Global patterns of urbanisation since 1945.

Global patterns of urbanisation since 1945.

“Cities have a transformative power. A New Urban Agenda is required to effectively address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities offered by urbanization.”
Dr Joan Clos, UN, 2016

In 2010 a key date was passed, the World’s urban population passed 50% for the first time in history.  The World Health Organisation of the UN estimate that “By 2030, 6 out of every 10 people will live in a city, and by 2050, this proportion will increase to 7 out of 10 people.” ¹ This poses fundamental questions and issues for the global population and its leaders, and this unit is designed to explore some of those issues.

• In 2018, the UN estimates that the percentage of people living in Towns and cities is 55.3% with 4.219 Billion of the World’s 7.632 Billion people living in urban areas. ²
• Although it can seem like our expanding cities take up a lot of land, only around 1% of global land is defined as built-up. ³

Urbanisation represents the demographic transition or change from rural areas to urban areas.  Urbanisation is defined as “the increasing proportion of people that live in towns and cities” and can be viewed at regional, national, continental and International scales. The word proportion in this definition is very important, because it indicates that we must judge urbanisation by looking at both the numbers of people living in both rural AND urban areas. It is also important to remember that world population has grown massively since 1945 (the global population was estimated at 2.556 billion in 1950 and is over 7.5 billion in 2019 ⁴), so not only have the % of people living in urban areas gone up but so has the absolute number of people in them.

Variation in urbanisation around the world
Urbanisation varies from place and from time to time. There are clear patterns in WHEN urbanisation has occurred and WHERE in different parts of the world.  This is shown clearly below;

Source: United Nations ⁵

As can be observed on the graph urbanisation has occurred at different times for different continents and at different rates (speeds). 
1. The most urbanised places on planet Earth are the most economically developed, with North America, Europe and Oceania all displaying high percentages of urbanisation and all starting with high levels after 1950 (all over 50%). These have all continued to urbanise, but rates have slowed down as these areas approach their peak for urbanisation.  The UK line on the graph is a good country example of this pattern.
2. Asia contains many Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs) such as India, and China, and Asian Tigers such as Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea.  These areas have had a phenomenal rise in urbanisation from 18% to 45% in 2011 and are predicted to continue to do so.  These changes go hand in hand with rapid industrialisation (as seen in China’s special enterprise zones) and changes in agriculture in those countries.  This is evidenced clearly on the China line on the graph. 
3. Africa is a more complex case, and some countries are urbanizing whilst industrializing, whilst others are urbanising based on the exportation of primary resources.

RATES of urban growth

Source: United Nations ⁵

Rates of urban growth are slowing down however, in all continents and globally.  This means that urban areas, whilst still growing, are doing so at a slower pace.  This is shown by the graph above and is predicted by the United Nations to continue to do so.  Even China is expected to experience a decline in growth, and eventually a shrinking in urbanisation.  Growth in Africa remains strong, but declining, whilst European Urban growth rates are declining towards zero.

Source – Wikipedia ⁶
Urbanisation has a geographic distribution.  This is shown above, on the choropleth map.  The highest rates of urbanisation are in North America, Western Europe, South America and Australasia.  Lower rates of urbanisation are found in Africa and across Asia, but as mentioned previously urban growth rates are high in these areas and their overall percentage urbanisation is catching up with other areas.

CAUSES of urban growth
Urbanisation is caused by rural to urban migration and natural changes in population. 
MIGRATION
Migration is the movement of population from one area to another. Some migrations are forced, voluntary, permanent and temporary, international and regional. The type of migration that we are principally interested in in this unit is Rural to urban migration, which is the movement of people from countryside to city areas. However, international migration is also important for many cities as the first port of arrival for many international migrants are major cities.
HICs
Rural to Urban migration happened in HICs from the 18th Century onwards on a large scale and has gradually slowed down. In fact, in many HICs the movement of people has reversed, and people are moving from urban areas back into the countryside as they search for the quiet life (this is known as counter-urbanisation).
LICs
However, in many LICs cities are experiencing massive rural to urban migration, mainly of young males, into the major cities. The major reasons for this movement can be classified into push and pull factors.
A Push factor is something that can force or encourage people to move away from an area. Push factors can include famine (as in Ethiopia in the 1980s), drought, flooding (as in Bangladesh, were people are becoming climate change refugees and having to move to Dhaka, watch an animation of Dhaka's growth here), a lack of employment opportunities, population growth and over population, and civil war (as in Darfur now).
A Pull factor is one in which encourages people to move to an area. Pull factors include the chance of a better job, better access to education and services, and a higher standard of living.
These factors have contributed to millions of people in LICs moving to cities in LICs, creating mass URBANISATION.

NATURAL INCREASE
Changes in Natural Increase can also cause urbanisation – cities tend to help to lower mortality rates as access to imported medical care and technology, better access to food and improved sanitation bring down death rates. This means that birth rate can exceed death rates and populations grow naturally.
There are many positives and negatives of Urbanisation, which become more pronounced as urbanisation becomes extreme, cities become larger and the pace of change is rapid.  Many of the positive and negatives obviously apply to different time periods for different countries at contrasting states of development.

NEXT TOPIC - Urban Processes

SOURCES
1. World Health Organisation , 2018, Urban population growth - accessed the 11th of March 2019 from http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/
2. United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects 2018, accessed on the 11th of March from https://population.un.org/wup/Download/
3. Hannah Ritchie, 2018,  How urban is the world?. Our world in data.  Accessed on the 11th of March from https://ourworldindata.org/how-urban-is-the-world
4. U.S. Census Bureau, International Database. Accessed 11th March 2019 from https://www.infoplease.com/world/population-statistics/total-population-world-decade-1950-2050
5. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2012). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision, CD-ROM Edition.
6. Wikignuthor [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], Wkipedia, map of Urbanized population 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country#/media/File:Urbanized_population_2018.png
 

 

Written by Rob Gamesby March 2019