition or dependency upon conditions outside human control such as the
weather, as well as more efficient division of labor and economic growth.

Industrialization is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from
an agrarian society into an industrial one. It is a part of a wider modernization process,
where social change and economic development are closely related
with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale energy and
metallurgy production. It is the extensive organization of an economy for the purpose
of manufacturing. Industrialization also introduces a form of philosophical change where people
obtain a different attitude towards their perception of nature, and a sociological process of
ubiquitous rationalization.

Effects Of Industrialization

Some key inventions took place such as the cotton gin and railroad made goods
cheaper and in larger quantities than ever before, also the economic policies of
liberalism and mercantilism, which fueled markets. Imperialism also allowed cheap
resources and new markets.
New factories were set-up. And this gave rise to a new labor system. This new labor
system led to shift work. Early workers came from rural areas so employers had to
create a system of work discipline.
Another astronomical invention by this industrial revolution was the introduction of
railway. Which change the means of travel, and introduced transport means which were
never imagined before.
It led to less expensive transportation, which meant larger markets, more sales, more
factories, and more machinery.
The Industrial Revolution led to industrial capitalism, an economic system based on
industrial production
A mass change in the structures of family, old family structures were either dumped or
mutated into new family types.
Industrialization has brought up the Automation, which has several impacts. Such as;

It speeds up the developmental processes of the society.

It increases production.
Brings further technological changes like information technology.
Extreme industrialization
Replacement of human labor with machines.
Increase in profit margins
Distance reduction through technological advancements in the field of communication network.
Makes life dependent on latest gizmos and equipments.

The Impacts & Effects Of Urbanization & Industrialization On Family

And first of all, we will be recognizing the impacts of urbanization and there effects, on
the most important social institution of family. Which as follows below;

The first and main impact is a change of family structure from extended family to nuclear family.
With the industrialization, the extended kinship network is not good for the changeable jobs of
the labour. Therefore, as indicated by Parsons, isolated nuclear family has come into existence.

The family has lost its functions, which are replaced by society, and the introduction of achieved
status which concentrates on the individual ability, has taken place and more geographic mobility
has appeared and has gradually become the mainstream.
Moreover, it is said by Willmott and Young that industrialization (which is itself caused by
urbanization) lead to a symmetrical relationship of family because of equal roles of husbands and
wives that the former control the outside while the latter control family inside.
However, it is argued by Anderson that extended family is very common at early stage of
urbanization in which people come from other cities have to live with their extended members.
Rather than the claim of Parsons that urbanization gives birth to isolated nuclear family.
Rural-to-urban migration (Urbanization) led to the disintegration of the family unit andthe erosion
of kinship networks. Stripped of ties with family members and village culture and habits, rural-tourban migrants became uprooted upon arrival in a new city. The lack of a social network caused,
according to the adherents of the Chicago School of Sociology, all kind of social evils, including
alcoholism, extra-marital births, prostitution and crime.
Many of the founding fathers of sociology, including Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand
Tonnies, Georg Simmel and Max Weber, during the next decades stressed that because of
urbanization and industrialization, a transition from multigenerational to nuclear families
took place in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe, and a diametric distinction
was drawn between preindustrial rural and urban industrial societies. Preindustrial rural
societies (what Tonnies referred to as Gemeinschaft) were characterized by extended
families and close social and economic relations continued to exist among family
members throughout the individuals life course. Religion, as well as customs and habits,
regulated social life in the village, and solidarity among villagers was essential (Jackson,
1997). Urban industrial societies (what came closest to what Tonnies described as
Gesellschaft) were, by contrast, characterized by nuclear families and weakened kinship
ties, due to an increase in the physical distance among kin members, as a result of
migration, and economic needs took precedence. Cities were perceived as places where
life was faster, more organized, more bureaucratic and where, contrary to villages,
anonymity, chaos, loneliness and confusion were prevalent. Solidarity as well as social
control were weaker in cities than in villages and the formation of social networks was
harder in the urban environment. City life was more individualistic and the construction of
a personal identity became necessary. Last, but not least, the inuence of religion and
religious customs and habits declined (Liang, 2008).
After a century of theorization, most sociologists agreed that towards the middle of the twentieth
century, urbanization and industrialization had weakened family ties and had brought about a
large-scale shift from extended to nuclear families in the Western world, as the latter were better
tted for urban life, and because many of the functions of extended families had become obsolete,
as a result of ongoing economic specialization (Ruggles, 2012).
In the early 1960s some sociologists, among them Sidney Greenfield (1961) and William Goode
(1963), started to seriously call into question that the prevalence of nuclear families in the
Western world was a functional consequence of the urban-industrial revolution (Greenfield,
1961).

Ronald Fletcher states that Industrialization has made the families more child centered by
reducing the burden on them and by the provision of state benefits, the families now have more
harmony than before.
The Marxists, such as Eli Zaretsky have deduced that industrialization has turned families into
unit of consumption, where now the family acts to be productive and beneficial to the economy.
But the Marxists have also cited that, the societies which come into existence after
industrialization are leading to more inequality between social classes, as rich are becoming
richer and poor are becoming poorer. The same concept of Karl Marx, where he distinguished
between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Feminists see industrialization as a great evil, as they argue that industrialization is one of the
cause to give birth to patriarchal societies, where men has all power over women, who
continually face discrimination, both in the society and at home.
New right see industrialization as a phenomenon which allowed the nuclear family to come
forward, the only family structure which is productive to society and which keeps the society in
function, as believed by the new right sociologists. Although they do mention that some
consequences of industrialization has lead to greater negativities in the society, as the provision of
health care, which gives birth to lone parent families (cause of many social problems), and nonworking population, which undermines the productivity and growth of society.
From a functionalist point of view, sociologists believed that urbanization, migration and
nuclearization went hand in hand, as nuclear families were more geographically mobile than more
complex family types. At the same time, scholars of the Chicago School of Sociology believed
that the adaptation process of rural-to-urban migrants was highly problematic, and that migrants
ended up on the edge of urban society, because they lacked a social network.

The Theory Of Modernization

Modernization theory is a theory used to explain the process of modernization within societies.
Modernization refers to a model of a progressive transition from a "pre-modern" or "traditional" to
a "modern" society. The theory looks at the internal factors of a country while assuming that, with
assistance, "traditional" countries can be brought to development in the same manner more
developed countries have. Modernization theory attempts to identify the social variables that
contribute to social progress and development of societies, and seeks to explain the process
of social evolution. Modernization theory is subject to criticism originating among socialist and
free-market ideologies, world-systems theorists, globalization theorists and dependency theorists
among others. Modernization theory not only stresses the process of change, but also the
responses to that change. It also looks at internal dynamics while referring to social and cultural
structures and the adaptation of new technologies.

Urbanization & Industrialization In Pictures

The concept of inequality in the society, the difference between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat based on the Karl Marx Theory
(Marxism Theory)

Child labor in the early period of Industrialization

Examples of machines at work, made possible by industrialization

Old scenes of industrialization and urbanization

Urbanization, & modernization, in early industrial Era