Urbanization

Urbanization
Urbanization, the process by which large numbers of people become permanently

concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities.
The definition of what constitutes a city changes from time to time and place to place,
but it is most usual to explain the term as a matter of demographics. The United
Nations does not have its own definition of “urban” but instead follows the definitions
used in each country, which may vary considerably. The United States, for instance,
uses “urban place” to mean any locality where more than 2,500 people live. In Peru
the term is applied to population centres with 100 or more dwellings.
History
Whatever the numerical definition, it is clear that the course of human history has
been marked by a process of accelerated urbanization. It was not until the Neolithic
Period, beginning at roughly 10,000 BCE, that humans were able to form small
permanent settlements. Cities of more than 100,000 did not exist until the time
of Classical antiquity, and even those did not become common until the
sustained population explosion of the last three centuries. In 1800 less than 3 percent
of the world’s population was living in cities of 20,000 or more; this had increased to
about one-quarter of the population by the mid-1960s. By the early 21st century more
than half of the world’s population resided in urban centres.
The little towns of ancient civilizations, both in the Old World and the New, were only
possible because of improvements in agriculture and transportation. As farming
became more productive, it produced a surplus of food. The development of means of
transportation, dating from the invention of the wheel about 3500 BCE, made it
possible for the surplus from the countryside to feed urban populations, a system that
continues to the present day.
Despite the small size of these villages, the people in early towns lived quite close
together. Distances could be no greater than an easy walk, and nobody could live out
of the range of the water supply. In addition, because cities were constantly subject to
attack, they were quite often walled, and it was difficult to extend barricades over a
large area. Archaeological excavations have suggested that the population density in
the cities of 2000 BCE may have been as much as 128,000 per square mile (49,400 per
square km). By contrast, the present cities of Kolkata and Shanghai, with densities of
more than 70,000 per square mile, are regarded as extremes of overcrowding.
With few exceptions, the elite—aristocrats, government officials, clergy, and the
wealthy—lived in the centre of ancient cities, which was usually located near the most
important temple. Farther out were the poor, who were sometimes displaced beyond
the city walls altogether.
The greatest city of antiquity was Rome, which at its height in the 3rd
century CE covered almost 4 square miles (10 square km) and had at least 800,000
inhabitants. To provide for this enormous population, the empire constructed a system
of aqueducts that channeled drinking water from hills as far away as 44 miles (70 km).
Inside the city itself, the water was pumped to individual homes through a
remarkable network of conduits and lead pipes, the equal of which was not seen until
the 20th century. As in most early cities, Roman housing was initially built from dried
clay molded about wooden frameworks. As the city grew, it began to include structures
made from mud, brick, concrete, and, eventually, finely carved marble.
Impact of the Industrial Revolution

This general model of city structure continued until the advent of the Industrial
Revolution, although medieval towns were rarely as large as Rome. In the course of
time, commerce became an increasingly important part of city life and one of the
magnets that drew people from the countryside. With the invention of the mechanical
clock, the windmill and water mill, and the printing press, the interconnection of city
inhabitants continued apace. Cities became places where all classes and types of
humanity mingled, creating a heterogeneity that became one of the most celebrated
features of urban life. In 1777 Samuel Johnson cheered this aspect of cities in his
famous apothegm, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in
London all that life can afford.” At the time, it should be recalled, London had fewer
than 100,000 citizens, and most of its streets were narrow, muddy paths.
The United Kingdom is a useful illustration of the extent to which the Industrial
Revolution impacted urban areas. In 1801 about one-fifth of the population of the
United Kingdom lived in towns and cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants. By 1851 two-
fifths were so urbanized, and, if smaller towns of 5,000 or more are included, as they
were in the census of that year, more than half the population could be counted as
urbanized. The world’s first industrial society had become its first truly urban
society as well. By 1901, the year of Queen Victoria’s death, the census recorded three-
quarters of the population as urban (two-thirds in cities of 10,000 or more and half in
cities of 20,000 or more). In the span of a century a largely rural society had become
a largely urban one. The pattern was repeated on a European and then a world scale
as industrialization proceeded.
The technological explosion that was the Industrial Revolution led to

a momentous increase in the process of urbanization. Larger populations in small
areas meant that the new factories could draw on a big pool of workers and that the
larger labour force could be ever more specialized. By the 19th century there were
thousands of industrial workers in Europe, many of them living in the most miserable
conditions. Attracted by the promise of paid work, immigrants from rural areas
flooded into cities, only to find that they were forced to live in crowded, polluted slums
awash with refuse, disease, and rodents. Designed for commerce, the streets of the
newer cities were often arranged in grid patterns that took little account of human
needs, such as privacy and recreation, but did allow these cities to expand indefinitely.
Modern growth
By concentrating large numbers of workers and their families in cities, industrialism

ultimately led to modern life being unquestionably urban life for a vast majority of the
world’s population. Through the 20th and in the 21st century, continued economic
development and population growth fueled the generation of megalopolises—
concentrations of urban centres that may extend for scores of miles. Examples of this
phenomenon have appeared in the United States, on the north-eastern seaboard and
along the coast of southern California among other areas. Other megalopolises include
the Tokyo–Ōsaka–Kyōto complex in Japan, the region between London and the
Midland cities in Great Britain, and the Netherlands–central Belgium area. See
also urban planning.

Urbanization

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Urbanization

Urbanization, the process by which large numbers of people become permanently

Impact of the Industrial Revolution

The technological explosion that was the Industrial Revolution led to

By concentrating large numbers of workers and their families in cities, industrialism

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