Chapter Summary

A rural area is one in which a majority of residents are supported by methods of harvesting natural resources. An urban area is one in which a majority of residents are supported by manufacturing, commerce, or services. A village is a rural community. A city is an urban community with sufficient size and complexity to support economic specialization and to require a higher level of organization and opportunity than is found in a village.

Urbanization in the United States over the past 200 years has caused a dramatic demographic change. A similar shift is now occurring in most parts of the world. Only Africa and South Asia remain predominantly rural, but cities are growing rapidly there as well. In 2000, for the first time in history, more than half the world’s people lived in urban areas. Most future urban growth in the next century will be in the supercities of the Third World. A century ago only 13 cities had populations above 1 million; now there are 235 such cities. By 2050 that number will probably double again, and three-fourths of those cities will be in the Third World.

Cities grow by natural increase (births) and migration. People move into the city because they are “pushed” out of rural areas or because they are “pulled” in by the advantages and opportunities of the city. Huge, rapidly growing cities in the developing world often have appalling environmental conditions. Among the worst problems faced in these cities are traffic congestion, air pollution, inadequate or nonexistent sewers and waste disposal systems, water pollution, and housing shortages. Millions of people live in slums and shantytowns where conditions are frightful, yet these people raise families, educate their children, learn new jobs and new ways of living, and have hope for the future.

The problems of developed world cities tend to be associated with urban sprawl around the outskirts and decay and blight in the core. Unlimited expansion into rural areas, leapfrog development, and lack of coordinated land-use planning lead to loss of farmlands and open space, traffic congestion, air and water pollution, and numbingly uniform housing tracts and shopping centers. Sprawl also requires local government to spend millions of dollars to replace roads, sewers, water lines, schools, parks, power grids, and other infrastructure being abandoned in the inner city. Still, there are ways that we can improve cities in both the developed and the developing world to make them healthier, safer, and more environmentally sound, socially just, and culturally fulfilling than they are now. Smart growth, garden cities, new traditionalist urban movements, and conservation development are among the ideas advanced for improving our cities. Curitiba, Brazil, is an encouraging example of how these principles can be applied in the developing world.