essay about urban problems

A cloak of smog gives Fresno, California, a hazy look. Smog, a hybrid of the words "smoke" and "fog," is caused when sunlight reacts with airborne pollution, including ash, dust, and ground-level ozone.

Urban Threats

Urbanization spurs a unique set of issues to both humans and animals.

The promise of jobs and prosperity, among other factors, pulls people to cities. Half of the global population already lives in cities, and by 2050 two-thirds of the world's people are expected to live in urban areas. But in cities two of the most pressing problems facing the world today also come together: poverty and environmental degradation.

Poor air and water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density and demands of urban environments. Strong city planning will be essential in managing these and other difficulties as the world's urban areas swell.

• Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty, with local governments unable to provide services for all people.
• Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with significant impact on human health.
• Automobile exhaust produces elevated lead levels in urban air.
• Large volumes of uncollected waste create multiple health hazards.
• Urban development can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such as flash flooding .
• Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss of urban tree cover.
• Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances, vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources.
• Combat poverty by promoting economic development and job creation.
• Involve local community in local government.
• Reduce air pollution by upgrading energy use and alternative transport systems.
• Create private-public partnerships to provide services such as waste disposal and housing.
• Plant trees and incorporate the care of city green spaces as a key element in urban planning.

For Hungry Minds

Related topics.

• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• AIR POLLUTION
• URBAN PLANNING
• WASTE MANAGEMENT

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5 big challenges facing big cities of the future

Reaching new heights: 68% of people will live in cities by 2050 Image:  REUTERS

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The UN estimates that 55% of the global population lives in urban areas – a figure that is projected to rise to 68% by 2050. With few exceptions, cities are expected to become bigger and more numerous.

As urbanization speeds up, particularly in Asian and African countries, here are five of the biggest challenges confronting the future of cities:

Rapid urbanization, which strains basic infrastructure, coupled with more frequent and extreme weather events linked to global climate change is exacerbating the impact of environmental threats. Common environmental threats include flooding, tropical cyclones (to which coastal cities are particularly vulnerable), heat waves and epidemics.

Owing to the physical and population density of cities, such threats often result in both devastating financial loss and deaths. Making cities more resilient against these environmental threats is one of the biggest challenges faced by city authorities and requires urgent attention.

Cities need resources such as water, food and energy to be viable. Urban sprawl reduces available water catchment areas, agricultural lands and increases demand for energy. While better application of technology can boost agricultural productivity and ensure more efficient transmission of electricity, many cities will continue to struggle to provide these resources to an ever-growing urban population.

Beyond these basic requirements, haphazard growth will see the reduction of green spaces within cities, negatively affecting liveability. As fresh water becomes scarce and fertile lands diminish, food prices may escalate, hitting the poorest hardest.

When it comes to both the provision of basic resources and resilience against environmental threats, the forecast is uneven for different groups of urban inhabitants. As the number of urban super-rich grows, many cities will also see increased numbers of urban poor.

The widening gap between the haves and have-nots will be accentuated in the megacities of the future. Such inequalities, when left unchecked, will destabilize society and upend any benefits of urban development. There is a critical need for policy-makers to ensure that the fruits of progress are shared equitably.

Technology will be increasingly used in the development and running of cities of the future. Smart planning used in Singapore can harness solar energy for use in housing estates and create man-made wetlands for ecological balance. Smart mobility technology can alleviate traffic gridlocks which plague many cities.

The use of environmental technologies which can cool buildings more efficiently or run vehicles that are less polluting will also lead to better future cities. Installing sensors in the homes of ageing seniors living alone can connect them to the community and summon help when they are unwell or hurt.

Have you read?

These 10 asian cities are the most prepared for the future, what global cities can learn from melbourne, this is what a smart city should do for its people.

However, technology can exclude urban inhabitants who cannot afford it or lack the capability required for its adoption. As future cities become more digitized, care must be exercised to prevent the emergence of a new form of social divide rooted in the technological.

Future cities offer immense possibilities to enrich the lives of their inhabitants even as the challenges are stark. To make the best out of inevitable urbanization, good governance is imperative. Cities will increase in size and their populations become more diverse. Governing these cities will, therefore, be progressively complex and require the most dedicated of minds.

Increasingly, cities around the world are learning about the best governance and planning practices from one another, even as they remain accountable to their respective national governments. The broad goals of urban governance should address issues of equity, liveability and sustainability in cities of the future.

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• Letter to the Editor
• Open access
• Published: 02 January 2020

Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?

• Md Abdul Kuddus 1 , 2 , 4 ,
• Elizabeth Tynan 3 &
• Emma McBryde 1 , 2  

Public Health Reviews volume  41 , Article number:  1 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Urbanization has long been associated with human development and progress, but recent studies have shown that urban settings can also lead to significant inequalities and health problems. This paper is concerned with the adverse impact of urbanization on both developed and developing nations and both wealthy and poor populations within those nations, addressing issues associated with public health problems in urban areas. The discussion in this paper will be of interest to policy makers. The paper advocates policies that improve the socio-economic conditions of the urban poor and promote their better health. Further, this discussion encourages wealthy people and nations to become better informed about the challenges that may arise when urbanization occurs in their regions without the required social supports and infrastructure.

Urbanization refers to the mass movement of populations from rural to urban settings and the consequent physical changes to urban settings. In 2019, the United Nations estimated that more than half the world’s population (4.2 billion people) now live in urban area and by 2041, this figure will increase to 6 billion people [ 1 ].

Cities are known to play multifaceted functions in all societies. They are the heart of technological development and economic growth of many nations, while at the same time serving as a breeding ground for poverty, inequality, environmental hazards, and communicable diseases [ 2 ]. When large numbers of people congregate in cities, many problems result, particularly for the poor. For example, many rural migrants who settle in an urban slum area bring their families and their domesticated animals—both pets and livestock—with them. This influx of humans and animals leads to vulnerability of all migrants to circulating communicable diseases and the potential to establish an urban transmission cycle. Further, most urban poor live in slums that are unregulated, have congested conditions, are overcrowded, are positioned near open sewers, and restricted to geographically dangerous areas such as hillsides, riverbanks, and water basins subject to landslides, flooding, or industrial hazards. All of these factors lead to the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, pollution, poor nutrition, road traffic, and so on [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The problems faced by the poor spill over to other city dwellers. As the trend to urbanization continues, this spillover effect increases and takes on a global dimension as more and more of the world’s populations are affected [ 3 ].

Some of the major health problems resulting from urbanization include poor nutrition, pollution-related health conditions and communicable diseases, poor sanitation and housing conditions, and related health conditions. These have direct impacts on individual quality of life, while straining public health systems and resources [ 6 ].

Urbanization has a major negative impact on the nutritional health of poor populations. Because they have limited financial resources and the cost of food is higher in cities, the urban poor lack nutritious diets and this leads to illness, which contributes to loss of appetite and poor absorption of nutrients among those affected. Furthermore, environmental contamination also contributes to undernutrition; street food is often prepared in unhygienic conditions, leading to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses (e.g., botulism, salmonellosis, and shigellosis) [ 6 ]. Urban dwellers also suffer from overnutrition and obesity, a growing global public health problem. Obesity and other lifestyle conditions contribute to chronic diseases (such as cancers, diabetes, and heart diseases). Although obesity is most common among the wealthy, international agencies have noted the emergence of increased weight among the middle class and poor in recent years [ 7 ].

Populations in poor nations that suffer from protein-energy malnutrition [ 8 ] have increased susceptibility to infection [ 9 ] through the impact of micronutrient deficiency on immune system development and function [ 10 ]. Around 168 million children under 5 are estimated to be malnourished and 76% of these children live in Asia [ 11 ]. At the same time, the World Health Organization is concerned that there is an emerging pandemic of obesity in poor countries that leads to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, and stroke [ 12 ].

Obesity is caused by increased caloric intake and decreased physical activity [ 13 ], something historically associated with wealth. However, people in urbanized areas of developing countries are also now vulnerable to obesity due to lack of physical space, continually sitting in workplaces, and excessive energy intake and low energy expenditure. In these areas, infrastructure is often lacking, including sufficient space for recreational activities. Further, in developing countries, as in developed countries, large employers frequently place head offices in urban capitals and work is increasingly sedentary in nature [ 14 ]. Another culprit associated with the risk of developing obesity is the change in food intake that has led to the so-called nutrition transition (increased the consumption of animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods) in urban areas. For instance, in China, dietary patterns have changed concomitantly with urbanization in the past 30 years, leading to increased obesity [ 15 ]. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 300 million adults were affected, the majority in developed and highly urbanized countries [ 16 ]. Since then, the prevalence of obesity has increased. For example, in Australia, around 28% of adults were obese in 2014–2015 [ 17 ].

Pollution is another major contributor to poor health in urban environments. For instance, the World Health Organization estimated that 6.5 million people died (11.6% of all global deaths) as a consequence of indoor and outdoor air pollution and nearly 90% of air-pollution-related deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries [ 18 ]. Poor nutrition and pollution both contribute to a third major challenge for urban populations: communicable diseases. The poor live in congested conditions, near open sewers and stagnant water, and are therefore constantly exposed to unhealthy waste [ 6 ]. Inadequate sanitation can lead to the transmission of helminths and other intestinal parasites. Pollution (e.g., from CO 2 emission) from congested urban areas contributes to localized and global climate change and direct health problems, such as respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer for both the rich and the poor.

In addition to human-to-human transmission, animals and insects serve as efficient vectors for diseases within urban settings and do not discriminate between the rich and poor. The prevalence and impact of communicable diseases in urban settings, such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria, cholera, dengue, and others, is well established and of global concern.

National and international researchers and policy makers have explored various strategies to address such problems, yet the problems remain. For example, research on solutions for megacities has been ongoing since the early 1990s [ 19 , 20 ]. These studies have concluded that pollution, unreliable electricity, and non-functioning infrastructure are priority initiatives; nevertheless, air pollution, quality of water in cities, congestion, disaster management issues, and infrastructure are not being systematically addressed [ 19 , 20 ].

The impact of inner city transportation on health, such as road traffic, is emerging as a serious problem. Statistics show that a minimum of 10 people die every day on the railways in the city of Mumbai, India [ 21 ]. Vietnam is another example of a country that has seen a remarkable increase in road traffic accidents [ 22 ]. Improvements to the country’s infrastructure have not been able to meet the increasing growth of vehicular and human traffic on the street. Vietnam reportedly has a population of 95 million and more than 18 million motorbikes on its roads. A deliberate policy is needed to reduce accidents [ 21 ].

Although urbanization has become an irreversible phenomenon, some have argued that to resolve the problems of the city, we must tackle the root causes of the problem, such as improving the socio-economic situation of the urban poor.

Until the conditions in rural areas improve, populations will continue to migrate to urban settings. Given the challenges that rural development poses, the root causes are unlikely to be addressed in the near future. Therefore, governments and development agencies should concentrate on adapting to the challenges of urbanization, while seeking to reduce unplanned urbanization.

Some examples of policies and practices that should be considered include (i) policies that consider whole-of-life journeys, incorporating accessible employment, community participation, mobility/migration and social transition, to break generational poverty cycles; (ii) policies addressing urban environmental issues, such as planned urban space and taxes on the use of vehicles to reduce use or to encourage vehicles that use less fuel as well as encourage bicycle use, walking, and other forms of human transportation; (iii) greater cooperative planning between rural and urban regions to improve food security (e.g., subsidies for farmers providing locally produced, unprocessed and low cost food to urban centers); (iv) social protection and universal health coverage to reduce wealth disparity among urban dwellers; including introduction of programs and services for health, for example by establishing primary healthcare clinics accessible and affordable for all including those living in urban slums [ 23 ].

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable

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World Health Organization. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic: World Health Organization; 2000. Available from https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/42330 . Accessed 4 Aug 2019.

Nour NN. Obesity in resource-poor nations. Reviews in obstetrics and gynecology. 2010;3(4):180-4.

Tomkins A, Watson F. Malnutrition and infection: a review. United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination/Subcommittee on Nutrition. Nutrition Policy Discussion Paper. 1989(5): p. 1-107.

Schaible UE, Stefan H. Malnutrition and infection: complex mechanisms and global impacts. PLoS medicine. 2007;4(5):e115.

Ahmed F, Zareen M, Khan MR, Banu CP, Haq MN, Jackson AA. Dietary pattern, nutrient intake and growth of adolescent school girls in urban Bangladesh. Public health nutrition. 1998;1(2):83-92.

World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. World Health Organization, Geneva (Fact sheet no 311); 2006.

Bleich SN, Cutler D, Murray C, Adams A. Why is the developed world obese? Annual review of public health. 2008;29(1):273-95.

Arundell L, Sudholz B, Teychenne M, Salmon J, Hayward B, Healy G, et al. The impact of activity based working (ABW) on workplace activity, eating behaviours, productivity, and satisfaction. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2018;15(5):1005.

Zhang J, Wang D, Eldridge A, Huang F, Ouyang Y, Wang H, et al. Urban–rural disparities in energy intake and contribution of fat and animal source foods in Chinese children aged 4–17 years. Nutrients. 2017;9(5):526.

World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. Geveva: World Health Organization; 2003.

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World Health Organization. World Health Organization releases country estimates on air pollution exposure and health impact. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2016.

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Fuchs RJ, Brennan E, Lo F-C, Uitto JI, Chamie J. Mega-city Growth and the Future: United Nations University Press; 1994.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor for his/her thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving the manuscript.

This work was conducted as a part of a PhD programme of the first authors and funded by the College of Medicine and Dentistry at the James Cook University, Australia (JCU-QLD-933347).

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Kuddus, M.A., Tynan, E. & McBryde, E. Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?. Public Health Rev 41 , 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-019-0116-0

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Urbanization

The world population is moving to cities. Why is urbanization happening and what are the consequences?

By Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska and Max Roser

This article was first published in September 2018, and last revised in February 2024. We'd like to thank Diana Beltekian for great research assistance.

More than half of the world's population now live in urban areas — increasingly in highly dense cities. However, urban settings are a relatively new phenomenon in human history. This transition has transformed the way we live, work, travel, and build networks.

This topic page presents an overview of urbanization across the world, extending from the distant past to the present, and projections of future trends.

See all charts on urbanization ↓

Urbanization across the world today

Number of people living in urban areas, more than 4 billion people – more than half of the world – live in urban areas.

For most of human history, most people across the world lived in small communities. Over the past few centuries – and particularly in recent decades – this has shifted dramatically. There has been a mass migration of populations from rural to urban areas.

How many people live in urban areas today?

In the visualization, we see estimates of the number of people globally who live in urban and rural areas. More than 4 billion people now live in urban areas.

This means over half of the world lives in urban settings. The UN estimates this milestone event – when the number of people in urban areas overtook the number in rural settings – occurred in 2007.

You can explore the data on urban and rural populations for any country or region using the "Change country or region" toggle on the interactive chart.

Share of population living in urban areas

How does the share of people living in urban areas vary between countries?

In the chart shown below, we see the share of the population that is urbanized across the world.

Across most high-income countries – across Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, Japan, and the Middle East – more than 80% of the population lives in urban areas. Across most upper-middle-income countries – in Eastern Europe, East Asia, North and Southern Africa, and South America – between 50% to 80% of people do. In many low to lower-middle-income countries, the majority still live in rural areas.

But this is changing quickly. You can see how urbanization rates are changing with time using the "Edit countries and regions" toggle on the interactive chart. For many countries, you see a rapid migration of populations into towns and cities.

How urban is the world?

What we know about urban populations and why it matters.

Before looking in more detail at the differences in estimates of urban populations, we should first clarify what we  do know:

• Globally more people live in urbanized settings than not (disputes in these figures are all above the 50% urban mark);
• The broad distribution and density of where people live across the world (sometimes at very high resolution);
• Although it can seem like our expanding cities take up a lot of land, only a bit more than 1% of global land is defined as built-up area; 1
• rates of urbanization have been increasing rapidly across all regions (in 1800, less than 10% of people across all regions lived in urban areas );
• urbanization is expected to continue to increase with rising incomes and shifts away from employment in agriculture ; 2
• disagreements in urban population numbers arise from definition or boundary differences in what makes a population 'urban'.

Whilst disagreement on the numbers can seem irrelevant, understanding cities, urbanization rates, the distribution, and the density of people matters. The allocation and distribution of resources — ranging from housing and transport access to healthcare, education, and employment opportunities — should all be dependent on where people live. Understanding the distribution of people in a given country is essential to make sure the appropriate resources and services are available where they're needed.

The UN's 11th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is to " make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable ". If our aim is to develop resource-efficient, inclusive cities, understanding how many people they must provide for is essential for urban planning.

Let's, therefore, look at the conflicting estimates of how urban our world is, and where these differences come from.

UN estimates: More than half of the world’s population live in urban areas

At first glance, this seems like a simple question to answer. Figures reported by the United Nations (UN) deliver a straightforward answer. 3

In the chart here we see the share of the world's population living in urban and rural areas, extending from 1960. 4 This is based on nationally-collated census figures, combined with UN estimates where census data is unavailable. As of 1960, the rural segment constituted more than 60% of the population. By the year 2007, the distribution between urban and rural residents had equalized, representing a balanced share of the population. However, since then, the share of individuals residing in urban areas has escalated, exceeding 50% of the total population.

The UN figures are the most widely referenced and cited on global urbanization. However, they're not without their critics: some researchers suggest that far more people live in urban areas than these figures suggest. Why are they so contested?

How is an urban area defined?

'What defines an urban area?' lies at the center of these debates.

There is currently no universal definition of what 'urban' means. The UN reports figures based on nationally defined urban shares. The problem, however, is that countries adopt very different definitions of urbanization. Not only do the thresholds of urban versus rural vary, but the types of metrics used also differ. Some countries use minimum population thresholds, others use population density, infrastructure development, employment type, or simply the population of pre-defined cities.

In the table, we highlight the varied definitions across a selection of countries. The UN World Urbanization Prospects database also provides a full  downloadable list of statistical definitions for each country.

National definitions of 'urban area' as used for a custom selection of countries 5

The table illustrates the broad range of definitions between countries which compromises cross-country comparisons. And since the reported global figure is simply the sum of nationally reported shares, the lack of a universal definition is also problematic for these aggregated figures.

Even if we could define a single metric to use — such as a minimum population threshold in a settlement — countries adopt very different thresholds.

In the chart here we have mapped the minimum population threshold for countries that adopt this within their definition of 'urban'. 2000 and 5000 inhabitants were the most frequently adopted threshold. However, the variation across countries was vast. Sweden and Denmark set this threshold at only 200 inhabitants; Japan at 50,000 (a 250-fold difference).

European Commission estimates: More than 8 in 10 people live in urban areas

Critics of current UN figures, therefore, say that such varied definitions of 'urban' lead to a significant underestimation of the world's urban population. Researchers from the European Commission, for example, reported that 85% of people live in urban areas. 6

Its project, Atlas of the Human Planet , combines high-resolution satellite imagery with national census data to derive its estimates of urban and rural settlements.

The European Commission applied a universal definition of settlements across all countries:

• Urban centers (cities) : must have a minimum of 50,000 inhabitants plus a population density of at least 1500 people per square kilometer (km 2 ) or density of build-up area greater than 50%.
• Urban clusters (towns and suburbs) : must have a minimum of 5,000 inhabitants plus a population density of at least 300 people per square kilometer (km 2 ).
• Rural areas : fewer than 5,000 inhabitants.

Using these definitions, it reports that around 44% of the world lived in cities, 43% in towns and suburbs, and 13% in rural areas in 2020 . This makes the total urban share 87% in 2020 ( more than 6.8 billion people ). The reported urban share by continent is shown in the chart below.

The European Commission's estimates are also not without its critics. Researchers at the Marron Institute of Urban Management (New York University) challenged these figures as a gross overestimation. 7

The authors suggest multiple reasons why such figures are too high: based on agricultural employment figures, they estimate urban populations cannot exceed 60%; the low urban-density threshold adopted by the European Commission means entire cropland regions are classified as urban; and that this low-density threshold is inconsistent with observed population densities on the fringes of cities.

Will we ever reach a consensus on urban population?

Clearly how we define an urban area has a significant impact on its estimated population. The UN figures report one-third fewer people residing in urban areas compared to the figures reported by the European Commission.

While there are clear differences in estimates at the global level, the overall trend in urbanization at national levels (regardless of their definition) is still important. It's vital for India, for example, to know that since 1990, its urban population has more than doubled . The rate of this change is important for its evaluation of progress, demographic change, and national planning. The lack of consensus on figures at the global level therefore shouldn't overshadow what they represent at national levels.

But would the world adopt a standardized definition? The UN Statistics Division has convened multiple expert groups in recent years to try to work towards a common definition, but none have been successful.

With such a wide array of national definitions, achieving this would be a difficult task. Countries have the right to define what they consider to be urban and rural settlements. One proposed option is to maintain individual definitions for national figures but to adopt a new universal definition for estimating the global and/or regional share.

This may, at least, bring us one step closer to an agreement on how urban the world really is.

Urban slum populations

Share of people living in slums, just under 1-in-4 urban dwellers live in slum households.

Quality of living standards in urban centers is of course an important measure of wellbeing. One metric of living standards is the share of the urban population living in slum households. A slum household is defined as a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, and durability of housing.

The most recent global estimates suggest just under 1-in-4 people in urban areas live in slum households.

The share of the urban population living in slums by country is shown in the chart. This data is available from the year 2000. Here we see that in the latest data, most countries across Asia and Latin America had between 10 to 50% of urban populations living in slum households. Slum households are most prevalent across Sub-Saharan Africa; in most countries, more than half of the urban populations live in slum households, and in some (such as Chad) around 8 in 10 people live in slum households.

We see that over time, for most countries, the share of the urban population living in slums has been falling. For example, in Vietnam, almost half of the population lived in slums in 2000. This figure has dramatically reduced to approximately 5% in recent years.

Number of people living in urban slums

This map shows the total number of people living in urban slum households in each country.

Urban density

Urban agglomerations.

Although the definition of 'urban' gives us some indication of population densities, it does not differentiate between those who live in small versus large urban settings. In the chart, we show the percentage of the total population that lives in agglomerations greater than one million people (i.e. large urban agglomerations). These figures are available in absolute terms (the total number of people living in large urban settings), found here .

Here we see large differences across the world. Smaller city-based nations such as Kuwait, UAE, Japan, Puerto Rico, and Israel tend to have high rates of large urban agglomeration: more than half live in large cities. Across much of the Americas, 40 to 50% live in large urban agglomerations. Most other countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa lie somewhere in the range of 10 to 40%.

There are a few countries that have a very low prevalence of large cities — in Germany and Poland, for example, less than 10% of the population live in cities over 1 million despite having large urbanization rates .

Population in largest city

We can also look at this centralization effect through the share of the urban population that lives in the single largest city. This is shown in this chart.

Here we have a handful of countries — such as Mongolia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Liberia, and Armenia — where more than half of the country's urban population live in its largest city. Overall, this share tends to be higher in countries across Africa and Latin America; a share of 30 to 50% is common. Rates across Europe, Asia, and North America are highly variable, ranging from over 40% to less than 10%.

City populations

Population of the capital city.

In the chart below we see the world mapped based on the population of each country's capital city. In 2018, Japan's capital — Tokyo — had the largest population of the world's capital cities at over 37 million people. This was followed by Delhi (India) at over 28 million; Mexico City (Mexico) at 21 million; and Cairo (Egypt) at 20 million.

Across the world, the most common capital size was in the range of 1 to 5 million people.

Population of cities

Many cities across the world have grown rapidly over the past 50 years in terms of their total population. The chart shows the estimated population of the world's 30 largest cities (by 2015 population) from 1950 to 2015, with projections through to 2035. 8

Beijing in 1950, for example, had a population of around 1.7 million. By 2015 this was more than 10 times higher, at more than 18 million. By 2035 it's expected this will increase further to more than 25 million. Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh) increased from less than half a million in 1950 to almost 18 million in 2015 (and is projected to reach more than 30 million by 2035). Using the "Edit cities" in the top-right of the chart, you can browse trends for the largest 30 cities.

Related chart – population density of cities. This chart shows the population density of cities across the world

Long-run history of urbanization

Urbanization over the past 500 years, migration to towns and cities is very recent – mostly limited to the past 200 years.

How has urbanization changed over longer timescales – over the past 500 years?

In the map below we see how the share of populations living in urban areas has changed in recent centuries. Data on urbanization dating back to 1500 is available only for select countries, with an estimated share at the global level. Using the timeline on the map (or by clicking on a country) you can see how this share has changed over time.

Here we see clearly again that urbanization has largely been confined to the past 200 years. By 1800, still, over 90% of the global (and country-level) population lived in rural areas. Urbanization in the United States began to increase rapidly through the 19th century, reaching around 40% by 1900. 9 By 1950 this almost reached 65% and by 2000 1 in 8 people lived in urban areas.

China and India had similar rates of urbanization until the late 1980s. 10 By then, both had around 1-in-4 living in urban areas. However, China's rate of urbanization increased rapidly over the 1990s and 2000s. Over this 30-year period, its urban share more than doubled to more than half. India's rise has continued to steadily rise to around 1-in-3 today.

Urbanization over the past 12,000 years

The recency of urbanization becomes even more pronounced when we look at trends for countries and regions over even longer timescales – the past 10,000 years. This is shown in the visualization here, derived from the work of the History Database of the Global Environment . 11

As we see, urban living is a very recent development. For most of our history, humans lived in low-density, rural settings. Prior to 1000, it's estimated that the share of the world population living in urban settings did not reach 5%. By 1800, this share reached around 8%; and by 1900 had increased to around 16%.

Related chart – urban land area over the past 10,000 years. This chart shows the change in urban land area dating back to 10,000 BC.

Future urbanization

What share of people will live in urban areas in the future, by 2050, more than two-thirds of the world will live in urban areas.

The past 50 years in particular have seen a rapid increase in rates of urbanization across the world. Are these trends likely to continue?

The UN World Urbanization Prospects provide estimates of urban shares across the world through 2050. These projections are shown in the chart — using the timeline you can watch this change over time.

Across all countries, urban shares are projected to increase in the coming decades, although at varied rates. By 2050, it's projected that 1 in 7 people globally will live in urban areas. In fact, by 2050 there are very few countries where rural shares are expected to be higher than urban. These include several across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Pacific Island States, and Guyana in Latin America.

Why, when most countries are expected to be mostly urban , is the global total just over two-thirds? This seems low but results from the fact that many of the world's most populated countries have comparably low urban shares (either just over half or less). For instance, India, which is anticipated to become the world's most populous nation, is estimated to have slightly over half of its population living in urban areas by the year 2050.

The other map shown here provides a snapshot overview of how the world is expected to continue to become more urbanized. It shows, for any given country, whether more people (the majority) live in urban or rural areas. Using the timeline feature and "play" button in the bottom-left of the chart, you can explore how this has changed over time. In 1950, it was predominantly high-income countries across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, and Japan that were largely urban. A century later — in 2050 — it's projected that most countries will have more people living in urban areas than not.

How many people will live in urban areas in the future?

By 2050, close to 7 billion people are projected to live in urban areas.

In the chart, we see estimates of urban and rural populations in absolute terms, projected through to 2050. Projected population growth based on the UN's medium fertility scenario. By 2050, the global population is projected to increase to around 9.8 billion. It's estimated that more than twice as many people in the world will be living in urban than in rural settings.

These trends can be explored by country or region using the "Change country or region" function in the top-right of the chart.

Using our timeline map of urbanization you can explore how countries are expected to transition from predominantly rural to urban in the coming decades. There we see that by 2050 it's projected that the majority of countries will have a majority (greater than 50%) of people living in urban areas.

How do living standards change as people move to urban areas?

Populations urbanize as they get richer.

In the chart, we show the relationship between the share of the population living in urban areas on the y-axis, and average income (gross domestic product per capita) on the x-axis. Here we see a strong relationship between urbanization and income: as countries get richer, they tend to become more urbanized.

The link between urbanization and economic growth has been well documented. 12

Urbanization is complex, however: there are many recognized benefits of urban settings (when developed successfully) including high density of economic activity, shorter trade links, utilization of human capital, shared infrastructure, and division of labor. 13

Is there causal feedback by which urbanization is also a predictor of future economic growth? The evidence for this is relatively weak  — assessments of this effect suggest that countries with a higher initial urban population share do not achieve faster or slower economic growth than countries with a low initial urban population share. 14

Urban populations tend to have higher living standards

There are many examples —  across broad areas of development —  that suggest that, on average, living standards are higher in urban populations than in rural ones. Some examples include:

• in nearly all countries electricity access is higher in urban  areas than in rural areas;
• access to improved sanitation is higher in urban areas;
• access to improved drinking water is higher in urban areas;
• access to clean fuels for cooking and heating is higher in urban areas;
• child malnutrition is lower in urban settings.

Note, however, that it is difficult to infer causality between urbanization and these examples. Since urbanization shows a strong correlation with income, such relationships may instead simply show the effect of higher incomes on electricity access, sanitation, drinking water, and nutrition. Furthermore, there can also be significant inequalities within urban areas; this is evidenced by the fact that across many low-to-middle-income countries, a high share of the urban population lives in slum households (which lack access to all of the basic resources).

Agricultural employment falls with urbanization

It would be expected that changing where populations live will have an impact on types of employment. Rural-urban migration has been empirically linked with the structural transformation process: as urban population shares increase, employment tends to shift from agriculture towards industry/manufacturing, or services. 15

In the chart, we see the share of people employed who are in agriculture (y-axis) versus the share of the population living in urban areas (x-axis). Here, in general, we see that agricultural employment tends to decline with urbanization. In our blog post 'Structural transformation: how did today's rich countries become deindustrialized?' we discuss and look at the data on this agriculture-industry-services shift in more detail.

Although this agriculture-urbanization link tends to hold true for most countries, there are a couple of clear outliers. Sri Lanka, Samoa, and Barbados, for example, appear to show relatively low levels of agricultural employment despite being predominantly rural. For Sri Lanka, this anomaly is explained by low urbanization rates, rather than relatively low levels of agricultural employment  — a labor share of just under 30% in agriculture is similar to neighboring countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In the case of Barbados and Saint Lucia, low agricultural production and employment are common for many small island states .

Definitions and measurement

How is an urban population defined.

There is no universal definition of what constitutes an 'urban area'. Definitions of an urban settlement vary widely across countries, both in terms of the metrics used to define them, and their threshold level. The UN World Urbanization Prospects (2018) database provides a downloadable list of underlying data sources and the statistical concepts used to define 'urban' by country. 5

In the chart, we have mapped the minimum threshold level of the number of inhabitants in a settlement needed for it to be classified as an 'urban area'. The data shown for a given country is its nationally-defined minimum threshold. When we look at the frequency at which a given threshold level is used by a country, we see that 2000 and 5000 inhabitants are the most frequently adopted (by 23 countries each). However, these ranges vary widely: Sweden and Denmark, for example, use a threshold of only 200 inhabitants whereas Japan adopts a very high threshold of 50,000 inhabitants.

Note that 133 countries do not use a minimum settlement population threshold in their 'urban' definition. Some use a variation of population density, infrastructure development, pre-assigned city populations, or in some cases no clear definition.

The UN adopts national definitions in its reporting of urban versus rural populations. This means urban populations are often not comparable across countries. Global urbanization trends also encounter this issue: world urban population is reported as the sum of nationally defined urban populations (therefore summing metrics/thresholds that are not directly comparable).

How is a slum household defined?

UN-HABITAT defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following 16 :

• Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.
• Sufficient living space which means no more than three people sharing the same room.
• Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price.
• 4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people.

Sometimes a fifth criterion is included:

• Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.

It should be noted that although a single categorization of a 'slum household' is given, the conditions and level of deprivation can vary significantly between slum households. Some households may lack only one of the above criteria, whereas others may lack several.

How is urban density defined?

The density of a geographic area is measured on the basis of the average number of people per unit of area (for example, the number of people per square kilometer, km 2 ). It's therefore calculated as the population divided by the land area for that given population.

But what does urban density mean? Here, again, we encounter difficulty in agreeing on the standard boundary definition of what constitutes an urban area. The standard metric adopted (and encouraged) by the UN for urban density is the so-called "urban agglomeration population density".

An urban agglomeration is defined by the UN as:

The term “urban agglomeration” refers to the population contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels without regard to administrative boundaries. It usually incorporates the population in a city or town plus that in the suburban areas lying outside of, but being adjacent to, the city boundaries. Whenever possible, data classified according to the concept of urban agglomeration are used. However, some countries do not produce data according to the concept of urban agglomeration but use instead that of ‘metropolitan area’ or ‘city proper’. If possible, such data are adjusted to conform to the concept of ‘urban’ agglomeration. When sufficient information is not available to permit such an adjustment, data based on the concept of city proper or metropolitan area are used.

This figure, which shows the urban definition boundaries for Toronto, is used by the UN to demonstrate these differences. 17

Here we see that the most commonly used definition of "urban agglomeration" is based on the population and area size of the central city or town plus its close suburban sprawls.

Interactive charts on urbanization

Built-up area is defined as cities, towns, villages, and human infrastructure.

In 1800 when urbanization rates were low, agricultural employment was very high — including in today's rich countries. For example, around 60% of the workforce in France was employed in agriculture in 1800. Today this figure is only a few percent.

UN World Urbanization Prospects (2018). Available at:  https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Download/ .

Note that this data can be viewed for any country or region using the "Change country or region" function in the top-right of the chart.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Online Edition. Available at:  https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/ .

Pesaresi, M., Melchiorri, M., Siragusa, A., & Kemper, T. (2016). Atlas of the Human Planet - Mapping Human Presence on Earth with the Global Human Settlement Layer.  JRC103150. Publications Office of the European Union. Luxembourg (Luxembourg): European Commission, DG JRC . Available at:  https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/atlas-human-planet-mapping-human-presence-earth-global-human-settlement-layer .

Angel et al. (2018). Our Not-So-Urban World. The Marron Institute of Urban Management, New York University. Available at:  https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/uploads/content/Angel_et_al_Our_Not-So-Urban_World,_revised_on_22_Aug_2018_v2.pdf

Projections through to 2035 are published by the UN World Urbanization Prospects (2018) based on its medium fertility scenario of population growth and urbanization rates.

US Census Bureau. Population: 1790-1990. Available at:  https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf .

Bairoch (1988). Cities and Economic Development. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Klein Goldewijk, K. , A. Beusen, and P. Janssen (2010). Long-term dynamic modeling of the global population and the built-up area in a spatially explicit way, HYDE 3 .1. The Holocene20(4):565-573. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0

Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., & Fink, G. (2008). Urbanization and the wealth of nations.  Science ,  319 (5864), 772-775. Available at:  http://science.sciencemag.org/content/319/5864/772.short

C. M. Becker, in International Handbook of Development Economics, A. Dutt, J. Ros, Eds. (Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton, MA, 2008).

Henderson, V. (2003). The urbanization process and economic growth: The so-what question.  Journal of Economic Growth ,  8 (1), 47-71. Available at:  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022860800744 .

Ciccone, A., & Hall, R. E. (1993).  Productivity and the density of economic activity  (No. w4313). National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at:  http://www.nber.org/papers/w4313 .

Montgomery, M. R., Stren, R., Cohen, B., & Reed, H. E. (2013).  Cities transformed: demographic change and its implications in the developing world . Routledge. Available at:  https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781134031665 .

Black, D., & Henderson, V. (1999). A theory of urban growth.  Journal of Political Economy ,  107 (2), 252-284. Available at:  https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/250060 .

Michaels, G., Rauch, F., & Redding, S. J. (2012). Urbanization and structural transformation.  The Quarterly Journal of Economics ,  127 (2), 535-586. Available at:  https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/127/2/535/1824278 .

UN-HABITAT (2007). State of the World's Cities. Available at:  http://mirror.unhabitat.org/documents/media_centre/sowcr2006/SOWCR%205.pdf

United Nations (2017). The World's Cities in 2016. United Nations Population Division. Available at:  http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/urbanization/the_worlds_cities_in_2016_data_booklet.pdf .

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This story originally appeared in Next City on 9th February, 2020. Sign up for Next City's global sustainability newsletter, Urban Planet .

Two years ago, Maimunah Mohd Sharif was plucked from her perch as mayor of Penang Island, Malaysia, to become the Executive Director of UN-Habitat. From managing a scenic municipality of 700,000 home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site — the historic city of George Town — she was thrust into the limelight of overseeing a sprawling portfolio of projects around the world. From helping war-torn Kabul rebuild its parks to ensuring African cities can weather natural disasters to planning new types of refugee settlements that can evolve into cities, UN-Habitat’s work on the ground helps support urban life in some of the world’s most disadvantaged places.

Next City sat down with Sharif to find out what she has learned in her first two years on the job. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are the top issues facing cities in this new decade and how do they differ from the urban priorities of the 2010s? The climate emergency, inequality and forced migration. There was always a lot of concern about climate change — flooding, landslides. Now what we have is a climate crisis, or a climate emergency. This is one of the areas that will affect cities more than anywhere else, because by 2050, around two-thirds of people will live in the cities. The most marginalized will be poor people living in coastal areas affected by this climate crisis.

Second, there are inequalities, not only inequalities within countries, but also between regions, between countries, and between continents. These inequalities cause people to migrate, because people … see the greener pasture somewhere else. Sometimes they are forced to migrate, like climate refugees, but other times they are forced to move to change their quality of life. They believe that in moving from one place to another place, they will get a better job.

Do you think that cities are weathering the migration crisis well? To a certain extent, cities have already taken action to integrate migrants into the host community. For example, Kalobeyei is a new type of refugee settlement in northern Kenya’s Turkana area. We innovated with the Turkana governors and worked together with the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration to handle the influx of refugees into northern Kenya. We provided expertise on how to do the urban planning. I am hopeful because the governor is going to give a piece of land for us to plan in such a way that the refugees are integrated into the area.

This type of movement to integrate is happening because there has been a shift to looking at the migrant as a key to economic growth: migrants create employment. The role of mayors, local government, and local communities is very important to shift from the migrant as a negative to the migrant as a positive. Right now there is a backlash because of the volume. The volume is too big sometimes. The cities or the region cannot cope. They need help from international organizations and donors, and the local government needs help from the national government.

What concerns facing cities have you made into your signature issues thus far? During World Habitat Day in October 2018, we launched the Waste Wise Cities Campaign , because my experience is that people are talking about waste management. It can be solid. It can be liquid. It can even be air pollution. Now we [are working] together with central and local government to create cleaner cities.

How successful has UN-Habitat been in promoting urban resilience? I went to Beira, Mozambique, one month after Cyclone Idai hit in March 2019. I met the Prime Minister, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Education. They asked me, “Executive Director, can we get more schools built according to your guidelines?” I responded, “I’m new. What do you mean, Minister?” They said, “Come, I’ll show you.” The rest of the buildings were all collapsed, except the school built using our design . It was still standing.

Public space has been a priority for UN-Habitat for many years. What public space initiatives have been most promising? I went to Afghanistan, which has big challenges in peace and security, to see UN-Habitat’s Clean and Green Cities Programme to build public spaces. I officiated the opening of a park in Kabul. It’s a very big space in between high-rise affordable housing. Before, it was a rubbish dump site. And together with the government, donors, and the community, we created that park. At the inauguration, one girl ran down to hug and kiss me. She said that she was very happy because now after school she can come back and do her homework and meet her friends.

President Ashraf Ghani and his ministers have told me, “Please do more of these public spaces. Please help us to improve our planning, lift up our economic growth, and bring people together.”

Millions of people around the world lack formal title to their homes. What can be done? In Afghanistan, we are giving thousands of land certificates to the people through our Global Land Tool Network. Importantly, both the name of the husband and the name of the wife will be on the property deed. If the husband has two wives, then both wives’ names will be there. That is gender fairness.

Gregory Scruggs is Next City’s special correspondent covering World Urban Forum 10.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Ecofying Cities, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Right now, our economy operates as Paul Hawken said, "by stealing the future, selling it in the present and calling it GDP." And if we have another eight billion or seven billion people, living on a planet where their cities also steal the future, we're going to run out of future really fast. But if we think differently, I think that, in fact, we can have cities that are not only zero emissions, but have unlimited possibilities as well. Alex Steffen

The urgency of urban planning today

Within a few decades' time, we can expect the planet to become more crowded, resources more precious, and innovative urban planners increasingly important. By midcentury, the global population will likely top nine billion, and more than half will live in cities. What will these cities look like? Will we have the resources to power them and comfortably provide for their residents? Will global urbanization harmonize with efforts to curb climate change and secure a sustainable future, or are these forces hurtling towards a head-on collision?

The TED speakers featured in Ecofying Cities underscore the urgency, but also suggest that some optimism's in order as they outline the issues and offer imaginative solutions.

There's no single reason for or response to the complex environmental, economic and social challenges that are part of our future in cities. They call for multiple approaches, originating from different sources — individuals, communities, governments, businesses — and deployed at different levels — in the home, the neighborhood, the city, region, nation and across the globe — to respond to the challenges at hand. As Alex Steffen reminds the urban planners, architects, designers, elected leaders and others involved in the effort, "All those cities are opportunities."

Urbanism and the environment: A brief history

For centuries, successful city-building has required careful attention to the environmental consequences of urban development. Without this, as Jared Diamond demonstrated in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed , a city inevitably ended up fouling its nest, thus entering a spiral of epidemics, economic hardship, decline and, ultimately, oblivion. Civilizations evolved different ways of dealing with environmental considerations — some with more success than others. For example, thanks to elaborate aqueducts and sewer systems, the Romans were able to build and sustain for centuries large cities that featured a reliable public water supply and state-of-the-art public health conditions.

In other civilizations, however, residents simply abandoned cities when they could no longer rely on their environment to supply the resources they needed. Often this was a direct result of their own activities: for example, deforestation and the attendant erosion of fertile soil, epidemics due to contaminated water and, with the advent of coal-fired industrialization, air pollution.

Urban planning got its start as a profession largely dedicated to averting different types of crises arising from urban growth and providing conditions for public health. This was particularly true in the many 19th century European and North American cities transformed by industrialization and unprecedented rates of population growth. Rapidly deteriorating air and water quality made it necessary to introduce regulations to protect the health of the residents of these cities.

The planners' first-generation improvements included sewers, water treatment and distribution, and improved air quality through building codes and increased urban green space. It's especially remarkable today to think that these interventions were adopted in response to observable health consequences, but without knowledge of the contamination mechanisms at work: germ theory didn't arrive on the scene until Louis Pasteur published his work in the 1860s. From the late 19th century onward Pasteur's findings bolstered the case for even more urban sanitation improvements, particularly those designed to improve water quality.

Starting in the 1950s, however, planners no longer narrowly targeted immediate health effects on urban residents as their chief environmental concern. Their work also absorbed and reflected Western society's deeper understanding of, and respect for, natural processes and growing awareness of the long-term environmental impacts of cities from the local to the planetary scale.

Rachel Carson is often credited as the first to popularize environmentalism. Published in 1962, her landmark book Silent Spring sounded a warning call about how pesticides endanger birds and entire ecological systems. Soon after, air pollution became a rallying point for environmentalists, as did the loss of large tracks of rural and natural land to accelerated, sprawling development. Today, sustainable development and smart growth, which largely overlap and address multiple environmental considerations, enjoy wide currency; most urban planning is now based on these principles.

Today, as we reckon with population growth, advancing rates of urbanization, and widespread recognition of climate change, we know that the cities of the future share a common destiny. The choices we make about how we build, inhabit and maintain these cities will have global and long-term effects.

Sustainable development: Two schools of thought

In modern urban planning, there are two general categories of sustainable development. The first doesn't challenge the present dynamics of the city, allowing them to remain largely low-density and automobile-oriented, but still makes them the object of measures aimed to reduce their environmental load (for example, green construction practices). Ian McHarg spearheaded this approach as a way to develop urban areas in harmony with natural systems; the planning principles he formulated gave special care to the preservation of water and green space. His lasting influence is visible in many of the more enlightened suburban developments of recent decades which respect the integrity of natural systems. Today, the Landscape Urbanism movement promotes these same ideas.

A second school of urban development focuses on increasing urban density and reducing reliance on the automobile. This approach advocates transit-oriented and mixed-use development along pedestrian-friendly "complete streets." On a regional scale, it aims to reduce sprawl by creating a network of higher-density multifunctional centers interconnected by public transit. Today, it's common for plans with a metropolitan scope to follow this approach.

Studying the city: About these materials

Cities are arguably the most complex human creation (with the possible exception of language) so it's not surprising that we study them at multiple scales and from diverse perspectives. We can approach cities through a narrow focus on an individual building or a neighborhood, expand the investigation to consider a metropolitan region in its entirety, or study the global system of cities and its interconnections. What's more, we can think about cities as built environments, social networks, modified ecologies, economic systems and political entities. Aware of the multiple ways that we engage with cities, the Romans had two words to refer to them: urbs referred to the physical city with its wall and buildings, and civitas , the city as a collection of residents.

Ecofying Cities explores urban areas at different scales. In some cases, the TED speaker focuses on a neighborhood project, like The High Line in Manhattan; others describe city-wide transformation, as in Curitiba, Brazil, or a regional or national initiative like China's plan for a network of eco-cities to house its growing urban population. Likewise, the talks explore cities from different disciplinary perspectives including urban planning, urban design, transportation planning, architecture, community organization and environmental science. What unites them all? A commitment to sustainability and a belief that sustainability is more about creating positive effects rather than reducing negative impacts.

The message emanating from Ecofying Cities is one of complexity, optimism and uncertainty. We can't be sure that the changes these speakers suggest will be enough to help us balance supply and demand in the sustainability equation. But we can expect that their ideas and efforts will improve the built environment — as well as quality of life — in cities, thereby providing hopeful perspectives for a sustainable future.

Let´s begin with writer and futurist Alex Steffen´s TEDTalk "The Sharable Future of Cities" for a look at the interplay between increasing urban density and energy consumption.

Alex Steffen

The shareable future of cities, relevant talks.

Jaime Lerner

A song of the city.

Majora Carter

Greening the ghetto.

Robert Hammond

Building a park in the sky.

Michael Pawlyn

Using nature's genius in architecture.

William McDonough

Cradle to cradle design.

James Howard Kunstler

The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs.

Ellen Dunham-Jones

Retrofitting suburbia.

Urbanization: expanding opportunities, but deeper divides

Whether the process of urbanization is harnessed and managed, or allowed to fuel growing divides, will largely determine the future of inequality, says UN DESA’s World Social Report 2020. For the first time in history, more people now live in urban than in rural areas. And over the next three decades, global population growth is expected to take place almost exclusively in the world’s cities and towns. The total number of people living in cities is expected to grow from approximately 4.4 billion today to 6.7 billion in 2050.

Like some other megatrends, urbanization has the potential to become a positive transformative force for every aspect of sustainable development, including the reduction of inequality. When properly planned and managed, urbanization can reduce poverty and inequality by improving employment opportunities and quality of life, including through better education and health. But when poorly planned, urbanization can lead to congestion, higher crime rates, pollution, increased levels of inequality and social exclusion.

Inequality within cities has economic, spatial and social dimensions. Economically, inequality is generally greater in urban than in rural areas: the Gini coefficient of income inequality is higher in urban areas than in rural areas in 36 out of 42 countries with  data .

Larger cities are generally richer but more unequal than smaller cities. The opportunities that cities bring are unevenly distributed in space, preventing entire neighbourhoods and groups of population from accessing proper health care, good schools, sanitation, piped water, employment opportunities and adequate housing among others. Slums are the most notable extreme of the spatial concentration of urban poverty and disadvantage.

The uncontrolled growth of many cities has resulted in inadequate provision of public services and a failure to guarantee a minimum quality of life for all urban residents. The current speed of urbanization in developing countries makes urban governance and adequate planning increasingly urgent. As cities grow, inequality is likely to increase unless we implement policies to address it.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution to reducing urban inequality, some Governments have been able to address the spatial, economic and social aspects of the urban divide and promote inclusive urbanization, including in rapidly growing cities. Their successful strategies have four elements in common. First, they have established land and property rights, paying particular attention to security of tenure for people living in poverty.

Second, they have improved the availability of affordable housing, infrastructure and basic services and access to these services, since good transport networks, including between residential and commercial areas, are key to spatial connectivity and economic inclusion.

Third, they have facilitated access to education and decent employment for all urban residents.

Fourth, they have introduced mechanisms to allow participation in decision‑making,encouraging input from all stakeholders on the allocation of public funds and on the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of all policies.

For more information on the links between urbanization and inequality, please see Chapter 4 of the  World Social Report 2020: Inequality in a rapidly changing world .

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Problems and Prospects for Urban Areas

Subscribe to the economic studies bulletin, janet rothenberg pack , jrp janet rothenberg pack former brookings expert samara r. potter , and srp samara r. potter william g. gale william g. gale the arjay and frances fearing miller chair in federal economic policy, senior fellow - economic studies , co-director - urban-brookings tax policy center @williamgale2.

July 1, 2002

• 13 min read

Urban areas face daunting economic challenges that have increased in scope in recent years. At the same time, cities provide exciting opportunities for growth and revitalization. The interplay of these challenges and opportunities create important tasks for policymakers and researchers.

Each year, the Brookings Institution and the Wharton School of Business cosponsor a conference to address these issues and provide cutting-edge, accessible research on issues unique to urban areas, as well as on broad economic and policy topics that have special applications in an urban setting.

The most recent conference, held at the Brookings Institution on October 25-26, 2001, sponsored two groups of papers being published this month in the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs (Brookings Institution Press, 2002). A symposium of three papers focuses on metropolitan tax and fiscal policy, examining the effects of political mergers between cities and suburbs, the links between the economic vitality of cities and suburbs, and firm-specific tax incentives for industry relocation. The remaining conference papers focus on changing demographics in urban areas, including the impact of alternative measures of gentrification on lower income city residents and the varying experiences of immigrant students in the New York City public school system.

Symposium on Metropolitan Tax and Fiscal Policy

Cities attract businesses and residents by providing high-quality amenities. But providing those amenities requires funding, and higher tax burdens increase incentives for city residents and firms to depart for lower tax locations. Balancing these considerations is an essential problem in urban public finance. The income disparity between most large central cities and their relatively wealthier suburbs makes these issues even more difficult and politically sensitive. In addition, the potential effectiveness of many fiscal options is unknown, and the connection between economic effectiveness and political feasibility is sometimes overlooked.

Metropolitan Consolidation

Large metropolitan areas in the United States are characterized by a very large number of local governments, with many urban areas containing more than one hundred separate municipalities. The fragmentation of local government has led to concerns regarding the distribution of government services and the efficiency with which these services are provided. Central city mayors and some analysts have advocated political and fiscal consolidation, but annexation of developed suburbs has rarely occurred.

Stephen Calabrese of the University of South Florida, Glenn Cassidy of Cassidy Policy Research, and Dennis Epple of Carnegie-Mellon University model voting behavior in multiple municipalities to evaluate the effects of mergers. Voters, who vary only in income, choose their preferred level of public services and redistribution, and the level and type of tax levied. They also choose their residential location based on these policies. In equilibrium, majority rule determines tax, public service, and redistribution policy; each municipality has a balanced budget; no one wants to move; and the housing market clears. The policy favored by the median-income voter will always be adopted. The model produces results consistent with observed patterns in cities: although both large and small municipalities provide public goods, redistribution occurs almost exclusively in large central cities. Small suburban municipalities depend primarily on property tax revenues to finance public services, but central cities use both income and property taxes. The policy choices result in income stratification across the metropolitan region. Low-income households with a preference for redistribution are more likely to locate in the central city, whereas wealthy households will choose suburbs with high levels of public service provision and less redistribution.

The stratification of municipalities by income implies that mergers are generally not politically viable. Residents of a poorer municipality, such as a central city, will support a merger with a wealthier suburb to obtain higher public good provision and redistribution, with lower overall tax rates. But residents of the wealthier suburb will oppose consolidation to avoid falling property values, reduced public good provision, and increased redistribution.

The aggregate welfare effects of mergers are more complicated. A merger between two jurisdictions will prompt the wealthiest individuals in the higher income jurisdiction to move from the consolidated city to a wealthier suburb in order to escape redistribution policies. These movers from the consolidated area will become the poorest residents in their new location and will purchase housing of less than the average value in that suburb. Housing prices in the new suburb will rise and public good provision will fall. This pattern will continue across suburbs in a domino effect. As a result, consolidation results in a negative impact on surrounding suburbs as well as for the wealthier residents of the merged municipalities.

Consolidation might still raise aggregate welfare, if mergers benefit poor voters more than they harm wealthier ones. Where this is the case, governments wishing to encourage annexations could compensate suburban residents for their losses and still improve social welfare.

Besides providing new insights into the dearth of consolidations, this paper advances researchers? ability to model simultaneous decisionmaking across multiple policy choices and offers a systematic explanation for income segregation that arises even when households have no explicit preference for the characteristics of their neighbors.

Suburban Fiscal Transfers to Central Cities

In the absence of political consolidation, financial transfers from suburbs to central cities are another, possibly more feasible, way to address metropolitan area public finance issues. But should the suburbs be interested in such an arrangement? Traditionally, proponents of such transfers have suggested that transfers are justified either because central cities fund public goods that benefit suburban residents, such as infrastructure, public education, and policing, or because central city poverty is a regional problem that should be addressed via transfers from the entire urban region.

In their paper, Andrew Haughwout of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Robert Inman of the University of Pennsylvania argue that neither of these arguments is compelling. They examine a new rationale for suburban transfers to central cities, based on two premises. The first is that cities create agglomeration economies. These economies occur because of the geographic concentration of firms within an industry and the resultant decline in transportation and labor costs, encouragement of innovation, and ease of spreading new ideas. These agglomeration economies reduce the cost of city-produced goods to both city and suburban residents. The second premise is that weak central city government—marked by a variety of financial practices and fiscal institutions—imposes costs on city residents and firms and induces them to relocate. The relocation, though, reduces the agglomeration economies available in the city and causes the price of city-produced goods to rise. If both premises hold, weak city governments hurt suburban residents, weak city finances cause poor suburban economic health, and suburban residents should be willing to pay to improve center cities’ weak financial situation in order to preserve the benefits of agglomeration economies.

Haughwout and Inman demonstrate empirically that weak city finances are associated with negative city and suburban economic outcomes. In particular, they show that weak budgetary institutions, strong city unions, rising poverty rates and declining tax bases are associated with lower income, population growth, and rates of home value appreciation in both cities and their surrounding suburbs. They also develop a structural simulation model based on Philadelphia’s economy that builds in a link between city finances and suburban economic outcomes. The effects of city finances on suburban health in Philadelphia are found to be similar to those found in the aggregate data. In this simulation a causal relation is assumed by construction, and thus the model implies that a suburban family should be willing to pay between $100 and $250 annually to improve city fiscal institutions in order to realize the benefits of agglomeration economies in the city.

The conclusion that weak city finances reduce agglomeration economies implies that transfers from suburbs to cities would only protect agglomeration economies if the funds were used to strengthen weak city finances. Such transfers would be counterproductive if the funds were used to raise pay for city workers or increase constituent services. To avoid these problems and ensure that the funds are used appropriately, Haughwout and Inman advocate the use of a number of specific mechanisms for transfers, including using suburban aid to fully fund state poverty mandates, reforming local property tax rules, and making aid dependent on the adoption of competitive bidding practices for city service contracts.

Tax Incentives and Business Location

If city-suburb consolidations are rare and suburban areas are reluctant to transfer resources to central cities, as the first two papers suggest, a third fiscal option for urban economic development is large, firm-specific tax breaks aimed at attracting or retaining particular businesses. Such actions have been highly publicized in the past, ranging from cities recruiting professional sports teams, to Alabama wooing Mercedes Benz in the early 1990s.

Despite the frequency of such actions, the research literature casts considerable doubt on the effectiveness of such incentives, on both theoretical and empirical grounds. One strand of the theoretical literature argues that under tax competition, all jurisdictions will select inefficiently low tax rates to prevent firms from exiting. This will result in a reduction of public service provision below efficient levels. Another strand of the literature argues that tax competition across communities results in an efficient allocation of resources, because people can choose where to live, and thus specific tax incentives introduce distortions. This approach assumes that if no tax incentives are offered, cities tax corporations’ capital at rates equal to the marginal benefit of the public goods provided to the firms. Neither approach justifies large tax incentives for particular companies.

In their contribution to the conference, Teresa Garcia-Mila of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain and Therese McGuire of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois challenge the conventional wisdom. They develop a model in which cities compete for a mobile capital stock and benefit from productivity-enhancing agglomeration economies. Under these circumstances, the efficient tax rates on new firms equals the difference between the marginal benefit to firms of the public services they consume and the marginal agglomeration benefits to the city of the additional capital brought by the firm.

The authors then examine Chicago’s decision in 2001 to offer Boeing $50 million in tax incentives to relocate its corporate headquarters from Seattle. Chicago’s pursuit of Boeing is puzzling, given that it involved only the relocation of Boeing’s headquarters rather than its manufacturing plants. Moreover, since most of the headquarters employees transferred from Seattle, few new jobs were created. In stark contrast, Chicago allowed a large local candy manufacturer employing nearly 1,000 people to leave the city without offering it tax incentives to stay. Garcia-Mila and McGuire suggest that Chicago planners believed that a management-oriented firm like Boeing would create greater potential for knowledge spillovers than would the retention of the manufacturing facility. The authors conclude that agglomeration of capital may have sufficient economic as well as political payoffs to justify firm-specific tax incentives.

Gentrification and Immigration

Two other papers presented at the conference provide new evidence on current issues in urban economics and urban policy. They demonstrate the breadth of topics that fall comfortably within the area of urban economics and the important insights that can be gained on urban issues from related fields of research, such as poverty and welfare or labor economics.

Does Gentrification Harm the Poor?

Although white flight to the suburbs during the second half of the twentieth century is often viewed as a causal factor in the demise of central cities, the return of affluent households to city neighborhoods sometimes elicits similarly intense criticism. Gentrification, or the influx of upper-middle class or wealthy households into previously poor neighborhoods, is popularly seen as harmful to poor and minority residents. The closing of the Cabrini-Green Housing Project in Chicago and its partial replacement with townhomes, for example, produced an uproar among long-time public housing residents, who felt they were being driven from their homes despite city officials’ reassurances that mixed-income housing developments would be beneficial to low-income as well as new middle-class neighborhood residents.

A paper by Jacob Vigdor of Duke University suggests that much less is known about the impact of gentrification on poor families than is commonly supposed. Rather than assuming there is a consensus definition, Vigdor begins by defining gentrification and makes the distinction between preference-driven and income-driven gentrification. In preference-driven gentrification, high-income households raise their valuation of the amenities available in poor neighborhoods. A common example is the two-earner family that decides it prefers a shorter commute and increases its willingness to pay to live in the more central neighborhood. Income-driven gentrification occurs when a change in the productivity of high-income households raises the demand for, and hence the price of, housing in upper-income neighborhoods. This forces some of the people in these neighborhoods to move to lower priced areas.

Under both types of gentrification, housing prices rise in the formerly poor neighborhoods, so that renters there either have to move or absorb the higher rental costs (and possibly higher amenities). One difference between the two lies in housing prices in the upper-income neighborhood, which fall under preference-driven gentrification but rise under income-driven gentrification. Vigdor proposes policy options that both directly and indirectly reduce potential harm caused by gentrification. Rent subsidies or relocation assistance directly address rising costs of housing for low-income households. Job training or education subsidies could make poor residents more able to compete in the housing market.

Gentrification may also have effects on the poor apart from through the housing market. Many of these effects are likely to be positive. Rising housing prices can raise property tax revenues, increase redistribution, and improve public services. An influx of higher income households might create job opportunities for low-income residents or relocate jobs closer to the neighborhood. Poor residents might benefit from improvements in neighborhood quality, such as lower crime rates.

Vigdor argues that most work on gentrification focuses too narrowly on spatial displacement and does not in fact demonstrate that displacement is caused by gentrification or that it causes harm. Using Boston as a case study, he finds that households with low educational attainment (who are more likely to be among the long-term poor) living in gentrifying areas are no more likely to move than other households in the area or than low-education households in other areas. Gentrification has not increased the segregation of Boston neighborhoods by socioeconomic class; in fact, gentrification seems to lead to more mixed-income neighborhoods.

Immigrants and School Segregation

The proportion of the U.S. population that is foreign-born—currently about 10.4 percent—is at its highest level since 1930. Research suggests that segregation among racial groups is significant and negatively affects children’s educational attainment, but it is unknown whether the same holds true for immigrants. Peer effects—proximity to low-income, less-educated classmates—appear to negatively affect racial minorities, particularly for in the areas of education and employment. Peer effects may have a different impact on the children of immigrants because although the parents generally have little education, immigrant groups often demonstrate a strong preference for educating their children. Similarly, although schools with large racial minorities have been found to receive less funding than average, no previous studies have investigated the impact of immigrant segregation on school funding. Indeed, segregation of immigrants may improve access to resources, as concentration of a group may make it more efficient for the government to provide particular services, such as classes in English as a second language.

Using evidence from the New York public schools, in which 16 percent of students were foreign-born in 1998-99, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Katherine O’Regan, Amy Ellen Schwartz, and Leanna Stiefel of New York University evaluate the degree of immigrant segregation and its relationship to resource allocation and student performance. Having assembled a data set that contains information on the academic and socioeconomic characteristics of all children in New York City public schools in 1998-99, aggregated to school level, the authors find a relatively low level of segregation for immigrants overall.

Some groups of immigrant students, particularly students from the former Soviet Union and the Caribbean, are considerably more segregated than foreign-born students overall, but still less segregated than nonwhite students. The authors show that different immigrant groups, particularly Soviet and Caribbean immigrants, have substantially different peer influences and access to educational resources. Like native students, immigrant students are highly segregated by race. Racial segregation is accompanied by peer characteristics, teacher quality, and classroom and aggregate school spending patterns that have negative effects that overwhelm differences in educational attainment due to nativity. Soviet students who attend schools with high percentages of white students have higher quality teachers and higher achieving peers, while Dominican students in predominantly black schools are educated with students characterized by extremely high poverty rates and low test scores.

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A growing share of Americans say affordable housing is a major problem where they live

Prospective homebuyers and renters across the United States have seen prices surge and supply plummet during the coronavirus pandemic . Amid these circumstances, about half of Americans (49%) say the availability of affordable housing in their local community is a major problem, up 10 percentage points from early 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2021.

This Pew Research Center analysis about the levels of concern among Americans about the affordability of housing draws from a Center survey designed to understand Americans’ views and preferences for where they live.

The survey of 9,676 U.S. adults was conducted from Oct. 18 to 24, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

References to White, Black and Asian adults include only those who are not Hispanic and identify as only one race. Hispanics are of any race.

“Middle income” is defined here as two-thirds to double the median annual family income for panelists on the American Trends Panel. “Lower income” falls below that range; “upper income” falls above it. Read the  methodology  for more details.

References to respondents who live in urban, suburban or rural communities are based on respondents’ answer to the following question: “How would you describe the community where you currently live? (1) urban, (2) suburban, (3) rural.”

Another 36% of U.S. adults said in the fall that affordable housing availability is a minor problem in their community, while just 14% said it is not a problem.

Americans’ concerns about the availability of affordable housing have outpaced worries about other local issues. The percentage of adults who say this is a major problem where they live is larger than the shares who say the same about drug addiction (35%), the economic and health impacts of COVID-19 (34% and 26%, respectively) and crime (22%).

Opinions on the question of housing affordability differ by a variety of demographic factors, including income, race and ethnicity, and age. A majority of adults living in lower-income households (57%) say availability of affordable housing is a major issue in their community, larger than the shares of those in middle- (47%) or upper-income households (42%) who say it is a major problem.

Fewer than half of White adults (44%) say that availability of affordable housing is a major problem where they live – lower than the shares of Black (57%), Hispanic and Asian American adults (both 55%) who say the same.

Adults under 50 are more likely than their older counterparts to say affordable housing availability is a major problem locally. More than half of adults ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 say this (55% in both age groups), compared with smaller shares of those 50 to 64 and those 65 and older (44% and 39%, respectively).

Americans’ perceptions of this issue also vary based on where they live. About six-in-ten U.S. adults living in urban areas (63%) say that the availability of affordable housing in their community is a major problem, compared with 46% of suburban residents and 40% of those living in rural areas.

Regardless of income level, city dwellers generally tend to view affordable housing availability as a bigger issue than those living in the suburbs or rural areas. Two-thirds of urban adults with lower household incomes (66%) say affordable housing in their area is a major problem, compared with 56% of suburban dwellers with lower incomes and 52% of those with lower incomes living in rural areas. Among upper-income adults, 58% of those living in urban areas say housing affordability is a major problem, compared with 43% of upper-income Americans living in suburban places and 25% of upper-income rural residents.

There are also regional differences. Around seven-in-ten Americans living in the West (69%) say affordable housing availability is a major problem locally. This compares with 49% of Northeasterners, 44% of Americans in the South and 33% of those living in the Midwest.

Since 2018, there have been increases across demographic groups in the shares who say that the availability of affordable housing in their community is a major problem. For example, 55% of adults under 30 now say this is a major problem – a 16 percentage point rise from the 39% who said so in 2018. The share of adults ages 30 to 49 who hold this view has also risen from 42% in 2018 to 55% last year.

About six-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party (59%) said in 2021 that affordable housing availability is a major problem in their community, compared with 36% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.

These partisan differences remain when looking separately at those who live in urban, suburban and rural communities. Among urban residents, two-thirds of Democrats (67%) see the availability of affordable housing locally as a major problem, compared with 54% of Republicans in urban areas. In suburban or rural communities, smaller majorities of Democrats hold this view (56% in the suburbs and 54% in rural places), compared with around a third of Republicans in those areas (35% and 31%, respectively).

Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

• Economic Conditions
• Economic Inequality
• Homeownership & Renting
• Issue Priorities
• Personal Finances
• Rural, Urban and Suburban Communities

Katherine Schaeffer is a research analyst at Pew Research Center .

Public’s Positive Economic Ratings Slip; Inflation Still Widely Viewed as Major Problem

Is college worth it, a look at small businesses in the u.s., state of the union 2024: where americans stand on the economy, immigration and other key issues, americans’ top policy priority for 2024: strengthening the economy, most popular.

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14.2 Sociological Perspectives on Urbanization

Learning objective.

• List the assumptions of the three major sociological perspectives concerning urbanization.

Once again the three major sociological perspectives offer important but varying insights to help us understand urbanization. Table 14.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes their assumptions.

Table 14.1 Theory Snapshot

Functionalism

A basic debate within the functionalist perspective centers on the relative merits of cities and urbanization: In what ways and to what extent are cities useful (functional) for society, and in what ways and to what extent are cities disadvantageous and even harmful (dysfunctional) for society? Put more simply, are cities good or bad?

In essence, there is no one answer to this question, because cities are too complex for a simple answer. Cities are both good and bad. They are sites of creativity, high culture, population diversity, and excitement, but they are also sites of crime, impersonality, and other problems.

Since sociologists began studying urbanization in the early years of the discipline, an important question has been the degree to which cities are impersonal and alienating for their residents. In 1887, German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1887/1963) raised this question when he wrote about the changes that occurred as societies changed from small, rural, and traditional cultures to larger, urban, and industrial settings. He said that a sense of community, or Gemeinschaft , characterizes traditional societies. In these societies, family, kin, and community ties are quite strong, with people caring for each other and looking out for one another. As societies grew and industrialized and as people moved to cities, he wrote, social ties weakened and became more impersonal. Tönnies called this type of society a Gesellschaft , and he was quite critical of this development. He lamented the loss in urban societies of close social bonds and of a strong sense of community, and he feared that a sense of rootlessness in these societies begins to replace the feeling of stability and steadiness characteristic of small, rural societies.

One of the key founders of sociology, French scholar Émile Durkheim, was more positive than Tönnies about the nature of cities and urbanized societies. He certainly appreciated the social bonds and community feeling, which he called mechanical solidarity , characteristic of small, rural societies. However, he also thought that these societies stifled individual freedom and that social ties still exist in larger, urban societies. He called these latter ties organic solidarity , which he said stems from the division of labor. When there is a division of labor, he wrote, everyone has to depend on everyone else to perform their jobs. This interdependence of roles creases a solidarity that retains much of the bonding and sense of community found in small, rural societies (Durkheim, 1893/1933).

Contemporary research tends to emphasize that strong social bonds do exist in cities (Guest, Cover, Matsueda, & Kubrin, 2006). Although cities can be anonymous (think of the mass of people walking by each other on a busy street in the downtown area of a large city), many city residents live in neighborhoods where people do know each other, associate with each other, and look out for each other. In these neighborhoods, a sense of community and strong social bonds do, in fact, exist.

In many urban neighborhoods, people are friendly with each other and feel a strong sense of community.

Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 3.0.

In 1938, University of Chicago sociologist Louis Wirth wrote a very influential essay, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” in which he took both a positive and a negative view of cities (Wirth, 1938). He agreed with Tönnies that cities have a weaker sense of community and weaker social bonds than do rural areas. But he also agreed with Durkheim that cities generate more creativity and greater tolerance for new ways of thinking. In particular, he said that urban residents are more tolerant than rural residents of nontraditional attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles, in part because they are much more exposed than rural residents to these nontraditional ways. Supporting Wirth’s hypothesis, contemporary research finds that urban residents indeed hold more tolerant views on several kinds of issues (Moore & Ovadia, 2006).

An example of the greater tolerance of urban residents (and thus the lower tolerance of rural residents) appears in Figure 14.5 “Urban/Rural Residence and Belief That Premarital Sex Is “Always Wrong” (%)” , which depicts the percentage of Americans in the nation’s twelve largest metropolitan areas and in its rural areas who say that premarital sex is “always wrong.” Rural residents are twice as likely as urban residents to feel this way.

Figure 14.5 Urban/Rural Residence and Belief That Premarital Sex Is “Always Wrong” (%)

Source: Data from General Social Survey. (2010). Retrieved from http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss10 .

Conflict Theory

We just saw that functionalism has mixed views about the benefits and disadvantages of cities and urban life and thus of urbanization. In contrast to this ambivalence, conflict theory’s views are uniformly critical. In this regard, recall from Chapter 1 “Understanding Social Problems” that conflict theory assumes a basic conflict between society’s “haves” and “have-nots,” or between the economic and political elites and the poor and people of color. This type of conflict, says conflict theory, manifests itself especially in the nation’s cities, in which the “haves” and “have-nots” live very different lives. On the one hand, the rich in American cities live in luxurious apartments and work in high-rise corporate buildings, and they dine at the finest restaurants and shop at the most expensive stores. On the other hand, the poor and people of color live in dilapidated housing and can often barely make ends meet.

Beyond this basic disparity of city life, conflict theorists add that the diverse backgrounds and interests of city residents often lead to conflict because some residents’ beliefs and practices clash with those of other residents. In one of the earliest statements of this position, sociologist Thorsten Sellin (1938), who was writing during an era of mass immigration into American cities of people from other nations, said that crime is the result of “culture conflict.” In particular, he wrote that crime by immigrants often results from the clash of their traditional ways of thinking and acting with the norms of American society. As one example, he wrote that a father in New Jersey who had emigrated from Sicily killed a teenage boy who had slept with his daughter. The father was surprised when he was arrested by local police, because in the traditional Sicilian culture a man was permitted and even expected to defend his family’s honor by acting as the father did!

More recent applications of conflict theory to urbanization emphasize the importance of political economy , or the interaction of political and economic institutions and processes. In this way of thinking, political and economic elites in a city (bankers, real estate investors, politicians, and others) collaborate to advance their respective interests. Thus urban development often takes the form of displacing poor urban residents from their homes so that condominiums, high-rise banks and other corporate buildings, posh shopping malls, or other buildings favoring the rich can be built. More generally, these elites treat cities as settings for the growth of their wealth and power, rather than as settings where real people live, go to school, work at a job, and have friends and acquaintances. Sociologists John Logan and Harvey Molotch use the term growth machine ideology to characterize the view of the city that guides these elites’ policies and practices (Logan & Molotch, 2007).

Symbolic Interactionism

Consistent with the overall approach of symbolic interactionism, scholars of the city who take this approach focus on the nature of urban residents’ interaction with each other, the reasons for their patterns of interaction, and their perceptions of various aspects of urban life. Their work has yielded many rich, vivid descriptions of the urban life. Many and probably most of these accounts have concerned the lives of the poor and of people of color. The late Elliott Liebow wrote two of the most famous accounts. The first of these two was his majestic Tally’s Corner (Liebow, 1967), which depicted the lives of African American men who “hung around” a particular street corner in a large city. His second account was Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women (Liebow, 1993), which, as its title implies, depicted the lives of urban homeless women. Yet another classic account is William Foote Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner Society , which examined leadership in a street gang in Chicago, Illinois.

These and other accounts all depict cities as places where various norms and values prevail, in contrast to views of cities that depict them as wild, chaotic places. Building on these more positive accounts, recent work by sociologist Elijah Anderson emphasizes that most poor urban residents are “decent” (as they call themselves), law-abiding people who strongly disapprove of the crime and drug use in their neighborhoods (Anderson, 2000). He also emphasizes that cities are filled with parks and other public settings in which people from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds gather every day and interact in various ways that help foster interracial understanding. Anderson calls these settings “cosmopolitan canopies,” and says they “offer a respite from the lingering tensions of urban life and an opportunity for diverse peoples to come together…Through personal observation, they may come casually to appreciate one another’s differences and empathize with the other in a spirit of humanity” (Anderson, 2011, pp. xiv–xv). In this manner, writes Anderson, people from different races can at least partly overcome the racial tensions that afflict many American cities.

Types of Urban Residents

Other work in the symbolic interactionist tradition seeks to understand the different lifestyles of city residents. Sociologist Herbert Gans (1982) authored a classic typology of urban residents based on their differing lifestyles and experiences. Gans identified five types of city residents.

Herbert Gans identified several types of city residents. One of these types is the cosmopolites, who include students, writers, musicians, and intellectuals, all of whom live in a city because of its cultural attractions and other amenities.

Brian Evans – Street Musician – CC BY-ND 2.0.

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 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.

In thinking about this typology, it is important to keep in mind that city residents’ social backgrounds—their social class, race/ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation—all influence the kind of lifestyle they tend to adopt and thus the type of resident they are according to the typology. 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 sociodemographic profile affects what we experience in the city and whether that experience is positive or negative.

Key Takeaways

• Functionalism offers both a positive and a negative view of urbanization. Functionalist sociologists differ on the degree of social solidarity that exists in cities.
• According to conflict theory, economic and political elites use their resources to develop cities in a way that benefits them. The diverse social backgrounds of urban residents also contribute to certain types of conflict.
• According to symbolic interactionism, social inequality based on social class, race/ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation affects the quality of urban experiences. In addition to differences in their sociodemographic profiles, city residents differ in other ways. Herbert Gans identified several types of urban dwellers: cosmopolites, unmarried and childless, ethnic villagers, deprived, and trapped.

For Your Review

• Write an essay that summarizes the assumptions of any two of the major sociological perspectives on urbanization.
• Which of the three perspectives makes the most sense to you? Why?

Anderson, E. (2000). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city . New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Anderson, E. (2011). The cosmopolitan canopy: Race and civility in everyday life . New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Durkheim, É. (1933). The division of labor in society . London, United Kingdom: Free Press. (Original work published 1893).

Gans, H. J. (1982). The urban villagers: Group and class in the life of Italian-Americans (Updated and expanded ed.). New York, NY: Free Press.

Guest, A. M., Cover, J. K., Matsueda, R. L., & Kubrin, C. E. (2006). Neighborhood context and neighboring ties. City & Community, 5 (4), 363–385.

Liebow, E. (1993). Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women . New York, NY: Free Press.

Logan, J. R., & Molotch, H. L. (2007). Urban fortunes: The political economy of place (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Moore, L. M., & Ovadia, S. (2006). Accounting for spatial variation in tolerance: The effects of education and religion. Social Forces, 84 (4), 2205–2222.

Sellin, T. (1938). Culture conflict and crime (No. Bulletin 41): New York, NY: Social Science Research Council.

Tönnies, F. (1963). Community and society . New York, NY: Harper and Row. (Original work published 1887).

Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Wirth, L. (1938). Urbanism as a way of life. American Journal of Sociology, 44 , 3–24.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Urbanization: Problems and Remedies

Last updated on October 6, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Urbanization is the movement of people from rural to urban regions, expanding cities and towns. It is the process through which cities grow as higher percentages of the population come to live in the city.

Urbanization involves a complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes that increase the proportion of the population of a territory that lives in towns and cities.

Urbanization is often discussed in countries that are currently in the process of industrializing and urbanizing, but all industrialized nations have experienced urbanization at some point in their history. Moreover, urbanization is on the rise all over the globe.

Table of Contents

What leads to urbanization?

Industrialization: Industrialization has improved job prospects by allowing individuals to work in contemporary sectors in occupations that contribute to economic progress. Because of better job possibilities, more individuals have been drawn to relocate from rural to urban regions since the Industrial Revolution.

Commerce: Commercialization and commerce are associated with the belief that towns and cities provide better business possibilities and returns than rural regions.

Facilities: There are several social advantages to living in a city or town. Better educational facilities, higher living standards, improved sanitation and housing, improved health care, improved recreation facilities, and improved social life are only a few examples

Job prospects: Higher-value-added occupations are created and increased by services and industries, resulting in additional work possibilities

Cities also emerge when rural regions gradually transition into urban landscapes. Such a transition may be a result of mineral discoveries, resource exploitation, or agricultural operations.

Urbanization in India

India along with China and Nigeria are the most rapidly urbanizing countries as they account for 35% of world urban population growth projected for the 2018-2050 period.

In 2018 a large number of India’s cities had a population of between 300,000 and 1 million inhabitants. There are 120 medium-sized cities of such population size and only five urban settlements with 20 million or more inhabitants.

In India, the urban population amounts to 461 million people. This number is growing by 2.3 percent each year. By 2031, 75 percent of India’s national income is estimated to come from cities.

Providing the necessary urban infrastructure is the big challenge as 70 to 80 percent of the infrastructure that will be needed by 2050 has not been built yet, and the estimated investment gap amounts to approximately 827 billion US dollars.

Also read: Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

State-wise data:

• More than 75% of the urban population of the country is in 10 States: Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Kerala.
• Maharashtra has 50.8 million persons which are 13.5% of the total urban population of the country.
• Uttar Pradesh accounts for about 44.4 million, followed by Tamil Nadu with 34.9 million.
• Goa is the most urbanized State with a 62.2% urban population.
• Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Gujarat have attained over 40% urbanization.
• Among the North-Eastern States, Mizoram is the most urbanized with 51.5% urban population.
• Bihar, Odisha, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh continue to be at a lower level of urbanization than the national average.
• The NCT of Delhi and the UT of Chandigarh are most urbanized with 97.5% and 97.25% urban population respectively, followed by Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep.

Global scenario

At the international scale, levels of urbanization are closely correlated with levels of economic development, while rates of urbanization are inversely correlated with levels of economic development.

Demographic processes of immigration and migration, as well as natural population growth, are important determinants of urbanization, but these are in turn underpinned by other processes, especially structural economic change.

The most urbanized regions are Northern America with 82% of its population living in urban areas (as of 2018), Latin America and the Caribbean (81%), Europe (74%), and Oceania (68%).

Asia has about 50% level of urbanization in Asia and Africa remains mostly rural, with only 43% of its population living in urban areas.

Significance of Urbanization

Some of the beneficial effects of urbanization include job development, technical and infrastructure improvements, better transportation and communication, educational and medical facilities, and higher living standards.

Urban living is linked with higher levels of literacy and education, better health, longer life expectancy, greater access to social services, and enhanced opportunities for cultural and political participation.

Urbanization and economic growth are strongly related in terms of industrialization, employment generation, and increase in productivity.

Also read: Sustainable Livestock Production

Drawbacks of urbanization

Dwelling crisis: There is a continuous scarcity of housing as the number of people living in metropolitan areas grows.

Overcrowding: Overcrowding, urban congestion is a constant, and it is an element that is growing day by day as more people and immigrants migrate to cities and towns in quest of a better living.

Unemployment: Lack of highly skilled jobs is most prevalent in metropolitan areas, especially among educated individuals.

Slums: Industrialization is fast-paced but there is a shortage of developed land for housing. The increasing migration of rural immigrants to the city, and the inflated prices of land beyond the urban poor contribute to the rise of slums and squatters in metropolitan areas.

Sewage infrastructure: In most metropolitan areas, insufficient sewage infrastructure is observed concerning the rapid population growth.

Health crisis: Communicable illnesses like typhoid, dysentery, plague, and diarrhea eventually can spread rapidly. The COVID-19 pandemic is a live example of how overpopulated cities and medical facilities collapse under the weight of a pandemic.

Pollution: The need for transportation increases with the increase in population, resulting in traffic congestion and pollution.

Urban Heat Islands (UHI): These are significantly warmer urban areas than their surrounding rural areas due to human activities. Urban Heat Island is a major problem associated with rapid urbanization.

Crime rates: Shortage of resources, overcrowding, higher poverty rates, unemployment, and a loss of social services and education lead to social issues such as violence, drug misuse, and crime.

Government schemes to manage urbanization

Smart cities mission 

The National Smart Cities Mission is an urban renewal mission launched in 2015, to promote cities to provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment, and a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’.

AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) mission

The purpose of AMRUT   which is mainly for urban rejuvenation is to:

• Ensure that every household has access to a tap with an assured supply of water and a sewerage connection.
• Increase the amenity value of cities by developing greenery and well maintained open spaces (e.g. parks) and
• Reduce pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorized transport (e.g. walking and cycling).

Swacch Bharat mission

It was launched in 2014 to accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to ensure that the open defecation free (ODF) behaviours are sustained, no one is left behind, and that solid and liquid waste management facilities are accessible, the Mission is moving towards the next Phase II of SBMG i.e ODF-Plus.

Swacch Bharat mission Urban 2.0 was allocated funds in Union Budget 2021 . The goal of the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 is to make all the cities garbage-free with sophisticated waste management systems.

HRIDAY (Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana)

National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) was launched on 21 January 2015 to bring together urban planning, economic growth, and heritage conservation in an inclusive manner to preserve the heritage character of each Heritage City.

PM Awas Yojana

The Housing for All scheme was an initiative of the Indian government to establish housing facilities for slum dwellers and was introduced by the Indian government’s Ministry of Housing and urban affairs. The mission has an Urban part and Gramin part to comprehensively acknowledge the diversity of the Indian landscape.

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India Mission) is a campaign launched by the Central Government of India which included an Rs.20 lakh crore economic stimulus package and several reform proposals. The five pillars of the mission are- economy, infrastructure, system, democracy, and demand.

Way forward

Sustainable, planned, and eco-friendly cities: Governments’ efforts to build smart, safe, environmentally friendly, and affordable cities should get more boost and legal backing as well.

Private investments: More investments can be encouraged for green living and other urban initiatives for sustainable landscapes.

Access for all: every resident should be able to access all the services, without discrimination of any kind. Disabled friendly and inclusive infrastructure should be made mandatory in urban areas.

Employment: To mitigate the negative consequences of increasing urbanization while still protecting natural ecosystems, private investments in environmental resource utilization and employment creation should be promoted.

Health and Population management: population control is important to manage the spread of diseases. It will help in creating a healthy society with medical facilities accessible to all.

Poverty alleviation: A bottom-up approach can be adopted to better understand unique challenges faced by the urban poor and worked upon.

As we move forward in the 21st century, the global population is likely to continue growing. Urban areas will continue to grow with the population. By 2050, it is projected that two-thirds of the urban population will be living in urban areas, that are close to 7 billion people in cities alone.

This continual growth presents complex challenges as we prepare for the cities of the future. How we choose to manage urbanization will have consequences for our world for many years to come.

Previous year question

UPSC Mains-GS 1, 2017

The growth of cities as I.T. hubs has opened up new avenues of employment but has also created new problems. Substantiate this statement with examples. (15 marks, 250 words)

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Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems Cause and Effect Essay

Introduction, climate change, depletion of agricultural lands, effect on human health.

The last few decades have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of motor vehicles and the urbanization process, occasioning serious issues related to social and environmental changes. The concept of immense use of automobiles, which goes hand in hand with increase in the number and size of cities, is well known as urban sprawl and motorization.

It is pertinent to note that there are numerous strategies that can be used to solve the social and environmental concerns resulting from urban sprawl and urbanization. To this end, the focus of this essay is to explore three concerns raised by urban sprawl and motorization, before discussing two approaches that can be used to address these concerns. The three problems to be analyzed in this essay include the challenge of climate change, destruction of agricultural lands, and harm on human health.

A lot of emissions have been released into the environment due to urbanization and increase in use of automobiles. This has contributed to climate change. While there exists numerous ways of addressing climate change, this paper will consider the concept of raising energy costs and managing lands in an environmentally sensitive manner.

Raising energy costs is bound to negatively affect sprawling of cities and use of automobiles. To be specific, increase in energy costs would promote proliferation of crowded communities since construction of spacious housing facilities in the peri-urban areas would hardly take place.

The resultant crowded and small housing units would spur the need for cheap public transportation means to serve the high population. Regarding proper management of environmentally important land, this is an effective method of addressing environmental degradation; if environmentally sensitive lands were to be managed well, it would be possible to adopt modernization without compromising the environment.

To be specific, sprawled areas would have residential and working areas close to each other. This would eliminate the need to use automobiles to commute to and from work, and instead adopt environmental friendlier transport modes such as cycling and walking.

The widespread use of cars has led to serious encroachment of agricultural lands in sprawled areas. This problem can be addressed by limiting the extent to which urban centers can spread. This would eventually lead to preservation of rural areas. The State of Oregon is a classic model where farmlands can be guarded against the effects of urban sprawling and motorization. This can be done by formulating policies that prohibit expansion of urban centers into farmlands.

Instead, only specified farmlands should be allowed to have urban sprawl. Cuba has successfully limited the encroachment of farmlands by setting up community gardens. In a nutshell, while limiting urban sprawl can be an effective means of preserving agricultural lands, having restricted farmlands, as well as coming up with community gardens would achieve more success in preventing the loss of agricultural lands to urban sprawl and motorization.

Air pollution resulting from motorization and sprawled areas is a significant risk on human health. Other than air pollution, traffic jams and depletion of ozone layer also affect human health in a negative way. Air pollution due to emissions from automobiles has led to an increase in respiratory illnesses and respiratory-related diseases.

On the other hand, traffic jam causes serious stress in sprawled areas, thus affecting the mental health of dwellers in a negative way. These two problems, traffic jams and air pollution, can be addressed by using and sharing bikes. Paris is one of the many cities in Europe that use the bike share system as a way of addressing these two problems.

Business operators are also encouraged to start up businesses near transport stops, such as the case of Portland where the government of Oregon encouraged entrepreneurs to set up businesses in close proximity to transport stops. The bike share system would see users attain healthier lifestyles, while air pollution from private cars would be best prevented by setting up businesses around transport stops. In addition, residents of sprawled areas would be drawn to make use of public transport in place of private vehicles.

Many developed countries are grappling with the challenge of climate change, yet there are many solutions that can be implemented to deal with such challenges. For instance, climate change due to urban sprawl and motorization can be tackled by raising energy costs and managing environmentally sensitive lands efficiently.

Farmlands can be conserved and protected from expansion of cities and increased use of automobiles by setting up community gardens and setting aside areas that can be used for urban expansion, while preserving farmlands. Evidently, human health is negatively affected by air pollution from automobiles and stress emanating from traffic congestion.

These two challenges can be tackled by adopting a bike share system, which also gives the benefit of attaining better health. Public transport should also be encouraged, instead of using private cars, by setting up businesses around transport stops. It is no doubt that citizens are bound to benefit immensely by following the above proposed solutions in addressing the effects of urban sprawl and motorization.

• Urban Sprawl and Public Health Article Summary
• What Sprawl Is and How It Affects Public Health
• Urban Sprawl and the Need to Make Cities Livable
• The Issue of Conserving the Environment in the US
• Impact of Full Moon Party on Environment
• The Impact of Green Energy on Environment and Sustainable Development
• Air Pollution and Its Consequences
• The Problem of Atmospheric Pollution in Modern World
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, December 11). Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems. https://ivypanda.com/essays/urban-sprawl-and-environmental-and-social-problems/

"Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems." IvyPanda , 11 Dec. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/urban-sprawl-and-environmental-and-social-problems/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems'. 11 December.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems." December 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/urban-sprawl-and-environmental-and-social-problems/.

1. IvyPanda . "Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems." December 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/urban-sprawl-and-environmental-and-social-problems/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Urban Sprawl and Environmental and Social Problems." December 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/urban-sprawl-and-environmental-and-social-problems/.

GeographyCaseStudy.Com

Detailed resources for pre-university Geography students

Case study: Urban problems in New York City

By Matt Burdett, 27 June 2019.

In this article, we look at the incidence of poverty, deprivation and informal activity (housing and industry) in urban areas at varying stages of development

New York City: A brief introduction

New York, New York – not just so nice they named it twice, but in reality because New York the city is in New York the state. This page uses ‘New York’ to refer to the city, not the state.

New York began as New Amsterdam, a colony of the Dutch, who lost it in 1664 to the British ( History.Com, 2010 ). Over the next three hundred years, the city became ever more important as a port and as a magnet for migrants from Europe and the rest of the world, resulting in modern New York being one of the most globalised cities in the world.

Today, New York is part of a conurbation, surrounded by other urbanised areas including New Jersey and the rest of Long Island. It is made up of five districts (see map below) with a population of 8.2 million ( NYC Planning, 2017 ).

• New York City’s five boroughs. Source: Rodrigo.Argenton, 2015 .

Poverty, deprivation, informal housing and informal industry

Although few people in New York live in absolute poverty, defined as “a condition where household income is below a necessary level to maintain basic living standards (food, shelter, housing)”, there is widespread relative poverty, which is defined as “a condition where household income is a certain percentage below median incomes” ( Pettinger, 2017 ). In 2016, around 20% of New Yorkers lived in poverty, with around 46% living in near-poverty ( NYC Mayor’s Office, 2018 ). This is partly due to the very high incomes of a minority of New Yorkers which skews the data; however, it is also due to the higher costs of living in New York compared to other US cities which means the boundary for being in relative poverty is higher than elsewhere, so more people fit under it.

• Poverty rates in New York City. Source: NYC Mayor’s Office, 2018, p13

• Patterns of poverty in New York City. Source: NYC Mayor’s Office, 2018, p30

The reasons for this variation in poverty in space and time are contested. The spatial variation is likely to be due to a combination of factors which are linked to social deprivation, lack of education and healthcare, lack of affordable housing, crime and social problems, and so on. The apparent decrease over time has been credited by the mayor’s office to projects such as Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement Street Action Teams (HOME-STAT), the New York City ‘Rent Freeze’ Programme, and programmes such as paid family leave and paid sick leave. However, some critics have claimed it is because the poorest people are leaving the city due to high rent for housing ( Toure, 2018 ).

Deprivation

Deprivation relates to lack of person’s access to the things that people in a society consider to be normal, such as diet, clothing, housing, as well as healthcare, education and recreation, among many others ( Mack, 2016 ). Across New York, there are patterns of deprivation.

Deprivation: Lack of access to healthcare

For example, in terms of health insurance, in 2014 a report by the New York City Comptroller found that around 10% of the population were uninsured, and that these people were largely found in the same places where poverty was highest.

• Uninsured NYC residents, 2014. Source: Brooklyn Reader, 2015 .

This lack of health insurance is compounded by the lack of public health providers. People without health insurance were forced to use free clinics at hospitals where they would be treated for all their health concerns. However, 16 hospitals, including 4 in Brooklyn, closed between 2003 and 2017 ( Ford, 2017 ). One of the results of this lack of access to healthcare has been a pattern of life expectancy that varies in the city, and of the cause of death also varying. Diseases of affluence, such as heart disease and cancer, kill people in the wealthier areas of the city while diseases of poverty, such as diabetes and hepititis, kill more people in the poorer areas – but, this is likely because people in the wealthier areas avoid deaths from treatable diseases, and eventually they die of something else.

• Source: US Department of Health, via Rizzi, 2017 .

Informal housing

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development is the government department responsible for housing in New York City. Historically, New York had poor quality housing, but this was mostly removed in the 1920s and 1930s ( Garcia, 2012 ). Informal housing doesn’t exist in New York in the same way that it does in Nairobi, for example. However, there is evidence of informal housing in other forms, such as:

• Squats: Abandoned housing is taken over by squatters
• Lofts: Informal and unofficial rooftop dwellings are added to buildings
• Illegal conversions: Buildings that were not designed for housing (and often don’t have the required infrastructure such as adequate bathrooms) are converted to housing without permission from the authorities

These informal housing types are the living spaces for the same marginalised groups of people that are found in lower income countries, especially new and impoverished migrants ( Waldrep, 2014 ). However, there is very little information about the distribution of such informal housing, nor the amount. With several government programmes for affordable housing ( NYC HPD, n.d. ) along with tight regulation of the construction industry, the spread of informal housing is kept in check. Around 62,000 people who cannot find a place to live are instead forced to sleep in homeless shelters. Those who cannot access the shelters sleep on streets, subway trains and other public spaces, but there are no accurate figures on this ( Coalition for the Homeless, 2018 ).

Informal industry

Informal industry in New York City is not common. There is no significant informal heavy industry or even light manufacturing. As with all large cities, there is a signifacant informal service sector. People work as maids, casual labourers, and so on. The patterns of informal industry fit the HIC description in the page on this site ‘Urban poverty, deprivation and informal activity’.

Brooklyn Reader, 2015. Comptroller’s Report on Healthcare: Number of Uninsured NY’ers Drops Only 2 Percent; Higher Enrollment Still Needed. https://www.bkreader.com/2015/11/comptroller-healthcare-report-number-of-uninsured-nyers-drops-2-percent-higher-enrollment-still-needed/

Coalition for the Homeless, 2018. New York City Homelessness: The Basic Facts. http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NYCHomelessnessFactSheet-3-2018_citations.pdf

Ford, 2017. Hospital Closures and Medicaid Shifts Took Toll on NYC’s Health. https://citylimits.org/2017/01/04/hospital-closures-and-medicaid-shifts-took-toll-on-nycs-health/

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Essay on Urbanization for Students and Children

500 words essay on urbanization.

Urbanization refers to the movement of the population from rural areas to urban areas. It is essentially the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas. Furthermore, urbanization is quite a popular trend in the contemporary world. Moreover, people mostly undertake urbanization due to more work opportunities and a better standard of living. According to the expert prediction, by 2050, 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized.

Causes of Urbanization

First of all, political causes play a big role in urbanization. Many people get forced to leave rural areas for urban areas due to political unrest. Therefore, many families go to urban areas in search of food, shelter, and employment .

Another important cause of urbanization is an economic cause. Furthermore, poverty is a widespread phenomenon in rural areas. Moreover, farmers are finding it very hard to earn enough money and make a living. Consequently, rural people move to urban areas in search of better job opportunities.

Education is a strong cause of urbanization. Urban areas offer opportunities for seeking high-quality education. Moreover, urbanization offers opportunities for studying at universities and technical colleges. Such handsome education opportunities attract many young people in rural areas to move to urban areas.

Environmental degradation also plays a part in contributing to urbanization. Deforestation destroys the natural habitat of many farming families. Furthermore, mining and industrial expansion also harm the natural habitat of farming families.

The social cause is another notable reason for urbanization. Many young rural people migrate to urban areas in order to seek a better lifestyle. Moreover, many young people want to escape the conservative culture of rural areas. Most noteworthy, urban areas offer a more easy-going liberal lifestyle. Furthermore, cities have clubs to attract youth.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Benefits of Urbanization

First of all, urban areas are much more efficient in providing resources than rural areas. Important and basic amenities like housing, clean water, and electricity are easily available in urban areas.

People in urban areas find it quite easy to access to various important services. Most noteworthy, these services are high-quality education, expert health care, convenient transportation, entertainment, etc. Furthermore, some or all of the services are unavailable in rural areas.

Urban areas offer better employment opportunities. Furthermore, these employment opportunities are the result of industrialization and commercialization.

Urban areas play a critical role as creators and disseminators of knowledge. This is because of the highly connected urbanized world. Most noteworthy, the geographical proximity of people in urban areas helps in the propagation of ideas.

Urban areas enjoy the benefits of technological development. Furthermore, many types of technologies get implemented in urban areas. Moreover, urban people quickly get in touch with the latest technology. In contrast, many rural individuals remain ignorant of many types of technologies.

To sum it up, urbanization is a process which is on a continuous rise. Furthermore, urbanization ensures the transformation of rural culture into urban culture. Moreover, the government must be vigilant to the rapidly increasing urbanization. A fully urbanized world looks like the ultimate destiny of our world.

FAQs on Urbanization

Q1 State any two causes for urbanization?

A1 Any two causes for urbanization are high-quality education and good job opportunities in urban areas.

Q2 Why urban areas offer better employment opportunities?

A2 Urban areas offer better employment opportunities due to high industrialization and commercialization.

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How Baltimore Became the Overdose Capital of the United States

Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher are reporters for The Baltimore Banner. They spent a year reporting on the city’s response to its overdose crisis as part of a New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship .

Across Baltimore, the death toll has mounted.

Fatal drug overdoses have occurred on a third of the city’s blocks.

Bodies have been found in motels and vacant houses, at parks and the football stadium, around the corner from City Hall and outside the Health Department.

In one grim month alone, 114 people succumbed.

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Almost 6,000 Dead in 6 Years: How Baltimore Became the U.S. Overdose Capital

The city was once hailed for its response to addiction. But as fentanyl flooded the streets and officials shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights.

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By Alissa Zhu ,  Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher

Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher are reporters for The Baltimore Banner. They examined the city’s response to rising overdose deaths as part of The Times's Local Investigations Fellowship .

This is the first part in a series exploring Baltimore’s overdose crisis.

People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.

In the past six years, nearly 6,000 lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly double that of any other large city, and higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic.

A decade ago, 700 fewer people here were being killed by drugs each year. And when fatalities began to rise from the synthetic opioid fentanyl, so potent that even minuscule doses are deadly , Baltimore’s initial response was hailed as a national model. The city set ambitious goals, distributed Narcan widely, experimented with ways to steer people into treatment and ratcheted up campaigns to alert the public .

But then city leaders became preoccupied with other crises, including gun violence and the pandemic. Many of those efforts to fight overdoses stalled, an examination by The New York Times and The Baltimore Banner has found.

Health officials began publicly sharing less data. City Council members rarely addressed or inquired about the growing number of overdoses. The fact that the city’s status became so much worse than any other of its size was not known to the mayor, the deputy mayor — who had been the health commissioner during some of those years — or multiple council members until they were recently shown data compiled by Times/Banner reporters. In effect, they were flying blind.

A rapid increase in overdose deaths

Baltimore’s fatal overdose rate has quadrupled since 2013. It dipped in 2022, but preliminary data for 2023, not shown below, indicates overdoses were on track to rise again.

200 deaths per 100,000 people

Overdose deaths have

surged because of fentanyl

and other synthetic opioids.

Little of the urgency that once characterized the city’s response is evident today. Since 2020, officials have set fewer and less ambitious goals for their overdose prevention efforts. The task force managing the crisis once met monthly but convened only twice in 2022 and three times in 2023. By then, fewer people were being revived by emergency workers, fewer people were getting medication to curb their opioid addiction through Medicaid and fewer people were in publicly funded treatment programs.

In an interview, Mayor Brandon Scott defended the city’s response. He knows that Baltimore has had a severe problem with drug addiction for decades, he said, and while the analysis may provide a better understanding of its scale, it will not change his administration’s approach.

“This is an issue that we’re doing a lot of work on and that we can and will do more work on,” Mr. Scott said, “but we also know requires a lot, lot more resources” than the city has.

When shown the mortality figures, other city leaders and health experts reacted with alarm.

It’s “really shocking,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former Baltimore health commissioner and now a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, adding that the deaths were “unprecedented in the city’s history.”

An extraordinary outlier

From 2018 to 2022, Baltimore’s fatal overdose rate far exceeded that of any other large American city. In listings for counties, the major city is shown in parentheses.

COUNTY (CITY)

DEATHS PER 100,000

Knox, Tenn. (Knoxville)

Davidson, Tenn. (Nashville)

Philadelphia

Jefferson, Ky. (Louisville)

Marion, Ind. (Indianapolis)

Camden, N.J. (Camden)

San Francisco

Montgomery, Ohio (Dayton)

Franklin, Ohio (Columbus)

Councilman Mark Conway, who leads the city’s public safety committee, described the deaths as “completely unacceptable” and said he would have called for hearings if he had known how much Baltimore was an outlier.

The numbers are “horrifying,” said Dr. Laura Herrera Scott, Maryland’s health secretary since 2023, adding, “We haven’t deployed the right resources in the right places.”

To examine Baltimore’s response to overdoses, journalists for The Times and The Banner reviewed thousands of pages of government documents and interviewed more than 100 health officials, treatment providers and people who have been addicted to drugs. Taken together, the records and interviews reveal the extent to which the city’s leaders failed to grapple with the enormity of the crisis.

State and city agencies track deaths, reporting the overall count to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Maryland and Baltimore officials, often citing medical privacy concerns, have not published more detailed information on overdoses that is readily available elsewhere. That secrecy has hindered awareness of the epidemic and responses to it, former city employees and community workers said.

The state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner refused to provide full autopsy reports until The Banner won a lawsuit compelling the agency to disclose the information, which identified who died, where they died and how they died.

Those who were lost represented a cross-section of Baltimore: line cook, lawyer, bus driver , engineer, machinist, teacher, restaurant owner, carpenter, veteran, physician, salesman and admissions coordinator for an addiction recovery center. There were retirees and the jobless.

Some victims were heartbreakingly young: Since 2020, at least 13 children under 4 have died after being exposed to drugs, according to the reports. Black men in their 50s to 70s died at the highest rates.

A few overdose deaths drew headlines, but most were invisible to the public.

William Miller Sr., 65 — who founded Bmore Power, an organization that hires people who have used and dealt drugs to give out the overdose antidote Narcan — was discovered in his bathroom in 2020, one day before the birth of his grandson. A single empty gel capsule, commonly used to package powdered drugs, was in the trash can.

He had been shot and survived H.I.V., hepatitis C and decades of overdoses before becoming a community activist. Concealing his relapses so that others wouldn’t be discouraged cost him his life, said William Miller Jr., his son.

Jaylon Ferguson, a 26-year-old linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, fatally overdosed on cocaine and fentanyl, according to his autopsy, in an acquaintance’s home in 2022. It was a day before he planned to fly to Louisiana to belatedly celebrate Father’s Day with his fiancée and three children. On the first anniversary of his death, they brought stuffed animals to his grave.

Bruce Setherley, 43, told his mother, Mona, that he was on his way to an addiction program in 2022. She assumed the providers had taken his phone because she didn’t hear from him. Weeks later, he was found dead in an abandoned rowhouse. Ms. Setherley now wears a silver bracelet engraved with the word “love” in her son’s handwriting. “I keep waiting for him to come home,” she said.

City Council members described losing friends and seeing people slumped over on the streets. The mayor recalled coming home late one night to find his neighbor passed out on the steps of her apartment. He called 911.

“That happens every day,” he said, “but knowing that, we have to figure out ways to do more.”

The sharp increase in deaths came as the city has faced numerous challenges: a shrinking population, tensions over policing following the death of Freddie Gray , turnover at City Hall, as well as rising shootings among young people and Covid-19.

“We have done a great job of trying to focus on multiple epidemics at the same time,” said Mr. Scott, a Democrat who took office in late 2020 and is expected to have an easy path to re-election this year.

Many residents say they don’t see the government doing enough. The city needs to be more proactive in aiding people with addiction, said the Rev. Derrick DeWitt, whose church hosts recovery support group meetings in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester.

“These are not the people who say, ‘I need help,’ and go on a bus to go get it,” he said. “You got to bring it to them. You got to hold their hand. The addiction has done so many things. Overdose is the final step.”

A Dangerous High

For nearly all of the past three decades, Baltimore has had one of the highest fatal overdose rates of any large U.S. city. But for most of that period, even as the HBO series “The Wire” helped cement the city’s reputation as the U.S. heroin capital, the death rate was much closer to the national average than it is today.

Officials have long tried to solve the city’s drug problem with arrests and aggressive policing. Baltimore was also at the forefront of innovative public health strategies to address addiction. In 1994, the city’s Health Department was among the first in the nation to start a legal syringe exchange to stop the spread of H.I.V. and other blood-borne illnesses.

Beginning in 2006, the city and state spent millions to expand access to buprenorphine, one of the most effective opioid addiction treatments. Fatal overdoses dropped and Baltimore seemed to be getting a handle on its heroin problem.

Around the same time, pharmaceutical companies were inundating pharmacies across the country with addictive pain pills. Four hundred thousand pills of opioids like oxycodone started arriving in the city every week. Some patients from both inside and outside the city began selling their pills in Baltimore, expanding the illegal drug market and making it easier for people to get hooked on opioids or to relapse, said Dr. Sharfstein, who was city health commissioner from 2005 to 2009.

In a written statement last week, the mayor’s office said that the current fentanyl crisis had been triggered by the influx of pills from drug makers and distributors, and that The Times and The Banner’s reporting on the city’s response amounted to “misguided victim blaming.”

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The claim about the drug makers echoes a lawsuit the city is pursuing against more than a dozen companies, set for trial in September. But the prescription pill epidemic was far less severe in Baltimore than elsewhere in the country. Baltimore received a fifth as many pills per capita as some areas, Drug Enforcement Administration records show . Oxycodone was the cause of relatively few deaths in the city, according to C.D.C. and state data.

The death rate remained relatively low until the mid-2010s, when fentanyl flooded illegal drug markets across the country.

Frequent drug users describe being high on fentanyl as a carefree, sometimes euphoric stupor, followed by a painful withdrawal — nausea, anxiety, sweat and flulike symptoms — that drives them to use again.

Dealers began spiking heroin with fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more potent and can be manufactured from cheap chemical compounds. They also began mixing fentanyl in cocaine, pressing it into fake prescription pills and selling it on its own. Drug-testing data shows that it is now all but impossible to buy illegal opioids in Maryland that have not been mixed with it and other dangerous additives like xylazine, which makes naloxone — the generic name for Narcan — less effective. These days, heroin is rarely found.

Because fentanyl is combined with other substances, the distribution of the opioid’s granules is uneven. One hit may be just enough to get high. The next could be deadly.

In 2010, the overdose death rate was near a 20-year low: 29 deaths in the city for every 100,000 residents. By 2015 the rate had doubled, then doubled again three years later. By 2021, it was 190 per 100,000, and three people were dying on average every day.

‘A Broken World’

Yvonne Holden, 67, gazed up at the two-story rowhouse where she had grown up in Northwest Baltimore, just down the street from Pimlico Race Course, home to the Preakness Stakes. The porch roof is sagging, the front door boarded up. Abandoned by her family after a fire decades ago, the structure is no longer safe to live in, but her brother, who declined to be interviewed, still calls it home.

He is in his 50s and has long battled addiction. Standing there, Ms. Holden considered the impact of drugs on those closest to her. Two siblings contracted H.I.V. from needles and died within a week of each other in 1999. Her best friend passed away from heart problems after long-term cocaine use. Another friend overdosed last year, probably on fentanyl, and cannot speak clearly or use the left side of his body; she now helps care for him.

Ms. Holden herself used heroin, and then a mix of methadone and whatever prescription pills she could get, for decades while raising four sons and working as a nurse technician at hospitals across the city. In 2010, with intensive treatment and support from her church, she was able to stop getting high.

In her one-bedroom apartment, where quotes from Scripture hang on nearly every wall, she leafs through her collection of Bibles each day. “It shows you how to live in a broken world,” she said.

On her windowsill, Al Holden, her son, smiles in a baby portrait, all chubby cheeks and tiny fists.

He loved watching boxing videos and dreamed of starting a landscaping business with his brothers. Instead he cycled in and out of prison. On Sept. 21, 2021, a few weeks after he was released for the last time, he was planning to celebrate his 50th birthday with a cookout for family and friends. Ms. Holden stopped by the house where he was staying that morning, but he said he wanted to rest before the party. As she left, she told him she loved him. “I love you,” he said back.

When she returned less than an hour later, he was kneeling at the side of his bed, head bowed as if in prayer, dead of a fentanyl overdose. His family performed CPR. Ms. Holden, who often gives out Narcan on the street with other church members, had none with her that day.

While waiting for the medical examiner’s office to retrieve his body, Mr. Holden’s relatives gathered in the backyard with a cake and sang happy birthday to him one last time.

Years of Tumult

Alarmed by rising overdose deaths in 2014, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake created a task force to plan a response.

The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, widely distributed Narcan before it was available without a prescription, and the Health Department trained police officers and the public in how to use it. The department also opened a “crisis stabilization center,” a place to find help after an overdose. It created an alert system to send aid groups to overdose clusters and piloted a “real time capacity tracker” to help patients and doctors find open treatment slots.

The city issued detailed plans and prioritized public awareness. One effort, promoted on billboards and bus stops, was a website called DontDie.org, designed to “knock people over the head” about the risk of fatal overdoses.

Dr. Wen described the initiatives to Congress and spoke on a panel with President Barack Obama. In 2018, a national group of health officials honored the department.

Even then, coordinating a response across city agencies was difficult, said Amanda Latimore, a Health Department epidemiologist at the time.

The city’s Law Department was resistant to agencies sharing overdose data, she recalled in an interview, sometimes citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the federal law that protects patients’ medical information. Assembling the data she needed to understand trends in overdoses and treatment took “almost an act of God,” she said, and happened only because Dr. Wen and her team had a near-singular focus on the topic.

As overdose deaths continued to accelerate, the next mayor, Catherine Pugh, drew criticism when she objected to the proliferation of treatment centers within neighborhoods, saying that people needing help for addiction would have a better chance if they were removed from Baltimore’s drug-afflicted communities and “put on a plane to Timbuktu or somewhere.”

Dr. Wen left the agency in October 2018. Ms. Pugh resigned the next year in a corruption scandal, the second mayor criminally charged in a decade.

By the time Mr. Scott was elected, in November 2020, an interim mayor had been in place for a year and the Covid pandemic was in full force. Mr. Scott, previously City Council president, had for years pushed for supervised drug consumption sites as a way to prevent overdose deaths. They have never been approved in Maryland.

Baltimore also had one of the country’s highest homicide rates, and Mr. Scott’s administration prioritized reducing shootings. (When homicides fell by 20 percent last year amid a national decrease, Mr. Scott credited his administration’s efforts.)

While there were three times as many drug deaths as homicides, some of the overdose initiatives began to fade away during those tumultuous years.

The capacity tracker was hardly used: Only six out of 160 addiction service providers ever posted their wait times. The city now says the effort has been abandoned.

So has the “Don’t Die” public awareness campaign. The website stopped working sometime around February 2023, according to the Internet Archive . At some point, the Health Department stopped updating the overdose pages on its website altogether, and did not resume for years.

The multiple crises, and resulting turnover from mayor to mayor, had “lasting ramifications” for city agencies, said Mr. Conway, the councilman.

“I wonder if changes in leadership and lack of focus or guidance has resulted in a lot of these things falling apart,” he said. “And you end up with the situation where you don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t know that these programs even existed or that they stopped existing.”

Scattered Efforts

Baltimore’s overdose response involves a number of city agencies and community groups, many of which receive government funding. Emergency workers rush to scenes of suspected overdoses and revive thousands of people every year, with a special crew giving Narcan and pamphlets to people they find nearby. Johns Hopkins doctors run a mobile medical clinic out of a van in collaboration with the city. The Health Department recruits local celebrities to raise awareness at schools.

The state and federal governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year combating drug addiction in Baltimore. Medicaid’s annual spending on treatment programs grew significantly in recent years, reaching $245 million last June.

A publicly funded nonprofit whose board is led by the city health commissioner, Behavioral Health System Baltimore, or B.H.S.B., also gave out more than $50 million a year in grants for drug and mental health treatment, with most of that money coming from state and federal funds. The organization said it did not track its addiction and mental health spending separately, because services overlapped. But a Times/Banner analysis shows that its spending earmarked for drug treatment dropped by about $5.5 million from 2019 to 2023, though some of the decline was explained by Medicaid beginning to cover certain services.

The job of coordinating all these efforts belongs to the city Health Department. The department runs the state-mandated Overdose Prevention Team, which is tasked with sharing data, identifying problems and developing a citywide strategy. The group cut back to meeting just a few times a year. In 2020, it released a three-year plan that it described as “intentionally brief,” given the pandemic. One goal: Become “more action-oriented.” Another: List the ways people could get Narcan. Since then, it has not published updates or a new plan.

In a statement, the Health Department said the committee had working groups that met more frequently but declined to say how often, or which goals it had achieved, citing the lawsuit involving the pharmaceutical industry.

The 900-person department itself had only three full-time positions in 2022 to work on drug addiction and mental health, which doubled to six in 2023 with state funding, according to budget documents.

The city pays for just one of those positions. It spends very little of its revenue on the Health Department’s mental health and addiction budget: a yearly average of $1.5 million since 2016. (In a statement, the mayor’s office said this figure did not include the cost of overdose prevention programs run by other agencies or other parts of the Health Department. The staffing figures would also not include employees working on those programs.)

The department last presented data on overdose deaths to the City Council in 2020. The numbers it showed then were from 2017 and 2018, when the fatality rate was a quarter less than it is now. Even after a local television station, WBAL, reported last year that a San Francisco Chronicle database showed Baltimore was a large outlier, many of the officials Times/Banner reporters interviewed said they were unaware.

Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, a deputy mayor who had been health commissioner from 2019 to 2023, said in an interview that she knew the rate in Baltimore was the highest in Maryland, and higher than in other large cities in the region, but did not know its ranking nationally among all counties. On Wednesday, the city announced that the deputy mayor was stepping down, which Dr. Dzirasa said had been in the works for several months.

Her successor as health commissioner, Dr. Ihuoma Emenuga, declined repeated interview requests.

On occasion, there were signs in public that the response was disjointed. In 2021 and 2023, Councilwoman Danielle McCray, head of the health committee, called meetings for city agencies to talk about fighting overdoses. She asked how the Police and Fire Departments were sharing information about overdose hot spots. Representatives of those agencies had no satisfactory answers, Ms. McCray said in an interview.

She asked whether the city could create a dashboard tracking the number of overdoses. A Health Department representative said that the department was working on it but that the state’s restrictive data-sharing rules made it hard. The city would ultimately launch one last year — eight years after it first said it should build one.

“We just need to all work together on this issue with a greater sense of urgency,” Ms. McCray said in the interview.

All the while, some treatment efforts were reaching fewer people than before.

The number of patients in the city’s public treatment system, which helps poor and uninsured people with addiction, dropped by almost 5,500, or 16 percent, in 2023 from 2020, even as the amount of money being spent on it soared, according to state data. The number of Medicaid patients on drugs that treat opioid addiction, long a staple of Baltimore’s response, also fell by thousands.

State officials said that the pandemic, and a policy change in 2020 that allowed Medicare to cover payments for medication, might have contributed to the drops.

Fewer people getting medication support

Medications that help patients control their cravings for opioids are effective. But the number of Medicaid patients getting them in Baltimore has dropped, even as the number of people fatally overdosing has shot up.

20,000 people

City officials did not always seem to know what to make of their own statistics.

The number of people being revived from overdoses annually by emergency workers dropped by nearly 1,000 in 2023 from 2018, while deaths rose significantly. It is not clear why that happened, said James Matz, assistant chief of emergency medical services for the Fire Department. “I don’t know the answer for that, I’ll be honest with you,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Herrera Scott, the health secretary, said Maryland’s overdose response needed to be based on a sophisticated understanding of the data. She acknowledged the department had had challenges with data sharing previously, but said the state was now using data to better target its efforts and planned to start publishing information about deaths in specific neighborhoods.

In his annual State of the City address in March, Mr. Scott said he was creating an overdose prevention cabinet. His administration, which announced the plan after reporters began asking city officials about overdoses, provided few details, except that the cabinet would include top city leaders.

A National Outlier

Other parts of the country with lower death rates have addressed overdoses more aggressively.

In Portland, Ore., the city, the surrounding county and the state declared a 90-day state of emergency this year; agency leaders met daily to coordinate services and share data. In San Francisco, a 2021 mayor’s emergency declaration led to outreach efforts in a particularly hard-hit area and what has been described as a supervised drug consumption site, which the city closed the following year after pushback. Both places have hundreds of fewer deaths each year than Baltimore, even though they are significantly larger than the Maryland city, which has a population of roughly 570,000.

Some states and counties have seized on strategies that experts say can make a difference.

Vermont, for example, created a “hub and spokes” model that connects addiction centers to a network of prescribers, such as family doctors, who work together to get people the help they need. It now serves about 12,000 patients a year.

Baltimore started its own “hub and spokes” pilot in 2017. But in 2023, one of the city’s two treatment hubs served only 88 patients. The other organization is no longer using that model.

Some cities send teams of trained professionals, such as recovery specialists, E.M.T.s and sometimes law enforcement officers, to knock on people’s doors 24 to 72 hours after they overdose to offer connections to treatment and other help. Those initiatives in Houston; Louisville, Ky.; and Montgomery County, Ohio; each reach hundreds of people a year.

Studies show the effort can work; one tracked people the Houston team contacted over three months and found that more than half stayed in treatment and none overdosed again. In Baltimore, the city’s emergency rooms offer connections to care and resources. But the only team that reaches out to those who refuse to go to a hospital after an overdose was given the names of just 50 people by emergency workers last year, according to Gabby Knighton, executive director of People Encouraging People, which runs the group.

People struggling with addiction in Baltimore are often left to find help on their own.

Vernon Hudson Jr., 54, first took opioids as a defensive end on Virginia Tech’s football team, when he was given a painkiller after a knee injury. He returned to Baltimore from college with a growing addiction and no football career. He cycled from relapse to recovery for more than two decades.

In December 2021, he sniffed a powdered drug and then overdosed while driving, crashing his Mustang into the front steps of a church. He regained consciousness in the back of an ambulance after being administered naloxone. Racked with shame, he refused to go to a hospital.

With the help of a support group, he has since stopped using drugs. But in the ambulance, at the time of his overdose, no one offered to connect him to any treatment resources or social services, he said. After he asked to get out of the vehicle, he said that no one from the city checked up on him again.

Cheryl Phillips, Eric Sagara and Emily Sullivan contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Kirsten Noyes contributed research. This article was reported in partnership with Big Local News at Stanford University.

About the analysis

The Times and The Banner analyzed anonymized data about every death in the United States between 1989 and 2022 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data, obtained under an academic license through the reporter Nick Thieme’s affiliation with Columbia University, shows demographics and causes of death. Fatalities from 1968 through 1989 were collected from a separate data set the C.D.C. publishes.

Fatality rates in this article measure deaths that occurred in Baltimore, not deaths of Baltimore residents, and are calculated across the country by dividing the total number of overdose deaths that occurred in each jurisdiction by its population. For that reason, totals will differ from those in the C.D.C.’s online database, C.D.C. Wonder , which measures deaths by place of residence and also excludes deaths of people who live in U.S. territories or outside the United States.

The C.D.C. reports data by county, and the analysis identified large U.S. cities by looking at counties of at least 400,000 people. Baltimore City is reported as its own county. Overdose fatalities are those in which the underlying cause of death is listed as drug poisoning.

The Banner also sued the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to obtain autopsy data, which allowed reporters to explore detailed geographic patterns of overdose within the city.

Death rates are not calculated for U.S. territories or Washington, though rates for both are significantly lower than in Baltimore.

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