I love to study people, and that's basically what sociology is.
Population and Environment in an Urbanizing World
by
Charles Lamson
The Growth of Cities
Cities became possible when agricultural populations began to produce enough extra food to support people who were not directly engaged in agriculture, such as priests, warriors, and artisans. Changes in the technology of food production made it possible for increasingly larger populations to be supported by the same number of agricultural workers. This has been a central factor in the evolution of cities, but as we will see shortly, the most dramatic increases in urban populations have occurred only in the past 200 years.
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| IMAGE 1 The Urban Revolution
The Urban Revolution The increasing tendency of people throughout the world to live in cities has been referred to as the urban revolution (see Image 1). The extent of this revolution can be grasped by comparing a few figures. In 1800, only 3% of the world's population of people lived in cities with populations of over 5,000, and of this proportion a mere 2.4% lived in cities with populations of over 20,000. Between 1800 and 1970, a period during which the world's population increased fourfold, the percentage of people living in cities with 5,000 or more inhabitants increased 11-fold, whereas that of people living in cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants increased almost 14-fold. By 1970, fully one-third of the world's population lived in cities (Gugler, 1997, Cities in the Developing World: Issues, Theory, and Policy; Vining, 1985, The Growth of Core Regions in the Third World. Scientific American, pp. 42-49). And today, according to the United Nations website at un.org, 55% of the world's population live in cities.
These data indicate not only that increasing percentages of the world's population are living in cities but also that the cities themselves are larger than ever before. The growth of cities in this century has given rise to the concept of the metropolitan area, in which a central city is surrounded by several smaller cities and suburbs that are closely related to it both socially and economically. Most people in the United States live in large metropolitan areas.
Large-scale urbanization is a relatively recent development in human history. As Kingsley Davis 1955 pointed out:
Compared to most other aspects of society such as language, religion, stratification, or the family---cities appeared only yesterday, and urbanization, meaning that a sizable proportion of the population lives in cities, has developed only in the last few moments of man's existence. (The Origin and Growth of Urbanization in the World. American Journal of Sociology, 60, p. 429)
Although there were a few cities as early as 4000 BC, such as Byblos, Lebanon (see Image 2, below) they were very small and were supported by large rural populations. The famous cities of ancient times were minuscule by modern standards: Babylon covered roughly 3.2 square miles, Ur some 220 Acres (Davis, 1955).
IMAGE 2 Byblos, Lebanon: Believed to Have First Been Occupied Between 8,800 and 7,000 BC (Yosef Garfink, 2004, Neolithic Revolution) and Continuously Inhabited since 5.000 BC (Michael Dumper, et al., 2006, Cities of the Middle East and North Africa) Making It One of the Oldest Cities in the World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byblos#cite_note-Britannica-3)
Pre-industrial cities like Ur and Nineveh, early Athens and Rome, and the ancient Mayan cities were vastly different from the cities we know today. They did not grow around a core of office buildings and retail outlets the way industrial cities do. Instead, they were built around temples or other ceremonial buildings (e.g., Notre Dame in Paris). Close by the temple one could find the palaces of the rulers and the courtyards of the royal families. Parade grounds in public shrines made the core of the ancient city a spacious place where the city's population could meet on special occasions. On the outskirts of these ancient cities one found not the rich, as in contemporary cities with well-developed transportation networks, but the poor, who lived in hovels and were often pushed from one location to another according to the whims of those with more wealth and power (Gugler, 1997; Sjoberg, 1968, The Preindustrial City. In S. Fava, Ed., Urbanism in World Perspective: A Reader).
A variety of factors limited the size of cities. Among them were farming methods that did not produce enough surplus food to feed many city dwellers, the lack of a sufficient means of transporting goods over long distances, inadequate technology for transporting water in great quantities, and the lack of scientific medicine. Not until about 1800 did large-scale urbanization become possible.
The speed with which organization has changed the size and layout of cities is remarkable: "before 1850 no society could be described as predominantly urbanized, and by 1900 only one---Great Britain---could be so regarded. Today . . . all industrial nations are highly urbanized, and in the world as a whole the process of urbanization is accelerating rapidly" (Davis, 1955, p. 33). Africa now has the fastest rate of urbanization (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-who-are-urbanizing-at-the-fastest-rate.html), and about 80% of the population of Latin America lives in urban areas (see below, Image 3)---a rate of urbanization comparable to that of North America and Europe (Adrienne Arsht, Feb. 5, 2014, Urbanization in Latin America. Atlantic Council).
IMAGE 3 Favela Da Rocinha, Brazil
Rapid urbanization occurring throughout the world brings together diverse groups of people in cities that often are not prepared to absorb them. The problems caused by such urbanization are immense. They include housing, educating, and caring for the health of newcomers; preventing gang violence and intergroup hatred; and many other difficult tasks. Moreover, as the world becomes ever more urbanized, populations become increasingly interdependent. Urban populations are supported, for example, by worldwide agricultural production, not just by the produce grown in the surrounding countryside. In the same way, the problems of one major city or one large urbanizing region can no longer be thought of as isolated from the problems of the older, more affluent urbanized regions.
Urban Societies Urbanization produces urban societies. By this we mean not only that cities are the cultural and institutional centers of a society but also that urban life has a pervasive influence on the entire society (Durkheim, 1964/1893, The Division of Labor in Society; Weber, 1962/1921, The City; Wirth, 1968/1938, Urbainsim as a Way of Life. In S. F. Fava, Ed., Urbanism in World Perspective). Today the United States is spanned by interstate highways that link the nation's rapidly growing urban and suburban places and carry traffic through rural areas at high speeds. Waterways, forests, hills, and valleys are channeled and cut and bulldozed to make way for expanding settlements. Once considered far from the urban scene, national parks and forests now receive millions of visitors from the metropolitan centers. And in an urban society more and more people, even those living in isolated rural communities, share in the mass culture of that society---the television and radio programs, the movies, the books and magazines, all of which stress themes that appeal to people who are familiar with metropolitan living. In an urban society not everyone lives in the cities, but no one can escape the pervasive influence of urban centers.
The concept of an urban society may become clear if we look at a society that has not become fully urbanized, such as India. Until the early Twentieth Century the rate of city growth in India was relatively slow. Urbanization is taking place at quite a rapid rate in India. Population residing in urban areas in India, according to a 1901 census, was 11.4%. This count increased to 28.53% according to 2001 census, and crossing 30% as per 2011 census, standing at 31.16% (see Figure 1).Yet India has not become an urban society. It remains, in the words of Noel P. Gist (1968), "a land of villagers". Because of persistently high birth rates and declining death rates in the villages, India's rural population is growing almost as fast as its Urban population. Moreover, although the growth of the cities has affected village life, especially through the efforts of city trained teachers, health officials, administrators, and storekeepers, it has had little effect on the social structure of rural India. Thus, as a whole, Indian society exhibits the extremes of rural isolation and urban dynamism, with all the chaos and poverty that are characteristic of societies undergoing major social change (World Bank, 1997).
 
IMAGE 4 India's Urbanization Not a Problem, But an Opportunity to Grow
Throughout the 20th century sociologists devoted considerable study to urbanization and the changes that accompany it (see Image 4). The ways in which the growth of cities and metropolitan regions alters the surface of the planet are part of the sociological study of urbanization. So are questions about how cities change our experience of community and our relationships with others. Finally, sociologists continue to focus on the changing patterns of inequality and conflict that occur in Metropolitan regions. The next post explores these issues in greater detail.
*MAIN SOURCE: SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., 2003, WILLIAM KORNBLUM, PP. 249-254*
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