Travel Through Time: Urbanization Throughout the World

Referring to the movement of a population to cities (and away from rural areas), urbanization has occurred throughout the world. The growth of urban areas can be attributed to many different factors. Among causes of urbanization are industrialization, immigration, and advances in technology. The effects of urbanization are wide-reaching, and include economic, social, and environmental consequences.

Urbanization in Europe:

Urbanization in Europe, indeed in any country, cannot be extricated from the idea of industrialization. As a shift took hold in Europe from agriculture to industries (transportation, chemicals, electricity, etc.) the appeal of living in a city grew. As an increase in population took place within the cities, economic resources poured into urban areas to an increasing degree. In England, over 75 percent of the English adult male population worked in industrial production. England, however, was not necessarily the rule as far as European countries go. Most European countries all throughout the nineteenth century remained largely rural. Considering the fact that the Industrial Revolution started in England, this is not a surprising fact, because, in order to support the production of new infrastructure, a country had to have both the capital and will to create new infrastructure. While industrialization in Europe may have been slower than in England, a change still occurred. The percentage of the French population living in cities rose from 25 to 44 percent between 1805 and 1911, with the percentage in Germany rising from 30 to 60 percent over the same span of time.

England was the first country in the world to industrialize because conditions were perfect for supporting the coming changes. Britain had large coal deposits because it largely used wood for heat rather than coal, leaving entire deposits untouched until the Industrial Revolution necessitated mining it for energy. Furthermore, any natural resource British land could not provide was provided by its many colonies, and ruling these colonies also guaranteed Britain a large consumer base as goods became increasingly available. A major export of the time was cotton, and production of the material tripled between 1796 and 1830.

As a result of the national importance of education, Britain had not only the land to support a massive societal shift, but also had people educated enough to run the new machines and innovate a new infrastructure. This educated group was also more willing to change attitudes regarding work. Whereas the generation prior to the Industrial Revolution had no choice but to ascribe to work attitudes of their day (work to produce your own goods and sell those for profit), the rapid change from agricultural to industrial production required a rapid change in ideology. Rather than selling goods for profit, many people were willing to sell their labor for profit. This “new money” was the driving force in urbanization, as people found it more profitable to live near city jobs.

Urbanization in America:

The early US was a mostly rural country. Cities, while there were jobs to be had, did not have the same draw they would later attain, and farming, though requiring much time and effort, provided a safer existence. Having enough food was, barring natural disaster, dependent on the farmer and the way he managed his land. He could not fire himself, and the industry of farming was going nowhere. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution, city life was vastly different from what we see today. Rich people lived in the center of the city, building and living in townhouses within walking distance of their business. Without mass transportation, the value of land was partly dependent on how short the distance was between one’s home and the services one might require. Poor people lived where property value was least, on the outskirts of the city.

A 1790 census states that 95 percent of people of that time lived in the countryside, and “urban” meant small villages in most cases. The only cities that had more than 15,000 people living within city limits were Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. South of Boston, where growing seasons extended farther than up north, almost everyone lived in rural areas.

A hundred years later, when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, upwards of 35 percent of Americans lived in urban areas. The value of work in the industrial sector had increased enough to simply buy food rather than grow it, and people had begun taking advantage of that fact. The south, except New Orleans and a few other small cities, remained largely rural because, with the long growing season and increased demand from the north, farming was where the most money could be made. By 1920, the number of people living in cities exceeded that of people living in rural areas, and by 1990 over 75 percent of people lived in cities, where jobs were plentiful and profitable.

Of course, a mass migration to urban centers has its downside, mainly finding the means to support the population. Many people looking to make money in a city found there was not much quality housing to be had. This meant the cities erected housing which, while consisting of four walls and a roof, provided little else. These housing projects quickly became slums and these unhealthy living conditions contributed to poor health and even deaths.

Urbanization in Asia

Whereas rapid urbanization in many countries happened over a century ago, Asia today is seeing unprecedented urbanization if not in terms of percentages, in terms of sheer scope. The number of nations involved, the amount of cities changing, and the population included, these aspects of urbanization are being seen in extraordinary numbers today.

In 1950, 17 percent of the population (232 million people) lived in urban areas. In 2005, 40 percent of the population (1.5 billion people) lived in urban areas. While the percentage may have increased only 23 percent, a population explosion during the same period of time led to the actual population increasing over 600 percent. By 2030, people living in urban areas will number around 2.664 billion.

So why has urbanization taken so long in Asia? There are many reasons, but one of the major reasons is that most Asian countries did not invest in or have the resources to support the new infrastructure required by an Industrial Revolution. One of the major reasons Britain was able to support an investment in the cottage industry (the production of goods by individual artisans) was an agricultural surplus. In order to give up the farm for the factory there has to be more than enough food for everyone, and this was not the case in 19th century Asia.

With the wane of the Industrial Revolution came the wax of the Information Revolution, and many Asian countries have invested in the production of technological goods. This investment in terms of both national educational ideology and attitudes concerning work, in addition to the actual capital investment, has led to a boom in urbanization in these countries. Enough money can now be made in the cities to draw people from the rural areas. These factors have led to an economic outlook which includes even the smallest Asian countries (Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Loa PDR) seeing increases in urban population of more than 100 percent by 2030.