Characteristic Of Urbanization

Compare and contrast the main characteristics of the urbanization process in the First and Third World

Introduction

Observing the expansion of cities, development of central business district as the core of a city and huge population migrating into more-developed urban area, we can deduce that we have been under the influence of urbanization. Urbanization—known as the major trend after the 18th century’s Industrial Revolution— basically refers to the rise in proportion of the total population living in urban areas (Pacione, Michael, 2009). Under globalization, boundaries of countries being blurrier, the process of urbanization seems to be inevitable, whilst proceeding differently in First and Third World countries. And so, in this essay,

in the pre-industrial period, there are over 80% of the population living in rural areas(E J Hobsbawm, 1999). With the advent of the revolution in the 18th century, small-scale economic activities and agriculture industry was transited into intense manufacturing industrial processes, restructuring the body of the society. Starting in Britain, thanks to the improvement of farming technology like irrigation system and invention of stem train etc., there was a surplus in domestic farm production, which then led to commercialization of agricultural industry. (history.com: industrial revolution) Besides, the transportation network became accessible, hence facilitating people’s travel from rural areas to the city to sell their crops and find other jobs with higher salaries. That then led to the influx of rural citizens to the more developed urban areas, resulting in urbanization in form of the rural-to-urban migration. It is noted that the London city has expanded, from the population of 2 million in 1840 surging to 5 million in 1880 (E J Hobsbawm, 1999), and the industrialization hence urbanization in the western European countries gradually spread to North America and the third world countries. This best exemplify the correlation, that the 18th century Industrial Revolution acted as a vital pushing force, leading the world towards urbanization. However, to be specific, there was already an apparent difference between First Worlds and Third Worlds at

Or I could say, there were no countries or towns which were urbanized individually by their own establishment/ external forces, namely colonization. Taking the county Africa as an example, diverse urban characteristics encompassing indigenous features as well as urban structures being akin to its colonizers—European countries (Pacione, Michael, 2009). On one hand, exhibiting itself as in indigenous city, there were traditional skills like pottery-making and gold-mining etc. On the other hand, demonstrating itself as a colonial city, there were new cities established and even principally for Europeans. Additionally, there were also strong centralized political system being implemented, resulting in certain degree of exploitation. For example, Africa had to export their crops e.g. cotton or coffee beans to their colonizers. Besides, poor urban planning was resulted, such as lacking public buildings and irregular street