WORLD URBANISATION

URBANIZATION
Urbanization is the transformation of a society from rural life to life in towns and cities. Employment is transformed from agriculture and cottage industry to mass production and services. Urbanization can occur once a society begins to be able to feed itself with a smaller percentage of the working popula- tion. This reduction in the percentage of workers in agriculture can arise from trade with others and/or from increases in productivity in agriculture. Many argue that urbanization is the inevitable outcome of economic development as workers become more specialized in craft and service occupations. As we shall see, urban areas provide economies of agglom- eration. Economies of agglomeration can simply consist of economies of scale in the production of a product. For example, an early source of urban- ization was the production of textiles in factories, which could be accomplished far more cheaply than by handicraft (i.e., spinning wheels and hand looms). Large-scale production, coupled with declining transportation costs in the 19th century, meant that people began to wear store-bought clothing. Other agglomeration economies are more subtle. The concentration of production of a partic- ular product in a city can mean that specialized labor markets, equipment markets, and public in- frastructure and educational opportunities can exist so that a city can develop a clear comparative advantage. In addition, a city can provide basic transportation and other forms of infrastructure that can serve many types of industries.

THE URBANIZING WORLD

The world is becoming urbanized. The United Nations reports that 29.1% of the world population of 2.54 billion was urban in 1950, and that 48.6% of the population of 6.51 billion lived in urban areas in 2005.2 This means that 739 million people lived in urbanized areas in 1950, and that this number had grown to 3.16 billion in 2005more thanfour times the number of people. The present data on world urbanization since 1950, the base year for the comprehensive urban population data base that is main- tained by the United Nations. In 1950 two regions of the world (Europe and North America) were far along in completing the process of urbanization, but most of the rest of the world had much lower levels of urbanization

THE MAJOR URBAN AREAS OF THE WORLD

no doubt. Tokyo had a population of 34.4 millionin2000(upto35.7millionin2007).If the UN guresareaccurate,Tokyoisalmosttwiceasl argeas the next-largest urban area, which was New York at 17.8 million. By the way, New York has already lost second place to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Mexico City and Mumbai (formerly Bombay) are gaining rapidly and will almost surely overtake New York. The UN data for 2007 show that the population of New York had increased to 19.0 million, but that Sao Paulo had increased from 17.1 million to 19.8 million. The population of Mexico City also reached 19.0 million in 2007, and Mumbai was a close fourth with 18.9 million. By the time you are reading this book, New York will have dropped to fourth place in the world rankings.

WORLD URBANISATION
The urban population (UN, 1993) was estimated to be 2.96 billion (table 1) in 2000 and 3.77 in 2010 . It was estimated that nearly 50 million people are added to the world's urban population and about 35 million to the rural population each year. The share of world's population living in urban centers has increased from 39% in 1980 to 48% in 2000. The developed countries have higher urbanization level (76% in 2000) compared with developing countries (40% in 2000) The urbanization level has almost stabilized in developed countries. Africa and Asian countries are in the process of urbanization.

Table 2.2 lists the top ten urban areas in the world in 1950 and 2000. These rankings are fun to examine, but they also illustrate a serious point. The urbanization of the more recently developing part of the world (primarily Latin America, India, and china) has changed the list substantially. Four of the top ten urban areas from 1950 in Europe and North America are no longer on the list (London, Paris, Moscow, and Chicago). These have been replaced by urban areas in Latin America and India (Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Delhi).

SOME LEADING WORLD METROPOLITAN AREAS

Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world and the economic and political capital of the worlds second-largest economy. It has experienced enormous growth since the end of World War II as the Japanese economy boomed, but we will also see that the growth of Tokyo slowed down during Japans lost decade of the 1990s. London is the financial capital of Europe and, along with Tokyo and New York, one of the financial capitals of the world. Mumbai (formerly Bombay) is the leading urban area in India, a nation that is undergoing rapid economic development. Its growth perhaps can be called explosive. Toronto is the leading urban area in Canada, and it grew rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. And, to quote Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), well always have Paris.