Urbanization

The Nature of Urbanization

Urbanization is the process whereby large numbers of people congregate and settle in an area, eventually developingsocial institutions, such as businesses and government, to support themselves. Urban areas, or those pockets of people and institutions thereby created, are generally characterized as relatively dense settlements of people. Furthermore, it is claimed, they sometimes originate from the effort by authorities to consciously concentrate power, capital, or both at a particular site.

The process of urbanization has gone on throughout history. Large congregations of people have existed across the world, from ancient China to ancient Rome and Greece. Although the numbers of residents of such cities pale by comparison with urban areas today, the relatively large and dense congregations of people still helped to foster new institutions and, in general, to make urban life in many ways preferable to that of living in relatively isolated rural areas. Urban residents typically benefit from better forms of education, improved medical care, the availability and distribution of information, and the greater supply of lifesustaining goods, such as food and shelter.

Today, more than half the world's population resides in urban areas. Furthermore, demographers project that between 2000 and 2025 the population growth of urban areas will constitute about 90 percent of all world population growth. Major concentrations of people today can be found on all continents (see Table 1).

Yet urbanization is more than just the process leading to dense settlements. Social theorists across the ages have wrestled to understand it. Indeed, one might say that the process of urbanization is a focal point for many sociological concerns; the urban area serves, in effect, as a major stage on which social change plays itself out. If one takes a dim view of such change, then urbanization tends to be criticized for the evils it unleashes. Yet if one takes a positive view of social change, then urbanization is claimed to produce many benefits. The next section examines the varying theories of urbanization more closely to discover how, and why, social theorists differ in their views of the process.

Theories of Urbanization

Even though observers generally agree on the nature of urbanization, there is widespread disagreement both as to its social sources and consequences. Moreover, there is also disagreement over the extent to which human actors can intervene in the process. Here, some of the leading views [Page 854]are considered, noting how, and why, they differ from one another.