disadvantages of urbanization essay

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12 Advantages and disadvantages of urbanisation

January 10, 2018, 1:31 am

More than 50% of the world population lives in the cities according United Nation  World Urbanization Prospects: the 2014 Revision   they predicts that in 2050 this percentage will reach 66% . And there are still more. The same analysis of the international organization foresees that  in 2030 there will be 41 megacities (cities with more than 10 million inhabitants) and in just six years the percentage of urban population in this type of cities will increase from 11.7% (in 2014) to 14.4% (in 2020). There are a number of pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages to urbanisation this article will take a look at them .

Table of Contents

The concept of urbanisation ?

Simultaneously with the demographic explosion, there is a process of urbanization of the world population. Urbanization process  refers   to the concentration of population and its activities (social, cultural and economic) in different  cities  .

The process of urbanization in the history of humanity is extremely recent, and has as determinants the movement (emigration) of people from the countryside, to the different cities in search of new opportunities to  develop the economy  , since  in the Urban areas tend to have more jobs and opportunities  than in the middle of rural areas where population density is very low.

Other factors that determine the process of urbanization  or urban growth are access to higher quality services such as: clean water (sanitation), better medical care,  higher levels of educational quality  , and a lifestyle with  access to larger leisure centers and entertainment  (cinemas, theaters, shoppings, sports, etc.).

Other useful terms are:

Hyperurbanization – a zone of uncontrolled development of urban settlements and overloading the natural landscape (violated the ecological balance).

False urbanization is often used to describe the situation in developing countries. In this case, urbanization is associated not so much with the development of urban functions as with the “pushing out” of the population from rural areas as a result of relative agrarian overpopulation.

Hyperurbanization is characteristic of developed, false urbanization – for developing trans.

Advantages and disadvantages  urbanisation  in the world

Lets first look at the advantages 

The urbanization process has many advantages or benefits for the individuals , families and companies that are involved in it. Among them are:

• The convenience of goods and services is one of the benefits of urbanisation. In urban areas there is  better access to public health  and general health care which is lacking in many urban areas .
• The process of urbanization contributes to an increase in labor productivity, allows solving many social problems of society.
• People who live in urban area tend to earn due to the availability of more jobs.
•   Better possibilities to boost the economy: being closer to businesses and industries, people who come from the countryside can explore more possibilities to increase their current income, either by being in contact with closest customers, or by obtaining jobs in new Business.
• Better  sanitary services  : potable water, sanitation, transport of waste , recycling of garbage, etc.
• Another benefit of urbanization is that the tight grouping of people allows social and cultural integration at a level not available to the extended populations in rural areas.
• As the economy increases, the whole society benefits from internal improvements, either through a richer tax base or through competition between private organizations.
• Urbanization offers real economic opportunities to people who would otherwise be destined to subsist without hope of economic improvement.
• Another advantage of urbanisation is that it improve technology at a faster rate . The reason being because of the increase of the population , investment by international companies there is a need to speed up communication , marketing and dissemination of goods and services.
• Reduction of the cost of transporting goods for companies, lowering the transportation of their products is a key factor, something that was already one of the main reasons for the spatial concentration of companies during industrialization and that is accompanied by urbanization. Companies also would have a shorter distance to transport their products since everyone is in the urban area .Most urban area have good infrastructure unlike rural area which is another factor that reduces transportation cost.
• Lower cost of losing a job the concentration of workers is another pro, because if a person loses the job, it will be easier to find another if there is a greater number of companies in the city.
• Creation and dissemination of knowledge cities have an important role as creators of knowledge. In addition, they play a key role in its dissemination, since, despite living in an increasingly interconnected world, the geographical proximity of individuals in a city facilitates the propagation of ideas.

Lets not look at the disadvantages 

• An  impact on the environment and quality of life, pollution in cities is greater due to traffic, congestion of vehicles and poor collection of waste; cities often exceed the natural capacity to absorb waste, which harms health; cities demand land, water and natural resources that are disproportionately high than the surface they occupy due to high incomes and consumption and the large size of the population.
• Price of the home: the price of homes is one of the main elements that are affected by the agglomeration in cities. Thus, living in a big city is always more expensive than in small urban centers.
• Cost of mobility , this is greater in large cities, a factor that in fact decisively influences the first point (the price of housing), since the price you are willing to pay for a house depends largely on the displacement cost.
• Crime index, there is documentation that confirms the existence of a positive relationship between crime and the size of the city.
• Pollution’ according to a WHO study, more than 80% of people living in urban areas are exposed to levels of pollution that exceed those recommended by the same organization.
• Poverty ,since urbanization is linked to the increase in urban poverty; the great inequality in cities; the poor live in informal settlements crammed and in poor conditions because the housing costs .
• Floods , urban centers have extensive areas covered by concrete and asphalt, making it difficult to infiltrate rainwater into the soil. The rains in large proportions cause a very large accumulation of water and the rain gutters can not absorb all the flood and these invade residences, public buildings, tunnels and compromise the traffic.
• A strain on infrastructure , once there is overpopulation there will be an increase in movement which can quickly destroy roads and bridges .
• Hot and humid environment , because everyone is crammed in one central area there is a reduction in the flow of air which results in a humid weather .
• Less arable land, as populations swell the need for land to build house and industries increases thus reducing land for agriculture . The land that is left for agriculture uses a lot of fertilisers to increase food production thus devaluing the quality of agriculture land.
• Human trafficking and prostitution ,prostitution has been always an integral part of urbanization .The more a society open up to the world and new cultures become integrated the more complex are the crimes which are prostitution and human trafficking . Many person are also trafficked to city with the promise of good paying jobs or other opportunities only to be pushed into prostitution or slavery.

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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.

• 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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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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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.

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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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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.

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Urbanization: Concept, Mechanism, and Global Implications

• First Online: 22 September 2019

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• Yuji Murayama 7 &
• Ronald C. Estoque 8  

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Urbanization has two types of impacts: positive and negative. On the one hand, urbanization brings positive impacts to society as it helps improve the social and economic aspects of people’s lives. On the other hand, urbanization brings negative social and ecological impacts, both locally and globally. This chapter discusses the concept of urbanization in the context of human geoscience, including its history, mechanism, and trend in the modern world. It presents an overview of the negative ecological and social impacts associated with urbanization, such as urban heat island, air pollution, flooding, health, urban poverty, crimes and violence, and traffic congestion. This chapter also discusses the inclusion of urbanization to the global sustainable development agenda, as well as the importance of geospatial technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing, for urban monitoring towards sustainable urban development.

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Murayama, Y., Estoque, R.C. (2020). Urbanization: Concept, Mechanism, and Global Implications. In: Himiyama, Y., Satake, K., Oki, T. (eds) Human Geoscience. Advances in Geological Science. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9224-6_19

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Urbanization Essay

1. introduction.

Urbanization has become a growing phenomenon across the world over the last few decades and it is showing no signs of slowing down. This means that an increasing proportion of the world's population is living in urban areas. In 1900, only 13% of the world's population lived in urban areas. This figure had increased to 29% by 1950, 49% by 2005, and is expected to be as high as 75% by 2050. Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization creates enormous social, economic, and environmental changes, which provide an endless number of challenges and opportunities for human development. However, it has been found that many people in cities do not have better job and living conditions and enough money. Urbanization is about land, which is an important aspect in urban planning. Both population distribution and development of population in a regional space have to be taken into consideration in the development of any urban planning. When urban planning is done, it has to be changed each and every time in accordance with new development and technology, and the needs of people also have to be taken into consideration, as land is the most expensive and essential resource. Local authorities that can find a joint that takes the state of different planning zones into account reduce the worse aspect of having development oversights at the edges of the joint. With the joint, developing a land use from area to area can be done smoothly and effectively. Using one zoning map and coordinating different authorities of local governments would provide the best opportunity of making better and effective land use in a larger region. Furthermore, when local authorities are making decisions and applications process on development control powers, policies, and guidelines in the local development, having a joint, coordinated, and strategic approach in planning would facilitate decisions.

1.1 Definition of Urbanization

Urbanization is a multifaceted concept, and it involves both the physical growth of urban areas and the increase of people living in them. There are both natural and manmade causes of urbanization, like industrialization, population increase, and people moving from rural to urban areas. As a result, the phenomenon not only changes the countryside but also has a major impact on the surrounding regions. There are many ways to define "urban"; however, most indicators rely on an increasing human population. On the other hand, buildings cover an increasing amount of surface of the land and, at the same time, the infrastructure increases. As a consequence, there are phenomena such as land degradation, air and water pollution, inadequate infrastructure, and loss of natural habitats caused by the creation of new buildings. Urbanization changes land characteristics, which contributes to soil and water degradation. When the landscape is changed, water and nutrient cycles are affected, having an impact on the local plants and animals. For example, green areas are created as a consequence of urbanization policies to avoid the lack of social spaces, to preserve the natural environment, and to tackle climate changes. However, these measures are not always successful and are often underestimated compared to the benefits. On one hand, the increase of green areas helps to improve the quality of air and to reduce the impact of new buildings on the landscape. Yet, the increasing number of buildings reflects in the fragmentation of green space and in the reduction of the biodiversity in the area. The economic success and the technological development of developed countries are another cause of urbanization: countries attract a constant flow of people who move from rural to urban areas in the hope of finding a better living. For example, Italy is one of the most industrialized countries in the world, but the population density is far from homogeneous. In fact, the Po Valley, which is situated in the north of Italy, is one of the most densely populated and most industrialized areas of the world. On the contrary, the regions located in the "instep" of the Italian "boot", such as Basilicata and Calabria, have the lowest inhabitants density. Consequently, rural areas tend to become deserted, while the main cities continue to grow. On the one hand, the industrial development of these areas has improved the living conditions of the local people, providing them with job opportunities and a better quality of life. However, this has come at the expense of natural habitats, which have been destroyed to make space for industries and the urbanization process.

1.2 Importance of Urbanization

Moving on to the importance of urbanization, urbanization is important for a number of different reasons. The fact that urban environments are the homes of a majority of businesses, industries, and workplaces, and as a result, it is the place where most money is made and passed around, so to speak. Therefore, one of the key reasons why urbanization is considered important from a symbiotic or mutual point of view is because it helps to create and sustain economic growth. It has been proven time and again through various studies that there is no better way to boost the economic prospects of any region than through urbanization. When rural and sparsely populated areas start to become urbanized - either by villagers migrating to the city for work, the expansion of a current city or town, or the creation of new residential and business districts - the economic clout of that area begins to increase and develop. This is because, as mentioned before, urban environments are hotbeds for investment and practical business ideas; after all, industry and commerce cannot thrive without a dedicated workforce. Jobs and public services represent another two important drivers behind urbanization. When an area becomes urbanized, not only is there the aforementioned benefit of having more jobs available in the local area for the residents, but the municipality can often start to demand greater investment and resources for public amenities from the government. Jobs become important as they provide a mechanism through which new households can increase their standard of living, while public services, such as hospitals, schools, law enforcement, and so on, are vital for making the area a sustainable place in which to live and work. In this way, the social and human aspects of urbanization, such as local community, effective infrastructure, and family life, are given a platform to progress and develop in a positive manner. Better public services such as schools and hospitals, closer by life is easier for families and human well-being is increased in general. It could be argued that urbanization allows freedom of lifestyle and constructive diversity within different communities because, with the aid of expanding suburbs and widespread urban growth, there are a great many choices available in the modern, urbanized world in terms of home location, workplace, and quality of life. As a consequence, it could be said that a kind of positive, dynamic, social ecosystem evolves among urban residents, in which, through increased social interaction and mutual respect. Work and social linkages grow ever more exciting, allowing the population and businesses in the area to excel and grow in new and interesting ways. Urbanization typically spurs faster economic growth and helps to improve the standard of living. It would seem that, because urbanized regions tend to become wealthier and consume more goods and services, this creates a range of different markets for producers and sellers to allow for the improvement and diversification of the economy. Also, as urban industries expand in size and complexity, so too does the job market for the local and even national workforce and it can have a knock-on effect in improving working conditions and fair pay rights for employees across a variety of sectors. So, some evidence suggests that urbanization can greatly help to reduce poverty on an international scale due to the potent nature of urban job markets and thereby increase the standard of living and quality of life for millions of people around the world.

1.3 Purpose of the Essay

To address the topic of the essay, the explanation of the term "urbanization" and the statement that there are numerous negative impacts of this phenomenon have been presented in the introduction part. After that, the advantages and disadvantages of urbanization have also been discussed. The main purpose of the essay is to examine the positive sides and the negative sides of urbanization. Also, the essay seeks to examine if there are any potential policies which can be employed to prevent negative impacts and to enhance positive impacts. Thus, the essay may provide a chance to examine urban planning and the approaches to prevent unwanted consequences of urbanization. Also, the essay proposes potential solutions to the negative impacts of urbanization. It is foreseeable that in the upcoming years, urbanization will keep occurring around the world. Thus, the essay also holds potential significance for every authority who is involved in managing urban lands, including planners, policymakers, and district councils. Also, the essay is written for different levels of citizens of a country because urbanization can affect the lifestyles of different types of people, such as rural residents who may feel strange in the beginning when they migrate to urban lands. By engaging citizens with the topic of urbanization, authorities may raise awareness of the importance of sustainable urbanization and the possible benefits of well-planned urban areas. All roads lead to a picture-perfect urbanization process on Earth. Through answering various questions step by step, this essay illuminates many different perspectives towards urbanization. By initiating with a basic approach and widening the scope towards the greater influence of the global changes of the economy of urban areas, it brings up an esteemed analysis of urbanization and generates a comprehensive call to pave the way for a better world.

2. Advantages of Urbanization

Economic growth is one of the primary advantages of urbanization. Urban areas tend to develop at a much faster rate than rural areas. The fast-paced development in urban areas is largely attributed to the high rate of industrialization. Industries thrive in urban areas due to the availability of skilled labor, easy accessibility of capital and raw materials, and better infrastructure. As a result, urbanization and industrialization fuel one another, so much that what is experienced is known as urbanization industrialization or industrial urbanization. In fact, the rapid development that is being witnessed in the 21st century cannot be achieved without urbanization. This is due to the fact that urban areas provide a favorable environment for the development of industries and companies. For example, urban areas are characterized by good transport and communication networks which are critical in facilitating international trade. Also, urban areas provide better living conditions through the provision of quality healthcare and employment opportunities. These conditions attract more people from rural areas to urban centers. As the population increases, rural areas start to experience a decline while in urban areas the population is on the increase. This rural-to-urban shift is a "normal" part of the urbanization process and brings with it several growth-related positives. The advantages include better healthcare, increased birth rates, life expectancy, and quality of life. More specifically, better healthcare in urban areas is a direct result of foreign medical investment, government assistance, and high-class physicians flocking to the best hospitals - all things that do not typically occur in rural areas. Naturally, better healthcare brings with it an increase in life expectancy and an increase in birth rates. These two positive growth results explain why the quality of life is so much better in urban areas; family generations of all ages are present and able to advance the communities in many ways. So in conclusion, the economic, social, and public advantages to urbanization on the global scale are that you get the big 3 ruling portions in the wheel of urbanization, and those are: economic growth, better conditions and services, and rising living standards. Economic management organizations are able to focus their research and study more on urbanization, medical and scientific research can advance quicker in the best hospitals, and life expectancy for the population as a whole increases. And under the same roof of unity that is urbanization, cultural diversity thrives on every street and every neighborhood. And public services start to advance in hospitals and most importantly in education. Because families that move to urban areas move there just for the sake of their children's education. So urbanization helps improve public services like libraries and schools and much more.

2.1 Economic Growth

It is undeniable that one of the major advantages of urbanization is that it fosters economic growth. In general, urban areas tend to become the engines of national economic growth. Businesses and factories are concentrated in urban areas owing to the easy availability of skilled workers there. Industries in these areas are able to produce goods in large quantities and at a much lower cost. In turn, the high production rate and higher income lead to higher profits for the entrepreneurs and a steady increase in both the individual and the country's revenues. When an urban area prospers and flourishes, its surrounding areas and rural areas will benefit from the progress as well - thus widening the economic gap between rural and urban dwellers. Aside from that, the national economic process will also be further amplified. This is particularly true in the case of developing countries where the process of urbanization is often associated with industrialization and modernization. For instance, a stark transition of economic focus from agriculture to manufacturing as a result of urbanization has been witnessed in many countries such as Taiwan and Brazil. Both of these countries nowadays are well-known for their growing and prosperous industrial urban centers. All in all, the economic advantage of urbanization cannot be trivial. Its potential to accelerate an increase in the national income and facilitate economic diversity and expansion should never be overlooked. This is particularly so in the ever-increasing globalized and industrialized world today.

2.2 Access to Better Infrastructure

Urban areas have better infrastructure, including improved and modern facilities such as hospitals, schools, transport systems, and communication systems. Such facilities are very rare in rural areas. The roads are well maintained, and this makes it easier for people to move around. There is also improved transport with services such as buses, trains, and public transport more widely available to people. In addition, big companies and factories are situated in towns and cities because there is better access to good roads, utility supplies, and the labor force. There are lots of important economic services that can only be found in towns and cities. For example, specialist medical and educational facilities that serve a whole region are often based in big urban areas. City networks are often interconnected globally. City areas often face a particular type of pollution called urban heat pollution. This effect particularly affects city centers, which become 'heat islands' because there are lots of buildings and little greenery to cool the environment. The density of people and buildings in towns and cities also leads to air and water pollution. Build-up areas of water such as rivers and canals become dirty from litter and chemical waste, which can be harmful to animals and plants. It is said that pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today. This is a disadvantage relative to life in the countryside, where there is less pollution and it is generally more peaceful. Finally, it can be more difficult to find good quality housing in urban areas. Rents and prices of houses are usually high, particularly near central areas where lots of people want to live. As a result, people often have to accept living in smaller houses or flats than they would like or sharing houses with many other people. Some people can become homeless because they cannot afford to stay in their homes. However, in the countryside, there are fewer homes, so it can be harder to find a place to rent or buy. Also, the opportunity for people to choose to build their own custom or self-build home is much harder outside of towns and cities.

2.3 Increased Job Opportunities

In urban areas, there are more job opportunities because the demand for labor is higher. This is because businesses are growing and expanding, creating more job possibilities. In rural areas, job opportunities are more limited which means that in certain fields such as medicine, law or teaching, people may not find a suitable job if they stay in a rural area. As a result, the younger and more skilled population tend to move to towns and cities in search for a job, which leads to rural-urban migration. While it is true that job opportunities do exist in rural areas, the number is often limited and does not satisfy the needs of the entire workforce. On the other hand, not everyone in the rural area is skilled. This can be due to a lack of proper education or the education system in the rural area is not as comprehensive as the urban area. This causes the rural population, especially the younger and the more educated ones, to move out from the rural area to work in the cities. Urbanization also benefits rural areas as well because the people who move to the cities in search for jobs can find new job opportunities in new industries such as tourism. As a result, urban-rural migration occurs where people move to the rural area in search for better living conditions and to avoid congestion in cities. In fact, increased job opportunities in urban areas will result in overall greater employment in the local area. In addition, urbanization increases the output of the national economy. When young labor resources move to cities and find jobs, the workforce capable of producing output will increase. As a result, over time, the whole national output will go up, which will gradually lead to the economic growth of the country as a whole.

2.4 Cultural Diversity

In addition, urbanization often leads to cultural diversity. Urban areas are ethnically diverse, and this is because most cities in the world tend to have people from all over the country. It is very rare to find a city that is not multi-ethnic. People from different places or countries have the opportunity to mix with other cultures, and this provides a greater understanding of different cultural backgrounds. This is important because nowadays, most job areas require good communication and interaction among workers. Therefore, people who have worked in a multi-ethnic society will find it easier to get employed, and they can adapt to different work environments more easily. Moreover, children born in urban areas can enjoy a better education. They will be put more emphasis on the importance of learning a second language, and they will be given the opportunity to learn other languages, especially from their friends or schoolmates. As the development of technology, the world seems to be smaller and smaller, which means we can travel and communicate with people all over the world more easily. So, people who are living in urban areas, towns, and cities are able to broaden their outlook and enrich their knowledge about different aspects of the modern world. It is said that our culture is the identity of who we are, and when people from different cultural backgrounds come together, this provides the people in urban societies the opportunities to experience new ideas and this new way of thinking. This is because many of us are born and practice within cultural boundaries, but what we do not realize is there is so much we can learn from each cultural background that can change our lives for the better. On the other hand, there are some problems that derive from cultural diversity. For example, people usually will get married to their own cultural fellows, so there is less possibility of interracial weddings. Also, religious activities may cause disputes among different cultural groups. In addition, some people insist on speaking their own mother's language rather than the local language, and this sometimes will also cause problems for communication purposes. These problems are just some of the examples that show cultural diversity as a good thing as well as obstacles in modern societies.

3. Disadvantages of Urbanization

Overcrowding and a high cost of living are common issues in urban areas. As more and more people move to cities, it can be difficult to find a place to live. This high demand for housing can drive up property prices and lead to unequal access to living space, with wealthier individuals being able to afford larger homes in desirable central locations. In turn, those on lower incomes are often forced to live in more cramped conditions in cheaper, outlying areas of the city. Not only is accommodation more expensive in urban areas, but property and sales taxes also tend to be higher than in rural or suburban areas. On top of this, the general cost of living – including food, transport, and other necessities – can also be significantly greater, meaning that urban dwellers require a higher level of income to sustain a satisfactory quality of life compared to their rural counterparts. Finally, it's worth noting that, in many instances, the increased emphasis on work and the monetary costs of urban life can lead to a generally more stressful and less satisfying lifestyle overall.

3.1 Overcrowding and High Cost of Living

Another major disadvantage of urbanization is that it often leads to overcrowding and high cost of living. Because cities and urban areas are so attractive, especially in LEDCs, many people end up flocking to them. This means that the population density in cities is very high and there are more people looking for a limited amount of jobs and opportunities. As a result, the prices for homes and other necessities also tend to be much higher in urban areas. In many cities around the world, there are not enough homes to go around and this means that the scarcity of housing makes prices rise even further. This increase in living costs can greatly affect people on low income and it is not uncommon for residents to face a lower quality of life as they have to make their money stretch further. For example, the proportion of income that is spent on a person's rent or mortgage is much higher in cities compared to in rural areas, where property tends to be cheaper. Also, it could sometimes be a case that people are living in poor conditions and are paying extortionate amounts for the privilege. High housing costs may even force some people out of their homes, and there is a significant number of city residents that end up homeless. This problem is particularly prevalent in cities in the United States, where it is estimated that over half a million people have experienced homelessness on a single night. Therefore, a lack of affordable housing in cities as a result of urbanization is a serious issue for many people.

3.2 Environmental Issues

The widespread urbanization and rapid growth of cities has led to serious environmental problems. The process of urbanization has a serious impact on the natural environment and it affects people's day-to-day lives. In this section, we will look at how urbanization has resulted in environmental issues across the world. Firstly, one of the major drawbacks of urbanization is that it has become a great contributor to environmental pollution. The big industries, transport vehicles, and urban development projects have become a huge threat to clean and healthy environment. The problem is that those moving to urban areas are, in some cases, already used to a certain life which involves the use of natural resources and the creation of waste, often on a much greater level than that which is experienced in rural areas. Another serious problem resulting from urbanization is that of deforestation. Populations continue to increase and more land is being used for construction of houses and to meet the demands of the growing urban society. This has led to the destruction of habitats of many plants and animal species. As well as destroying homes, deforestation has a devastating impact on the world's climate as we have lost a vital carbon sink whereby carbon dioxide can be converted into oxygen and wood. In addition, another problem caused by urbanization is the loss of arable land. The rapid population growth that has been experienced in urban centers has led to an increase in demand for food for the populations living there and for the restaurants - which need to provide food for a growing number of visitors to the area. This has resulted in large areas of land near urban centers being cleared of the native plants that once grew there and being used for the planting of crops and farming of livestock. Nevertheless, there have been various policies and programs put in place by governments across the world to address and reduce the impact of urbanization on the environment. For example, China has introduced tough anti-pollution measures in a bid to tackle the problem of environmental pollution. In conclusion, it is apparent that urbanization can have a devastating impact on the environment. It is the duty of national and local governments to enact and enforce policies that will reduce the impact of urbanization on the environment before it is too late.

3.3 Social Inequality and Crime Rates

For instance, when we look at crime rates in cities, we can see that they are much higher than they are in rural areas. There has been study upon study that finds a correlation between urbanization and crime, and many of them suggest that this has something to do with social inequality. In other words, the more urbanized a place is, the more likely it is that there are big differences between the richest and poorest people who live there. Of course, it's not just about the fact that there are many people living on very low income - although you'll find poverty in every kind of area. It's also about the kind of lifestyle that urban living can lead to. People living in some of these huge, crowded cities might be less likely to know their neighbors or to have strong social networks around them, and this kind of isolation can contribute to crime as well. Also, urbanization means that there are more and more people competing for the same resources, whether that's money, space, or food, and this can stoke feelings of competition and even envy between different groups of people. When people feel as though they don't have an equal shot at getting the kind of life that other people have, they might think that crime is the only way that they can improve their own situation. We often see particularly high crime rates in neighborhoods where there are very high levels of social inequality - in other words, that's where the richest and poorest people live closest together. This can create tensions between different groups of people and, in some cases, lead to a breakdown in the kind of community spirit that can help to prevent crime. High crime rates create a sense of fear and unease in cities, meaning that the quality of life for people living there is lower than it might be in rural areas. High rates of theft, violence, and murder - often a feature of big cities - can lead to a large population feeling insecure and scared, which can lead to stress and mental health problems. The social impacts of crime can be very detrimental to not just the individuals affected but also the cohesion of communities. The police and courts are often so full in urban areas because there's so much crime that it's very hard for most victims to get justice through the criminal system. This can lead to people feeling a sense of hopelessness about crime - that they'll either be victimized again or they'll have to take justice into their own hands - and it can weaken faith in the idea of the rule of law. For all these reasons, the link between urbanization and crime has been the subject of a lot of discussion among politicians and experts. Politicians who are for building more homes and continuing to support urbanization often argue that cities can be good places to live and that the benefits of urban life, such as increased access to jobs and services, outweigh the negatives. However, more and more research suggests that new policies are needed to address the negative impacts of mass urbanization and maintain a good quality of life for city dwellers. The basic message is that in order to deal with crime associated with social inequality and rapid urbanization, it is not enough to simply increase police powers or build more prisons - it is necessary to address the root causes of the issue and think about how we can make society fairer as a whole.

3.4 Strain on Public Services

Another common disadvantage is the strain on public services. As the population of urban areas continues to grow at a rapid pace, it can be difficult for the public sector to keep up with the increasing demand for services such as healthcare and education. This can result in long waiting times for treatment and overcrowding in hospitals and schools, making it harder for people to access the services they need. For example, a report by the National Audit Office revealed that accident and emergency departments in England are under intense strain due to rising admissions as a result of population growth. A key factor in this issue is the disparity between the level of funding and the actual demand placed on public services in urban areas. Research conducted by the London Assembly Health Committee found that although London's population has increased, funding for healthcare in the capital has not risen in line with this and is in fact being reduced. This means that there is a shortfall in financing the necessary resources needed to support the health of London's population. Also, it is not only current residents of urban areas that feel the strain on public services; immigrants and asylum seekers coming to cities may also encounter difficulty in accessing the support they need. For instance, the charity Refugee Action has raised concerns over the limited access to English lessons for asylum seekers as a result of funding cuts to English for Speakers of Other Languages classes. This could have an adverse impact on their integration into society and future job prospects. As healthcare and education are both highlighted as key factors in the quality of life that a city can offer, it is important to address the issue of pressure on public services in order to make sure that urban areas are desirable places to live. Many modern projects attempt to combat these challenges through initiatives such as Smart City development, which utilises digital solutions to improve the efficiency of public services and promote sustainability. If successful, these endeavours could help to ease the strain on public services and contribute towards a high standard of living for city residents.

4. Conclusion

Urbanization refers to the process of the population shifting from rural areas to urban areas. It has several advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered. Advantages of urbanization include economic growth, better infrastructure, increased job opportunities, and innovative diversity. Urban areas tend to attract and generate economic growth and development. This, in turn, creates job opportunities and attracts the workforce in the area, leading to higher income levels and better living conditions. Moreover, with the continuous development and modernization, urban areas boast better infrastructure facilities such as reliable power and water supply, modern sewage and waste disposal systems, well-maintained roads, and modern communication systems. This will result in a higher standard of living and a better quality of life. Also, urban areas often offer a greater range of experiences in culture and lifestyle through the presence of different cultures from different regions in the country as well as expatriates living in the urban area. This allows room for greater exchanges of ideas and experiences which will help in promoting a more inclusive society. On the other hand, though many advantages of urbanization are undeniable, the process also has its fair share of disadvantages. These include the overwhelming pressure on public services and local government, the adverse effects of a consumer culture and its implications on the environment, as well as the psychological effects of social dislocation and overload. However, the greatest concern is the emergence of social inequalities and social tensions for which urbanization should be properly managed to ensure that all people can benefit from it. By 2030, according to a research by the United Nations, estimating 60 percent of the world's population will live in cities. Rapid urbanization will lead to an increased social and economic disparities between the rural and urban areas. However, if managed properly, urbanization can be a positive force for development all over the world, shaping the economies, political landscapes, and the physical environment in a way that rural areas cannot. Urbanization also has the potential to improve the conditions for people and the environment.

4.1 Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages

In conclusion, urbanization has both advantages and disadvantages. While it can contribute to economic growth, better infrastructure, job opportunities, and cultural diversity, it also brings challenges like overcrowding, environmental issues, social inequality, and strain on public services. It is important to carefully consider the implications and future of urbanization to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth. Urbanization refers to the process of the population shifting from rural areas to urban areas. It has several advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered. Advantages of urbanization include economic growth, as urban areas tend to attract businesses and provide job opportunities. Urban areas also have better infrastructure, such as roads, schools, and healthcare facilities, which can lead to a higher quality of life. Another advantage is the cultural diversity that urban areas often possess, allowing for a greater exchange of ideas and experiences. However, there are also disadvantages to urbanization. One of the main drawbacks is overcrowding and the high cost of living in urban areas. With the increasing population, cities can face issues like lack of housing and increased competition for resources, leading to a higher cost of living. Environmental issues are also a concern as urban areas tend to have higher levels of pollution and waste generation. Additionally, urban areas often face social inequality and higher crime rates, as well as a strain on public services due to the heavy demands of a growing population.

4.2 Future Implications of Urbanization

In order to study the future implications of urbanization, we have to understand the entire effect that urbanization has on society. Researchers have argued that urbanization as a process began in the early 19th century when people started to leave the countryside and settle in increasing numbers in towns and cities. This process led to the change of the social, political, and environmental landscape of the world. However, from the current trends of urbanization, it is quite apparent that the future is going to be very challenging. With climate change and environmental degradation, the current form of urbanization is unsustainable. According to the United Nations, by the year 2050, urban areas are projected to house 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world. The continued urbanization that is taking place is inevitable, and there is a need to come up with new ways of managing this process once and for all. Modern cities are characterized by infrastructure that is based on the use of fossil fuels, and this is a major issue when it comes to the future implications of urbanization. There are obvious signs such as pollution, traffic congestion, disposal of solid waste, and environmental degradation which tell us that the current city infrastructure is not sustainable. If the current trends continue, these social and environmental challenges are likely to worsen with time. Such signs should be a clear indication to the planners that a new approach has to be developed. I firmly believe that there is a need to develop cities that are suitable for the ecology and the environment. Such cities should have garbage recycling plants; there should be a limit to car ownership in the city, mass transit systems should be implemented, pedestrian pathways and cycle tracks should criss-cross the city. There should also be massive use of renewable and sustainable energy sources like solar and wind power. If all these measures are implemented, then the future implications of urbanization will be greatly reduced. By the year 2050, urbanization is anticipated to lead to the creation of many more 'mega cities' with populations of more than 10 million people. Mega cities will be predominant in the developing world. Such gigantic urban areas will pose huge infrastructural and management challenges which have the potential of causing instability and even political unrest. Mega cities lead to physical and psychological stress for residents. Buildings are constructed in such a way that sunlight hardly reaches the ground, and this may cause vitamin D deficiency disorders. These disorders are facilitated by the sedentary lifestyle among the residents. Mega cities are associated with disproportionately high crime rates. This is basically because most people tend to fall far below the poverty datum line. These criminals are always eyeing the pricey gadgets and items in the hands of the few who are rich. Thefts and mugging are the order of the day. High population turnover, lack of money for development projects, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor are also some of the future implications of urbanization.

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Introduction, development of urbanization, urban environment, quality of life, problems of urbanization, future effect, works cited.

In the last 20 years, there has been a considerable growth of urban cities around the world. This has been occasioned by the fast population growth and transformation of the world’s economy that has been brought about by a blend of technical and political changes happening around the world. Today, over 3 billion people which is almost half of the world’s populace live in urban areas. Although cities command a leading role in the international economy as centers of manufacture and consumption, the fast metropolitan growth all over the developing world is dangerously surpassing the ability of these cities to provide meaningful services for their occupants. In the next 30 years or so, all of the global population in the developing world is predicted to be based in urban areas. This situation is not much different in the developed world. Statistics show that the current population in urban areas has been on an upward trend as compared to the past. Although the general trend shows that most people in both the developed and developing world favor urban places over the rural places, research shows that the urbanization process in the United States is more mature compared to that in developing countries. In a bid to build cities for their urban population, developing countries have made many mistakes, which have brought about environmental problems for future generations (Carter).

The development of urbanization in the United States and other developed countries has been meteoric. In the 19 th century, only 5% of the American population lived in urban areas. This signified a small percentage of the whole population. Throughout the 19 th century, America was slowly moving towards urbanization. By the beginning of the 20 th century, the settlement trend had completely changed in the United States. While the population in cities in the 19 th century was only a mere 5%, this had increased to about 50% at the beginning of the 20 th century. Today, almost 80% of the American population lives in urban areas. This increase signifies that Americans are favoring the urban areas over the rural places. (UN-HABITAT 22)This is due to the perception that there are more economic opportunities in cities than in rural places. A good example of a city that has grown fast in the U.S is Chicago. In 1820, the city had a population of only 15 people. By 1854, this population had increased to 55,000. This signified a dynamic growth for a period of fewer than 40 years. By the turn of the 19 th century, Chicago contained a population of more than 1,698,500 people. This shows that urbanization began emerging in the United States in the second half of the 19 th century. In the 20 th century, this growth accelerated to its current state today. The current trends show that urbanization in the United States has reached its peak (Fairfield).

Although urbanization in the developing world has been on the increase, it has not been meteoric as that in the developed countries. Urbanization began developing in the less developed regions in the mid 20 th century. At this time, the urban population in the less developed regions stood at 17.8% while that in the developed region was at 54.9%. By the turn of the 20 th century, this percentage stood at 40.5% against that of developed nations of 76.1%. By 2030, it is estimated that about 57.3% of the total population in the developing nations will be living in cities against 83.7% in the developed nations. This growth signifies that while the growth of cities in urban places is on the rise, the one in developed nations has reached its peak. While it will take several years for the developing world to become predominantly urban, the developed world achieved this more than 80 years ago. However, the most important thing to note is that despite the disparity in the number of years it has taken for urbanization to take full effect, both the developed and developing countries are bound to become predominantly urban in the long run. This shows that urbanization is a subject that we cannot afford to ignore now or in the future (Fairfield).

Although trends show that both the developed and developing world moving toward urbanization, there is a big difference between the two. In most cases, the urbanization in the third world is caused by overpopulation in the rural areas. This has been brought about by the low mortality rate in the rural areas. In a bid to look for more land to accommodate the growing population, most of those in the countryside are moving into cities. Most of these end up living in slums due to the low quality of life that is almost similar to the one in the rural areas. In most cases, most of these poor people do not find meaningful employment hence end up being poorer. This situation can only be matched with the one in the developed world if enough jobs are availed for the third world urbanization that is growing at a very fast rate (Fairfield).

Environmental experts predict that averages of 1 billion people are subjected to outside air pollution every year. Today, air pollution occurring in cities has been linked to the deaths of more than 1 million early deaths occurring every year. This pollution has also been associated with more than 1 million pre-native deaths happening in the world. The environmentalists predict that urban air pollution is bound to cost the developed nations 2% of their GDP in the coming years. Over the same period, the developing nations’ GDP will suffer 5% because of urban air pollution. Spontaneous urbanization is linked to the rise of urban air pollution especially in less developed countries. More than 90% of the air pollution happening in the less developed countries is associated with emissions from older vehicles that are most prevalent in these countries. This has also been worsened by the poor repairs of vehicles, lack of road and rail network and the poor quality of fuel used in these countries (UNEP).

In developed countries, there are measures put in place to ensure that emissions from vehicles are reduced. This is accomplished by availing quality fuel and ensuring that all cars are fitted with emission reduction gadgets. These measures are yet to find their way in the developing nations (UNEP). The problem has been heightened by the fact that most of the poor people in the cities today were yesterday bucolic needy. When these people leave for the cities, they take with them their needs for fuelwood and cheap construction materials among other needs for wood products. In a bid to meet these needs and that of the other city dwellers, the urban environment ends up suffering. Developing urban forestry ensures that the urban poor get a source of fuelwood and their other timber products. Given the high rate that urbanization in the developing world is growing at, there has been a rise in the environmental problems in these countries. This has given rise to wanton destruction of forestry cover in almost all the major cities of the developing world. The situation has however been different in the developed nation where majority of urban dwellers are rich and have alternate sources of wood needs. This has created a big difference in the condition of urban environment in the developing and that of the developed world (Carter).

Another aspect that is worrying about the urban environment is the number of settlements coming up. There has been data showing that the number of households has been growing at a fast rate than the people. Research carried out in many countries shows that the number of households has been growing at a rate of 3.1% compared to the cities population growth of 1.8%. The construction of more houses has increased the need for land and raw materials used for construction. This has had negative effects on the environment (Cohen, p. 31). Due to increased economic growth in urban areas, there have also been numerous environmental problems brought as a direct result of economic growth. These are issues like the quantity of waste generated per individual person. In the developed nations, this waste is dumped in wetlands and open pits. This increases the risk of the waste seeping into the neighboring waters. Even in an event where this waste is burned, there is no proper mechanism put in place to ensure that there is no air pollution (Population Information Program).

Urbanization has greatly changed people’s way of living. It has transformed the societal organization as we know it. The domestic responsibilities and associations within a family have also been modified because of urbanization. There has also been a transformation and the redefinition of individual and social responsibility owing to urbanization. One societal shift that has come because of urbanization is the fertility rate. Today, there exists a notable reduction in the number of children among city inhabitants compared to that of their counterparts in the rural areas. Trends also show that the rate of mortality rate in cities is lower than that of people in the rural areas. This has helped in slowing the fast growth of the world’s population hence a country can provide for its population in a better way. This is especially true in the developed nations (Net Industries and its Licensors).

On top of getting fewer children, the sizes of families are further reduced because of the city dwellers’ preference for nuclear families as compared to the extended families that are favored in the countryside. Unlike the rural setting where it is easier to feed and shelter children, the same becomes more expensive in the urban setting. In the developed countries, the fertility rates have grown so low to a point where the cities have to rely on immigrants from the less developed countries to boost their population. This is different in the developing world since people are still giving birth to a few children. This has produced a balance since people from overpopulated less developed countries are migrating into the developed countries (Net Industries and its Licensors).

In both the developed and less developed countries, there has been a decline in the status of the family as defined in the traditional setting. Today, either most families in the urban areas are contained of single parents or have decided to live without children. This is a big break from the past where both parents were present and where the sole purpose of getting married was to give birth to children. Because of the reduced families, people are now able to provide better living conditions for themselves and those around them. The change in the living arrangement has brought about a complete shift in the mode of work in the urban areas. Urbanization involves numerous changes in the way people work and in employment. Although it takes an individual to work, the whole family participates in spending the earnings. In this regard, the composition of families determines the comfort of the individuals in those families. This is evident in both the developed and developing nations (Net Industries and its Licensors).

There are many problems brought about by urbanization especially in the developing countries. One of these is the issue of by-products produced by the urban population. Although cities provide a chance for accessing better amenities for the general population, the large number of its inhabitants places much stress on the natural resources. This comes because of converting agricultural land and water lands to pave way for the construction of residential houses. This adversely affects food production and water supply for both those people in the city and those in the borderlines of the city. This might also bring a host of health-related problems. Due to increased emissions, the environment becomes polluted something that might bring about pollution-related complications. Due to the reduction of clean drinking water and the increase of rubbish and sewage disposal, the people become more prone to health complications. Urbanization also increases promiscuity, which might bring about promiscuous related diseases such as HIV/AIDS. In the developing countries, there have been problems of river pollution especially in areas where those rivers pass through cities. This might bring about waterborne diseases for those who use the water. Estimates show that more than 400 million people in the developing countries lack safe drinking water. In the slums where low-income earners live, there is an increased risk of contracting infectious diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis and pneumonia (Nsiah-Gyabaah, p. 2).

According to the World Health Organization, urbanization is to be blamed for the rising number of overweight people in the developed countries (WHO). This is due to the urban dwellers’ habit of taking low-nutrient foods that contain high levels of sugar. There is also reduced physical activity among people living in cities. This increases the risk of contracting chronic and other lifestyle diseases. Some of these diseases include type II diabetes, hypertension and stroke. These diseases increase the risk of premature death among people with these diseases. Urbanization has led to a threefold increase of obese people in the developed countries. According to experts, the intake of carbohydrates increases as the peoples earning power goes up. This also happens as people become urbanized. In the developed world, people are doing less strenuous jobs due to an increase in automation both in the home and in the workplace. This has reduced people’s physical exercise hence increasing the risk of becoming obese and contracting diseases that come with the condition. All these problems can be linked to globalization (WHO).

By looking at the current trends, it is clear that urbanization is becoming everyone’s obsession. As more people move into urban areas, the ecosystem is going to be affected in a big way. As more cities come up, rivers and deltas will continue disappearing and being polluted in a great way. This is due to the tendency of building cities along rivers and deltas due to the easy availability of water that is needed in building these cities. This alters the river courses and sometimes makes them disappear altogether. All over the world, most cities are built in a way that channels the waste products from them into the rivers. This pollutes the rivers something that puts the users of the water at a great health risk. As more cities come up to accommodate the rising number of urban dwellers, we are going to experience a shortage of clean usage water especially in the developing world. Most informal settlements and slums in urban areas lack essential sanitation. In some cities especially in the developing nations, majority of the people live in these informal settlements and slums. This places them at a greater risk of contracting infectious diseases brought about by poor sanitation and overcrowding. This will increase in the future given the high rate of people who are moving into cities to look for a better life (Center for Security Studies).

Due to the high rate of women moving into the city, we are going to experience a reduction in the population growth. This is due to the tendency of urban residents especially in the developed countries of choosing not to have children or reduce the number of children as compared to their rural folk. In global terms, urbanization will greatly slow population growth in the future. This will in effect help to lessen the pressure impacted on the natural resources by the increased population growth. This will however bring about negative environmental costs due to the increased consumption that comes with the rising income brought about by urbanization. This will cancel the advantages brought about by a reduction in population growth. The UN has identified cities to be among the highest contributors to greenhouse effect that brings about global warming. Due to the increased growth of urban cities around the world, this greenhouse effect will increase hence bringing a further degradation on the economy. This effect will take place both in the developed and the developing worlds (Center for Security Studies).

Urbanization is fast gaining acceptance among many people in both the developed and in the developing world. Today, many people are moving from the countryside in search of a better life in cities. In America and the rest of the developed world, this trend began in the mid 19 th century. In the developing world, this trend began shaping up in the mid 20 th century. In a bid to accommodate the high population growth in urban areas, most developing nations are making mistakes that are bound to leave lasting effects both on the environment and in individual’s life. This is unlike the urban growth in America and other developed nations that matured a long time ago with no negative impacts on the individuals. Looking at the facts, we learn that urbanization has both its advantages and disadvantages. By looking at the whole situation, one is bound to conclude that the advantages of living in urban places are more than the disadvantages. Even for the poor individuals living in urban slums, their life can be said to be better than those living in the countryside.

• Carter, Jane. The Potential of Urban Forestry in Developing Countries: A Concept  Paper . N.d. Web. 2010
• Center for Security Studies. “The Future is Urban” Urbanization: Environmental Problem  or Solution. 2010.
• Cohen, Barney. “Urban Growth in Developing Countries” A Review of Current Trends  and a Caution Regarding Existing Forecasts . Elsevier Ltd. 2003. 23-51. Print.
• Fairfield. “The Urbanization of the World” Origins of Cities: Some Introductory Points.  N.d. 2010.
• Net Industries and its Licensors. Urbanization-The Socio Impacts of Urbanization. 2010. Web.
• Nsiah-Gyabaah, Kwasi. “Urbanization Process” Environmental and Health Effects in  Africa. N.d. 1-4. Print.
• Population Information Program. Impact on the Environment . 2009.
• UN-HABITAT. “Population, Urbanization, and Quality of Life” UNCHS (HABITAT)  Contribution to the International Conference on Population and Development.  UN-HABITAT.1994. 1-22. Print.
• United Nations Environmental Program. Urban Air Pollution. N.d. Web. 2010.
• World Health Organization. “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health”  Obesity and Overweight. 2010.
• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyKraken. (2022, January 11). Urbanization: Development, Advantages and Disadvantages. Retrieved from https://studykraken.com/urbanization-development-advantages-and-disadvantages/

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Human Geography: Urbanization Essay

Urbanization refers to the development of urban areas. It involves population growth as well as physical development in such areas. Many global south countries like India, Brazil and Nigeria have high rates of urbanization than northern countries like England, Canada and Japan.

This can be attributed to the natural increase in population of these areas through birth or migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. Most of these countries are developing countries. They have potential for industrialization and people migrate from rural areas to urban areas to offer labor to the growing industries.

There is also rapid development of rural areas in these areas that transforms them into urban centers. On the other hand, in developed countries, there is little migration to urban areas due to decentralization of the countries’ economies. This gives the rural people favorable conditions to stay there. There is also reduced natural population increase through birth than in most of the southern countries.

People move to cities for various reasons. Cities provide employment opportunities to people because of the growth of industries that takes place in them. Most cities also offer people better social facilities and services like entertainment and health care. There are also better economic and market opportunities in cities than can be found in most rural areas of most countries.

People therefore migrate to cities so as to come closer to these opportunities and exploit them for improving their economic status and living standards (Knox, Marston & Nash, 2007). Most rural family farms also produce hardly enough to support their family members with the required food and other basic needs. As a result, some members of such families move to cities and work hard to earn extra income which they send back home to support the needs of their family members.

Most of the rural population in most countries depends on agricultural production in order to survive. Therefore, the importation of similar low priced food materials as those produced in these countries lead to general reduction in the crops’ prices. This leads to low benefit for the farmers. Such farmers in most cases abandon their farms and move to urban areas where they look for jobs mostly in the industrial areas. Population increase in rural areas is another factor that leads to rural- urban migrations.

Increasing population in most cities of the world comes with many problems associated with settlement, infrastructure, environmental issues and service delivery. The urban poor stay in slums where there are poor infrastructure especially housing and other associated services like electricity, running water, sewage system, and roads. To make these cities livable, some of these situations and services have to be improved. The cities of the world should address issues of urban planning, urban development and urban governance.

If these three aspects are well addressed in the cities, then they will be comfortable places to stay in. Urban planning should involve proper laying out of water distribution patterns and networks in the cities, planning sanitation systems and methods of waste management, transport network as well as health systems. Each city should also develop urban development strategies that adequately address the circumstances surrounding its regions.

Urban governance is also important as it directs the way the city is administered and directs the service delivery within the city. The city governance is responsible for urban development and planning and ensures that the residents live in a sound environment by providing them with essential services like rubbish collection and disposal. The city governance should be able to transform the city slums into legitimate residential areas and improve the living standards of its urban poor.

There is lack of food security in most countries of the world. Despite enough production of foodstuffs in many parts of the world, still there are high levels of food insecurity even in countries that produce more than they need. According to UN’s FAO and USDA, a country is food secure when all its citizens have physical and economic access to enough, safe and nutritious food at all times to meet their needs and provide them with a healthy life.

Through this, we understand that in order for a country or a region to be food secure, there must be enough quantity of food, high quality of food, food access for all people and food use by the people. Over 920 million in the world are starving while a good percentage of people in some countries like the United States, United Kingdom and Australia are facing obesity epidemics.

Various stakeholders in food issues react differently and contribute to this problem either positively or negatively. These stakeholders include food producers, markets and trade unions and blocks, governments, non-governmental organizations, various policy makers and food users.

Food producers ensure that there is enough production of food to feed the population of a country and there is surplus for export. Agricultural mechanization in many countries has made it possible to produce large volumes of food substances with little labor requirements. However, cheap foreign imports of food lead to low prices of food products in the local markets making farmers in some countries to put their land to other uses like cash crop production.

This leads to reduction in local production, which can lead to high levels of starvation in these countries. The low farm produce prices discourage some people; consequently, they abandon their farms and move to urban areas to look for other jobs. Even though this is the case, there is generally high food production in the world enough to feed its population.

Individual consumers also play an important role in this scenario. The economic status of individuals determines whether they access food when it is available. Those individuals with enough money are able to buy food in the quantity and quality they desire while those who are limited financially are unable to buy what they need and end up depending on relief food. The high prices of food in some regions of the world make most of the people to starve.

Most of the people in developed countries like in US, UK, Canada and Australia are well endowed financially and get access to food in high quantities. Their high consumption rate leads to many cases of obesity. High rates of food wastage by individuals also contribute to food scarcity, which in the end lead to starvation of some people.

Individual countries’ governments also play an important role in distributing food to their citizens. They also set important policies that govern imports and exports of food. Importation of low price food commodities may lead to reduction of local food production. The governments are also responsible for food distribution to its citizens. If there is poor food distribution, then there is a likelihood of increased starvation in the country.

The governments also offer services of educating its people on the appropriate use of food so as to avoid wastage and disorders associated with food misuse. Various Non-governmental organizations and international organizations such as the UN, FAO, World Bank, and WHO also help in educating people on appropriate food use as well as aiding in their distribution to the needy. In addition, they give financial assistance to other organizations to distribute food to people.

In conclusion, people generally move to urban centers where they seek for better living conditions and increased economic and social gain. This migration may constrain the infrastructure and facilities available in the towns. The migration also deprives the rural areas of farm labor, which is important for food production. Low food productivity and distribution to all parts of the world lead to starvation of a number of people. Food wastage and misuse also aggravates this problem and creates other problems such as the rising cases of obesity in the world.

Reference List

Knox, P. L., Marston, S. A. & Nash, A. E. (2007). Human Geography: places and regions in global context . Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, August 12). Human Geography: Urbanization . https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-geography/

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IvyPanda . "Human Geography: Urbanization ." August 12, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-geography/.

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36 Crucial Pros & Cons Of Urbanization

“I see opportunities in all my businesses. And the reason is simple. We thrive in countries that are urbanizing.”

Luis R. Chenevert, Businessman

Advantages & Disadvantages of Urbanization

Urbanization can be defined as a population shift from rural to urban areas.

Whereas only one century ago, people often lived in rural areas to work in agriculture, most people on our planet now work in the city since the kind of work that is needed in our nowadays society has changed significantly and people rather work in office jobs than in agricultural jobs.

Therefore, also the lifestyle of people changed significantly over time.

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Although urbanization has its advantages, there are also some problems related to it.

In this article, the pros and cons of urbanization are examined.

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Advantages of urbanization, better public transport, better overall infrastructure, more education opportunities, increasing property prices for homeowners, people can use their time more efficiently, more convenient if you have kids, connection to electricity grid and sewer system, better internet connection, more efficient in terms of land use, people in cities are usually more tolerant, better connection to healthcare facilities, better r&d opportunities to foster technological progress, urbanization attracts tourists, multicultural attitude, easier to socialize, lower unemployment rates, higher wages in cities on average, better recycling systems.

One important advantage of urbanization is that cities often provide much better public transport compared to rural areas.

While in small villages, there is barely any public transport at all or you have to wait a quite long time, some cities offer a quite reliable public transportation system and you only have to wait a couple of minutes until the next train or bus will arrive.

Moreover, in many big cities, you do not even need a car to get around since the public transportation system is so good.

Thus, especially if you do not have or want to drive a car, you will do yourself a big favor by living in big cities instead of rural areas.

Urbanization also led to a state where there is a much better overall infrastructure in cities compared to rural areas.

For instance, while the next supermarkets will only be a few minutes by walk in big cities, you might have to walk quite long distances until you find the next grocery store in rural regions.

This is not only true for grocery stores, but also for many other shops and facilities you might want to use in your daily life.

Another advantage of urbanization is that cities often provide plenty of educational opportunities.

This can range from a variety of preschools over public or private schools to higher education facilities like universities.

Thus, especially if you have kids and the education of your kids is important to you, you might prefer to live in a city due to the much better education opportunities.

Urbanization has also led to a significant increase in property prices in big cities since the demand for flats and houses in cities increased dramatically.

While this may be bad for tenants since they have to spend a higher fraction of their wage on rent, it is pretty good for property owners since they can charge higher rents and when they finally want to sell their home, they can also sell it at a much higher price compared to the time where urbanization was not present.

Another upside of urbanization is that people are now able to use their time more efficiently since the overall infrastructure in big cities is usually quite good and distances between the different facilities are much lower.

For instance, if you have to bring your kids to school, it might only take you a few minutes in big cities while you might have to drive quite long in rural areas.

The same is true for work or for many other things of daily life.

Hence, if you live in a big city, chances are that you can save plenty of time in all parts of your daily life and can use this time for other things that you like instead.

Especially for families, it is much more convenient to live in cities compared to living in rural areas since there are many more education and entertainment facilities in big cities.

Moreover, it is also much easier to find friends and to maintain those friendships since the distances in cities are far lower and while it might be easy to visit a friend in a big city, it might be quite hard in rural areas since your friends might live quite long distances away from you.

Another benefit of urbanization is that the electricity grid and the sewer systems have been optimized over time and in many big cities, you do not have to worry about those things at all.

People rather take it for granted that they have access to electricity all day long since they are so used to it.

However, in rural areas, there are still people who live without a connection to the local electricity grid.

Thus, if you live in the city, you should be quite happy to profit from all those amenities that came along with urbanization.

Urbanization also led to the need for sophisticated technologies and finally led to access to the internet for billions of people on our planet.

Although there are also some problems related to the internet , it can be considered to be one of the biggest and most important inventions in human history since it can make our lives so much better if we use it in the right manner.

Urbanization can also contribute to more efficient land use.

Since our world population is growing and we will soon suffer from significant levels of overpopulation, it is crucial to use our space as efficiently as possible.

By building big cities, the space per person can be reduced dramatically since more people can live in smaller flats instead of big houses like in rural areas.

Thus, the overall demand for space per person may decrease significantly due to urbanization, which may help to deal with our growing world population.

On average, people also tend to be more tolerant in bigger cities compared to small villages.

People in small rural villages are often more conservative and do not value new cultures too much.

Sometimes, cultural minorities are even socially isolated in those regions.

However, in big cities, tolerance towards minorities is often much better since people are more open and do not see those cultures as a threat but rather as an opportunity to experience new lifestyles.

Urbanization also gave people much better access to important healthcare facilities like hospitals.

While it is quite hard to find hospitals in remote rural areas, it is rather easy to find them in bigger cities.

Hence, if you suffer from a serious health condition, you are much better off if you live in a big city since you will have much better access to proper medical treatment on average.

Urbanization has also led to a state where many smart people live in a rather concentrated space.

Therefore, those experts were able to meet and to work together quite often, which significantly boosted our technological progress in the past.

In general, also more research companies locate in urban areas since they are much better able to find qualified workers in this field in cities rather than in rural areas.

Another advantage of urbanization is that it has led to a flood of tourists for big cities over the past decades.

For instance, New York has become so popular and people all over the world want to do all the tourist attractions the city has to offer.

Therefore, urbanization also contributed to a vast increase in tourism for many big cities, which in turn led to significant wealth for those cities.

Urbanization also often leads to a mix of many different cultures and nationalities in one city.

Although some people may be skeptic about other cultures, the majority of us really enjoy experiencing different things and to learn about different cultural values and customs.

Thus, urbanization has also led to a bigger variety of cultural influences that we can enjoy in big cities.

Urbanization has also contributed to a state where it is much easier to socialize for people in big cities.

Since public transport is quite good and people often live relatively close to each other, it is easier to meet and to maintain friendships and business connections.

Hence, urbanization has also made it easier for many people to connect to others, which can be quite beneficial in all parts of our life.

Through urbanization, the unemployment rates in cities have become much lower since big companies have settled down in those big cities and provide many job opportunities for the local population.

Thus, if you live in a big city, the chances for you of getting unemployed will likely also be much lower compared to rural areas where there are barely any jobs left at all in many regions of our planet.

Not only the job opportunities in cities are much better on average, also the wages tend to be much higher.

This is due to the fact that office jobs often pay much better than physically demanding jobs and more of those office jobs are located in big cities.

Therefore, urbanization also made it possible to earn good money in cities from office jobs instead of having to work in physically demanding jobs for a relatively low salary.

Urbanization has also contributed to the development of much more sophisticated waste management and recycling processes.

While there might not be recycling opportunities in remote rural areas, there are several easy ways to recycle your things in big cities.

Therefore, the recycling infrastructure is much better in urban areas and our resources can be used more efficiently due to that.

Disadvantages of Urbanization

Higher level of air pollution, more particle pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, cities may become quite crowded, traffic jams, higher level of stress, increase in health issues, increasing rents for tenants, higher chances for homelessness, development of slums, spread of diseases, waste management problems, pets may not like city life, lack of natural spaces, alteration of local ecosystems, infrastructure in rural areas gets worse.

As we can see from the previous analysis, there are many advantages related to urbanization.

However, there are also some downsides related to it. One disadvantage of urbanization is that it leads to significant air pollution in cities.

Many people have to commute to work and back and use their car.

In turn, this implies significant air pollution from the fumes that are emitted from combustion engines.

Thus, if you live in a big city, chances are that you will suffer from rather poor air quality .

Local particle pollution is another issue that is connected to urbanization.

Apart from the fumes that are emitted by cars that are operated by fossil fuels, there are also plenty of fine particles emitted into the air.

Hence, especially in big cities where many cars are used, the level of particle pollution can be quite high, which may also lead to the formation of serious smog , especially during rush hour.

Urbanization has also contributed to a significant increase in noise pollution in big cities.

Since many cars are used, the sound level in big cities is usually quite high, especially near the main roads.

Thus, if you live in a home that is located near one of those big roads, chances are that you will suffer from high levels of noise pollution and your quality of life may drop dramatically due to that.

Due to the excessive use of motor vehicles, urbanization has also contributed to increased light pollution .

Moreover, since houses are aligned pretty close next to each other in big cities, you might also suffer from light pollution if your neighbor leaves on his lights for the whole night for some reason.

Urbanization has also contributed to the littering problem in big cities.

Since many people live in a rather confined space, there is often plenty of waste that is just disposed of right on the streets.

A prominent example of this is the disposal of cigarettes.

You might notice that there are plenty of cigarette stubs on our streets and people seem not to care about disposing of them in a proper manner at all.

Another downside of urbanization is that it contributes to a state where cities become quite crowded.

If the population density becomes too high, the quality of life will decrease since we as humans need some space to breathe and too many people in a confined space will result in an increase in stress levels for many of us.

Urbanization also contributes to the formation of traffic jams.

Especially in big cities with a high population density, people often spend quite a long time in traffic jams when they commute to work and back.

This will result in less leisure time and can significantly hurt our quality of life in the long run.

Another issue with urbanization is that our overall stress level tends to be quite high if we live in big cities.

Since big cities are quite crowded, we are often overwhelmed.

Moreover, also public transport will be quite crowded, at least during rush hour, which may further increase our stress levels .

The higher pollution and stress levels in big cities which can be attributed to urbanization also lead to higher risks for serious health problems.

For instance, poor air quality can cause asthma or lung cancer.

Moreover, high stress levels may result in serious cardiovascular diseases in the long run.

Hence, also the overall life expectancy of people living in big cities may be negatively affected due to those factors.

Due to urbanization, an increasing number of people want to live in the city.

In turn, the demand for flats and houses in cities increases dramatically, while the supply of properties in those cities is quite limited.

This results in steep increases in property prices and many people may have to spend a big fraction of their monthly income for their rent.

If rents become too high due to the urbanization issue, chances are that many people may no longer be able to pay such large amounts of money for their accommodation.

In turn, those people may even become homeless if they get kicked out of their house or their apartment.

Therefore, the chances for homelessness may also increase as a result of urbanization.

Urbanization also increases the risk of the development of slums.

Poor people often do not have the money to afford renting a flat in the city center.

Thus, slums are likely to form around the city borders where people have to live under quite poor conditions.

As a result of urbanization, also the spread of diseases become far more likely.

Since the population density is quite high in big cities, there is much more close interaction in our daily life and the chances for diseases to spread from one person to another is much higher compared to rural areas with a lower population density.

In some big cities, especially in poor parts of our planet, there is a big waste management problem.

Backyards are often filled with large amounts of waste since the public waste management infrastructure is quite poor and people produce more waste than municipalities can handle.

In turn, diseases are much more likely to spread due to those unhygienic conditions.

If you have pets, city life may not be suitable for you.

Your pets often need plenty of space and a big garden to feel comfortable since it is in their nature to move and play around.

Therefore, if you live in a small apartment, chances are that your dog may feel rather depressed and unhappy.

Urbanization has also led to a state where there are not too many green places left in many big cities.

Since property prices skyrocket in many cities, municipalities often decide to sacrifice parks in order to sell the space to investors who want to build big buildings on it.

However, due to a lack of green recovery spaces, the overall quality of life may vastly decrease in big cities.

Urbanization has also significantly altered many local ecosystems .

Since the need for housing in many areas increased dramatically, large forest areas had to be cut down in order to get settlement space.

In turn, many animals lost their natural habitats and had to relocate.

Many of them also suffered from a significant drop in populations, which in turn led to a significant ecological imbalance.

Another problem of urbanization is that it also leads to quite poor infrastructure in rural areas.

Since people move away from those rural areas and relocate to cities, there are often not too many young people left in rural areas.

In turn, there is often also a lack of crucial infrastructure like hospitals, care facilities or simple grocery stores.

Top 10 Urbanization Pros & Cons – Summary List

Urbanization completely changed the quality of life of billions of people on our planet.

Although there are many important advantages of urbanization, many people also suffer from serious downsides.

In the end, we should make sure that nobody is left behind in rural areas in order to improve the overall living conditions for all of us on a global scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization

https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/theme/urbanization/index.asp

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/urbanization/

About the author

My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.

As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.

After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.

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