(Redirected from Urbanisation)
'Urbanization' (or 'urbanisation') is the increase in the
population of
cities in proportion to the region's rural population. Urbanization is studied in terms of its effects on the
ecology and
economy of a region, while the discipline of
urban sociology studies political, psychological and anthropological changes to human society that occur in an urban environment (urban-city).
Urbanization Today
The 2005 Revision of the UN World Urbanization Prospects report described the 20th century as witnessing "the rapid urbanization of the world’s population", as 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.
[1]
Urbanization rates vary across the world. The
United States and
United Kingdom have a far higher urbanization level than
China,
India,
Swaziland or
Niger, but a far slower annual urbanization rate, since much less of the population is living in a rural area.
★ Urbanization in the United States has affected the Rocky Mountains in locations such as
Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
Telluride, Colorado,
Taos, New Mexico,
Douglas County, Colorado and
Aspen, Colorado. The lake district of northern
Minnesota has also been affected as has
Vermont, the coast of
Florida, the
Birmingham-
Jefferson County, AL area, the
Pacific Northwest and the barrier islands of
North Carolina.
★ In the United Kingdom, two major examples of new urbanization can be seen in
Swindon,
Wiltshire and
Milton Keynes,
Buckinghamshire. These two towns show some of the quickest growth rates in Europe.
Urbanization Projections
According to the
UN-HABITAT 2006 Annual 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". In regard to future trends, it is estimated 93% of urban growth will occur in
Asia and
Africa, and to a lesser extent in
Latin America and the
Caribbean. By 2050 over 6 billion people, two thirds of humanity, will be living in towns and cities.
Economic effects
One of the last houses of the old Russian village of Lukeryino, most of which has been mostly demolished over the last 30 years to make way for 9-story apartment buildings of the growing city of
Kstovo, such as the one in the background
Over the last few years urbanisation of rural areas has increased. As agriculture, more traditional local services, and small-scale industry give way to modern industry the urban and related commerce with the city drawing on the resources of an ever-widening area for its own sustenance and goods to be traded or processed into
manufactures.
Research in
urban ecology finds that larger cities provide more specialized goods and services to the local market and surrounding areas, function as a transportation and wholesale hub for smaller places, and accumulate more capital, financial service provision, and an educated labor force, as well as often concentrating administrative functions for the area in which they lie. This relation among places of different sizes is called the
urban hierarchy.
As cities develop, effects can include a dramatic increase in rents, often pricing the local
working class out of the market, including such functionaries as employees of the local municipalities. For example, Eric Hobsbawm's book ''The age of the revolution: 1789–1848'' (published 1962 and 2005) chapter 11, stated "Urban development in our period [1789–1848] was a gigantic process of class segregation, which pushed the new labouring poor into great morasses of misery outside the centres of government and business and the newly specialised residential areas of the bourgeoisie. The almost universal European division into a 'good' west end and a 'poor' east end of large cities developed in this period." This is likely due the prevailing south-west wind which carries coal smoke and other airborne pollutants downwind, making the western edges of towns preferable to the eastern ones.
Changing form of urbanization
Traditional urbanization exhibits a concentration of human activities and settlements around the downtown area. When the residential area shifts outward, this is called
suburbanization. A number of researchers and writers suggest that suburbanization has gone so far to form new points of concentration outside the downtown. This networked, poly-centric form of concentration is considered by some an emerging pattern of urbanization. It is called variously exurbia, edge city (Garreau, 1991), network city (Batten, 1995), or postmodern city (Dear, 2000). Los Angeles is the best-known example of this type of urbanization.
Planning for urbanization
Urbanization can be planned or organic. Planned urbanization, ie:
new town or the
garden city movement, is based on an advance plan, which can be prepared for military, aesthetic, economic or
urban design reasons. Unplanned (organic) cities are the oldest form of urbanization. Examples can be seen in many ancient cities; although with exploration came the collision of nations, which meant that many invaded cites took on the desired planned characteristics of their occupiers. Many ancient organic cities experienced redevelopment for military and economic purposes, new roads carved through the cities, and new parcels of land were cordoned off serving various planned purposes giving cities distinctive geometric UN agencies prefer to see
urban infrastructure installed before urbanization occurs.
landscape planners are responsible for landscape infrastructure (
public parks,
sustainable urban drainage systems,
greenways etc) which can be planned before urbanization takes place, or afterward to revitalized an area and create greater
livability within a region.
New Urbanism
New Urbanism was a movement which started in the 1980s.
New Urbanism believes in shifting design focus from the car-centric development of
suburbia and the
business park, to concentrated pedestrian and transit-centric, walkable, mixed-use communities. New Urbanism is an amalgamation of old-world design patterns, merged with present day demands. It is a backlash to the age of suburban sprawl, which splintered communities, and isolated people from each other, as well as had severe environmental impacts. Concepts for New Urbanism include people and destinations into dense, vibrant communities, and decreasing dependency on vehicular transportation as the primary mode of transit.
See also
★
Counter urbanisation
★
Suburban sprawl
★
Urbanization in Africa
References
1. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN
Guy Ankerl: Urbanization Overspeed in Tropical Africa, INUPRESS, Geneva,1986 ISBN 2-88155-000-2
External links
★
Urban conglomerates
★
Urbanisation worldwide - World Bank 2005 WDIs (PDF file)
★
City Program — courses and free public lectures on urban development from Simon Fraser University
★
The Natural History of Urbanization, by
Lewis Mumford
★
A Dynamic Map of the World Cities' Growth
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