urbanisation

Urbanization (or urbanization) refers to the increasing amount of people that live in urban areas. It predominantly results in the physical growth of urban areas, be it horizontal or vertical. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008.[1] By 2050 it is predicted that 64.1% and 85.9% of the developing and developed world respectively will be urbanized.[2]
Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can describe a specific condition at a set time, i.e. the proportion of total population or area in cities or towns, or the term can describe the increase of this proportion over time. So the term urbanization can represent the level of urban development relative to overall population, or it can represent the rate at which the urban proportion is increasing.
Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. The last major change in settlement patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many thousand years ago. Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate relationships, and communal behavior whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodlines, unfamiliar relations, and competitive behavior. This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify in the next few decades, mushrooming cities to sizes incomprehensible only a century ago. Indeed, today, in Asia the urban agglomerations of Dhaka,Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, Manila, Seoul and Beijing are each already home to over 20 million people, while the Pearl River Delta,Shanghai-Suzhou and Tokyo are forecast to approach or exceed 40 million people each within the coming decade. Outside Asia, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, New York City, Lagos and Cairo are fast approaching being, or are already, home to over 20 million people.
As cities develop, effects can include a dramatic increase and change in costs, often pricing the local working class out of the market, including such functionaries as employees of the local municipalities. Urbanization can be classified depending on the style of architecture and planning methods as well as historic growth of areas.
Urbanization occurs as individual, commercial, and governmental efforts reduce time and expense in commuting and transportation and improve opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation. Living in cities permits the advantages of the opportunities of proximity, diversity, and marketplace competition.

Urbanization means concentration of population leading to high density of population in big cities. As per the 2001 census, 285.4 million people live in urban areas. Urbanization is posing serious problems even in the advanced countries of the world. These problems are congestion, industrialization, environmental pollution, insanitation, lack of civic amenities, bottlenecks in free flow of traffic, etc.
The main reason for the growth of population in big cities is the migration of people from the villages to the cities in search of employment. Cities provide greater opportunities of employment, better living conditions and higher standard of living to the villagers. Cities also provide entertainment through the cinema, theatre, television, hotels, etc. Thus once a villager comes to the city, he never thinks of going back to his village.
Due to concentration of population, the big cities become the dens of crime and corruption. Take, for instance, U.S.A. In its big cities, a number of organized criminal gangs have come into existence.
Urbanization leads to shortage of houses in big cities. This shortage, in turn, pushes up the prices of land to astronomical heights.
The pressure of population in big cities also causes haphazard growth, setting up of unauthorized colonies by unscrupulous elements, mushroom growth of juggins and creation of slums.
Urbanization creates bottlenecks in the free flow of traffic. There is an unending stream of buses, trucks, tempos, scooters, motor cycles, cycles and pedestrians especially during the peak hours. Not only in metros but also in other cities, traffic jams have become a part of city life.
The Municipal authorities are not able to cope with the situation. Urbanization causes breakdown of civil services. The Municipal authorities are not in a position to provide clean drinking water to the entire population throughout the day. Supply of electricity to- the people gets disrupted every now and then. The drains are not cleaned regularly.
Urbanization leads to growth in demand but shortage of supply of various commodities. Traders exploit the situation of shortage and indulge in adulteration. No one can get pure milk or pure food in big cities. This adversely affects the health of the city dwellers.
The people in big cities lead a very fast and busy life. They suffer from hypertension, anxiety and fear. They hardly have any peace of mind.

Of course, urbanization has certain merits also. First, the big cities have a large number of schools and colleges for imparting education. By acquiring education, people in cities are able to gain knowledge and get gainful employment. Secondly, all big cities have well-equipped hospitals where people suffering from various diseases can go for diagnosis and treatment. Thirdly, the big cities provide a wide range of means of entertainment. Fourthly, the scientific and technological progress of a country depends on its big cities because these cities possess facilities for advanced research and development.
In short, while urbanization has some merits, it has also given rise to a number of problems. In fact, the government should give concessional loans for establishing labour intensive industries so that more people can get employment in rural areas itself. Better educational facilities should be provided so that people living in rural areas do not move to cities in order to take education. This will go a long way to stop the urbanization. If rural people are provided better living conditions like supply of fresh water, road connecting villages with cities, electricity, etc. then there is no reason why urbanization cannot be stopped. The Government is trying its best to develop satellite towns around metropolitan cities to avoid congestion and pollution in the big cities.