Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
1
Paul Sanyaolu and 2Comfort Okosun Sanyaolu
1
Department of Chemistry, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.
2
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses primarily on urbanization, the causes and ways forward. Urbanization is the
way the population shift from rural to urban areas, "the gradual increase in the proportion of
people living in urban areas", and the ways in which each society adapts to the change.
Exploratory research method was used, secondary data were collected and critically analyzed..
The results were used to derived the characteristics of urbanization, and major factors that
favoured urbanization before the industrial revolution were expanciated. The effects of
urbanization, forms of urbanization and the conceptual theoretical framework were detailed. In
network, infrastructural facilities, size, density of population, family, marriage, occupation, class
extremes, social heterogeneity, social distance, system of interaction and mobility. The causes of
urbanization include; western liberal, Marxist capitalist and ecological or self-generated. The
major factors of that favoured Urbanization after the industrial revolution, include, rural-urban
migration, push and pull factors, push factors and pull factors, The effects of urbanization
embraced, economic effect, environmental effects, health and social effects, forms of
urbanization and the conceptual theoretical framework is based on urban bias theory. It is
recommended that government should design policy that will prevent this migration of the grass
root masses. This will reduce if not elimination the state unemployment problem.
Keywords: urbanization, rural to urban migration, characteristics, geometrical growth, urban bias
theory
1
Corresponding Author: paul.sanyaolu@stu.cu.edu.ng 08148026557
INTRODUCTION
Urbanization refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, "the gradual increase in the
proportion of people living in urban areas", and the ways in which each society adapts to the
change. The process whereby a society changes from a rural to an urban way of life (NLM,
2014). It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of Africa and Asia and 86% of the developed
world will be urbanized (The Economist, 2012). Notably, the United Nations has also recently
projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be absorbed by cities,
about 1.1 billion new urbanites over the next 13 years. (Barney, 2015).
The major change in settlement patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages
many thousand years ago. Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate
people is forecast to continue and intensify during the next few decades, mushrooming cities to
sizes unthinkable only a century ago. As a result, the world urban population growth curve has
From the development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt until the 18th century, an
equilibrium existed between the vast majority of the population who engaged in subsistence
agriculture in a rural context, and small centres of populations in the towns where economic
activity consisted primarily of trade at markets and manufactures on a small scale. Due to the
primitive and relatively stagnant state of agriculture throughout this period, the ratio of rural to
urban population remained at a fixed equilibrium. Also, significant increase can be traced to
Mughal India, where 15% of its population lived in urban centers during the 16th–17th centuries,
higher than in Europe at the time (Abraham, (2007) and Paolo, (2009)).
Urbanization rapidly spread across the Western world and, since the 1950s, it has begun to take
hold in Africa and Asia as well. At the turn of the 20th century, just 15% of the world population
lived in cities. Yale University in June 2016 published urbanization data from the time period
3700 BC to 2000 AD, the data was used to make a video showing the development of cities on
the world during the time period (United Nations (2014) and Reba, et al., (2007)).
STRUCTURED FACILITIES: In any urban centre, structures are designed majorly for
the following purposes with their respective proportions: Residential- 60.0%; Industrial-
Others -2.0%;Total-100.0%.
RESIDENTIAL: Residential sector occupies the highest percentage of land use in any
urban settlement. Since residential land use sectors are centres of population
concentration, they witness mass criss-cross movements of human and vehicular traffic
any community is found in the industrial, commercial and administrative sectors. These
ROADS: Efficient network of roads and transportation system enhance free flow and
chaos and congestion. Wide road reservation with enough setbacks provides space for
electricity, telephone and solid waste disposal etc. are common in urban centre.
SIZE: As a rule, in the same country and at the same period, the size of an urban
community is much large than that of a rural community. Hence, urbanization and its size
individual than to the family. Nuclear families are more popular in urban areas.
MARRIAGE: In case of urban community there is a preponderance of love marriages
and inter-caste marriages. One also comes across a greater number of divorces.
OCCUPATION: In the urban areas, the major occupations are industrial, administrative
and professional in nature. Divisions of labour and occupational specialization are very
, CLASS EXTREMES: An urban town and city house the richest as well As the poorest
of people. In a city, the slums of the poor exist alongside the palatial bungalows of the
heterogeneity. The cities are characterized by diverse peoples, race and cultures. There is
great variety in regard to the food habits, dress habits, living conditions, religious beliefs,
SOCIAL DISTANCE: Social distance is the result of anonymity and heterogeneity. Most
interest groups. The circles of social contact are wider in the city than in the country. City
life is very complex and varied. Due to wider area of interaction system per man and per
aggregate.
MOBILITY: Urbanization is full of great social mobility. The social status of man in
urban city depends largely on his merit, intelligence and perseverance. Consequently,
There are three contending causes of urbanisation. Scholars have found that there are three major
ways that lead to Urbanisation, namely; (a) Western Liberal (b) Marxist Capitalist (c) Ecological
Western Liberal: This view sees urbanisation as the consequence of development. It holds that
rural dwellers are attracted to urban centres by availability of job. It is backed up by both theories
The modernization theory states that industrial employment attracts people from rural to urban
areas. This created social class due to economic expansion, non-agricultural occupation focus,
inequality welfare, rapid migration from rural to urban cities, hence Africa and Asia countries
experienced great set back and inefficient economic growth (Gingler 1997)
Marxist Capitalist
This view sees urbanisation as the result of capitalism. The capitalist in their bid to maximized
their wealth made decisions that favoured them mostly. They control the economic and ensure
drift of people to urban cities in order to equipped their multinational corporations, local,
national and regional firms. The worse aspect of it is the focus of these capitalists on Africa and
Ecological or Self-Generated
In 1920s, Ernest Burgess and Robert Park proposed the urban ecological theory. These
sociologists view the urban city as a complex response to competing extended forces. The urban
ecology is based on two assumptions; the first assumption is based on the fact that the city
consists of a number of sections, in each of which only a single activity such as heavy
manufacturing or upper class residence are concentrated. Secondly as urban space became
limited and competition became keen, a section ultimately would be part with greatest economic
value, though the longest established sector would according to the concentric zone radiating
Agricultural as dominant activities, produced surplus food for human consumption. Trade and
permanent settlements at route junctions. Defence wall around settlements and administrative
control
development. City life attracted others, this led to friction and disparities or class
Third Stage: Trade within and between empires; accumulation of wealth; officially
of capitalism began.
Fourth Stage: Disintegration of the Roman Empire into city-states based on economic
RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION
Migration is a form of geographical or spatial motion between one geographical unit and
migration. The time of migration also varies; it can be periodic, seasonal, or long-term migration
(Bilsborrow 1998b).
Migration is the main reason for urbanization. Urbanization mobility trend can be in any of the
following form, rural-urban and urban-rural and rural-rural. This is quite common, for example,
in Nigeria (Bilsborrow 1998b, Sajor 2001). There were structural changes and the adoption of
capitalistic line and the resultant growth of merchant class. New institutions created and old
Suburbanisation – New freedom of movement that led to urban sprawl and encroachment of
People may move to the city because they are pushed by poverty from rural communities or they
may be pulled by the attractions of city lives. Combination of these push and pull factors can also
be one reason for moving to cities. These circumstances make migration the only opportunity to
farming people. Things are made worse by environmental deterioration (Gugler 1997, Girardet
1996).
Push factors
The normal push factors to rural people are the circumstances that make their earning of living
impossible, land deterioration, lack of adequate land, unequal land distribution, droughts, storms,
floods, and clean water shortages. These serious disadvantages make farming, the livelihood of
rural people, hard and sometimes hopeless. Lack of modern resources, firewood shortages,
religious conflicts, local economic declines, are also major reasons for moving to the urban areas
Pull factors
High industrial wages in urban areas are one of the biggest attractions for rural people. People
will continue to migrate to cities as long as they expect urban wages to exceed their current rural
wages. Employment opportunities, higher incomes, joining other rural refugees, freedom from
oppressive lifestyle, access to better health care and education, are the “bright lights” for rural
EFFECTS OF URBANIZATION
There are great effects of urbanization on both the people and the society. These effects are
ECONOMIC EFFECT
As cities develop, effects can include a dramatic increase and change in costs, often pricing the
local working class out of the market, including such functionaries as employees of the local
municipalities. For example, Eric Hobsbawm's book The age of revolution: 1789–1848
(published 1962 and 2005), stated "Urban development in our period [1789–1848] was a gigantic
process of class segregation, which pushed the new labouring poor into great morasses of misery
outside the centres of government and business and the newly specialized residential areas of the
Think tanks such as the Overseas Development Institute have proposed policies that encourage
labor-intensive growth as a means of absorbing the influx of low-skilled and unskilled labor
(Grant, 2008). In many cases, the rural-urban low skilled or unskilled migrant workers, attracted
by economic opportunities in urban areas, cannot find a job and afford housing in cities and have
to dwell in slums (Benedictus, 2017). Urban problems, along with infrastructure developments,
are also fueling suburbanization trends in developing nations, though the trend for core cities in
said nations tends to continue to become ever denser. Living in cities permits individuals and
families to take advantage of the opportunities of proximity and diversity (Brand, 2009).
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
The existence of Urban heat islands has become a growing concern over the years. Vehicles,
factories and industrial and domestic heating and cooling units release even more heat (Glaeser,
1998). As a result, cities are often 1 to 3 °C (1.8 to 5.4 °F) warmer than surrounding landscapes
(Park, 1987). In July 2013 a report issued by the United Nations Department of Economic and
Social Affairs (Jiang et al., 2008) warned that with 2.4 billion more people by 2050, especially
in countries already facing food insecurity due to changing environmental conditions. The mix of
changing environmental conditions and the growing population of urban regions, according to
UN experts, will strain basic sanitation systems and health care, and potentially cause a
neighborhoods, and it means there can be less capacity for empathy and less development for all
In Africa and Asia countries of the world, urbanization does not translate into a significant
increase in life expectancy. Differences in mortality from contagious diseases vary depending on
Urban health levels are on average better in comparison to rural areas. However, residents in
poor urban areas such as slums and informal settlements suffer "disproportionately from disease,
injury, premature death, and the combination of ill-health and poverty entrenches disadvantage
over time (Allender et al., 2008)."Agriculturists have studied the effects on health of
urbanization and globalization. Fast food is often food of choice, which is causing a decline in
health (Food and Agriculture Organization 2004). Easier access to non-traditional foods may
lead to less healthy dietary patterns (Sridhar, 2007). In India the prevalence of diabetes in urban
areas appears to be more than twice as high as in rural areas (Bora, 2012). In general, major risk
factors for chronic diseases are more prevalent in urban environments (Davis et al., 1954).
FORMS OF URBANIZATION
Different forms of urbanization can be classified depending on the style of architecture and
activities and settlements around the downtown area, the so-called in-migration.
This has been possible because of improved communications, and has been caused by factors
such as the fear of crime and poor urban environments. When the residential area shifts outward,
A number of researchers and writers suggest that suburbanization has gone so far to form new
points of concentration outside the downtown both in developed and developing countries such
some emerging pattern of urbanization. Los Angeles is the best-known example of this type of
urbanization. Interestingly, in the United States, this process has reversed as of 2011, with "re-
urbanization" occurring as suburban flight due to chronically high transport costs (Overseas
Rural migrants are attracted by the possibilities that cities can offer, but often settle in shanty
towns and experience extreme poverty. The inability of countries to provide adequate housing
for these rural migrants is related to overurbanization, a phenomenon in which the rate of
urbanization grows more rapidly than the rate of economic development, leading to high
Urban Bias Theory states that the most global conflict is that between rural classes and urban
classes, with the rural dominated by poverty and low-cost potential advance; but the urban sector
contains most of the articulateness, organization and power; hence, the urban having upper hands
CONCLUSION
The level of urbanization growth is at geometrical level. The characteristics of urbanization
extremes, social heterogeneity, social distance, system of interaction and mobility. The causes of
urbanization include; western liberal, Marxist capitalist and ecological or self-generated. The
major factors of that favoured Urbanization after the industrial revolution, include, rural-urban
migration, push and pull factors, push factors and pull factors, The effects of urbanization
embraced, economic effect, environmental effects, health and social effects, forms of
urbanization and the conceptual theoretical framework is based on urban bias theory. It is
recommended that government should design policy that will prevent this migration of the grass
root masses. This will reduce if not elimination the state unemployment problem.
REFERENCES
3. Barney Cohen (2015). "Urbanization, City Growth, and the New United Nations Development
Agenda". Cornerstone, The Official Journal of the World Coal Industry. 3 (2). pp. 4–7.
4.Peter Turchin, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck. Moscow:
Trends. Moscow: URSS, 2006; Korotayev A. The World System urbanization dynamics. History
01002-0. P. 44-62
5.Abraham Eraly (2007), The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age , p. 5, Penguin
Books
6. Paolo Malanima (2009). Pre-Modern European Economy: One Thousand Years (10th-19th
9. Reba, Meredith; Reitsma, Femke; Seto, Karen C. (2007). "Spatializing 6,000 years of global
10. www.urban.yale.edu.
11. Fuller, Thomas (2012). "Thai Youth Seek a Fortune Away From the Farm". New York Times.
12. UNFPA. (2012)"Urbanization, gender and urban poverty: Paid work and unpaid care work in
the city".
Variable Approach for Classical Composers, Journal of Urban Economics, 73(1): 94–110
15. Benedictus, Leo (2017). "Blowing in the wind: why do so many cities have poor east ends?"
16. Grant, Ursula (2008) Opportunity and exploitation in urban labour markets London:
18. Glaeser, Edward (Spring 1998). "Are Cities Dying?” The Journal of Economic Perspectives.
19. Brand, Stewart (2009). "Whole Earth Discipline – annotated extract" Nowak, J. (1997).
"Neighborhood Initiative and the Regional Economy". Economic Development Quarterly. 11: 3–
20. doi:10.1177/089124249701100101.
22. Park, H.-S. (1987). Variations in the urban heat island intensity affected by geographical
environments. Environmental Research Center papers, no. 11. Ibaraki, Japan: Environmental
25. Jiang, Leiwen; Hoepf Young, Malea; Hardee, Karen (2008). "Population, Urbanization, And
26. World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) (2013) World Economic and Social Affairs.
July 2013.
27. Auber, Tamar (2013) "Climate change and rapid urban expansion in Africa threaten
28. Eckert S, Kohler S (2014). "Urbanization and health in developing countries: a systematic
PMID 24702762.
30. Allender S, Foster C, Hutchinson L, Arambepola C (2008). "Quantification of urbanization
31. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2004) Globalization of food systems in
developing countries: impact on food security and nutrition. FAO food and nutrition paper. 83.
Rome: ISBN 978-92-5-105228-0.
32. Sridhar, K. S. (2007). "Density gradients and their determinants: Evidence from India".
Doi:10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2006.11.001.
33. Bora, Madhusmita (2012). "Shifts in U.S. housing demand will likely lead to the re-
34. Davis, Kingsley; Hertz Golden, Hilda (1954). "Urbanization and the Development of Pre-
Industrial Areas". Economic Development and Cultural Change. 3 (1): 6–26. Doi:
10.1086/449673.
36. Overseas Development Institute. (2008) "Opportunity and exploitation in urban labour
markets".
37. Lovelace, E.H. (1965). "Control of urban expansion: the Lincoln, Nebraska experience".
Urban System.