Characteristics Of Urbanization

Development is an inevitable process in all human culture. Urbanization is also a kind of development, which can be measured by population density, specialized economic activities, and urban infrastructure etc.Pacione(2009)defined it as an increase in the proportion of the total population that lives in the urban area. The process may vary in the First and Second World.
In this essay, we will discuss some major characteristics of urbanization process of the First World and Third World. Although Tomlinson(2003) pointed out that There is not a single clear definition of the "Third world", Pacione(2009) divided the definition of ' third world' into two senses, politically that refer to the countries not being the members of Soviet Union and

The rural land use is about the land for agricultural activities while urban land use is about the land for the residential area and commercial area etc.In the First World, the urban and rural area can be distinguished easily. The governments of the First World usually have a set of clear definition towards the land use, although they may not be the same. The definition and the measuring method of the rural and urban area are generally objective. In the U.S. a set of socioeconomic indicators, for example, education, population, and poverty, are used to differentiate the land use, according to the United States Department of Agricultural Economic Research Service. The boundary of the rural and urban area is clear.The clear cut of the rural and urban area can be seen in both the First and Third World. However, there may not be the clear cut in the Third World sometimes.In the Third Wold, there is the presence of Desakota, which literally means village and town in Indonesian. Xie, Batty and Zhao(2007)said that this is a combination of agricultural and non-agricultural land use, that we cannot see it as urban or rural area. Desakota is about both the agricultural and commercial development in the agricultural landscape. Although there is the concept of the suburb, it is just referring to the residential area outside the urban area and the other land use can be rarely seen in

An urban core is the city center with the highest accessibility. In the First World, the city model is centered with the CBDs, as shown in the above city model. The other land uses are developed along the CBDs.The high accessibility is favorable to the commercial activities. There is only one urban core in the First World. Although the cities in the Third World also developed centered with the urban core, there can be more than one urban core in the city. Pacione (2009) analyzed that in some Middle East and North Africa cities, they formed Islamic city, which is they major religion. The Friday Mosque and the local mosques in the city form another urban core, together with the bazaar usually next to them, apart from the urban core with the highest accessibility. People are attracted to go the bazaar-based urban core for not only the religious reasons but also the highly intensive commercial and residential characteristics of it. The other land uses are also developed along the several urban cores. Therefore, we can see that there can multiple urban cores in the Third World but not the First World.

In conclusion, we can see the similarities of urbanization process in both the First World and Third World. However, the major difference between them is that there is more influence of colonization and their own culture in the urbanization in the Third World; while the urbanization process