Envio Facts 2001, Girardet 1996

The negative effects of urbanisation outweigh the positive. To what extent do you agree with this statement? About urbanisation, maybe different academic circles have different perceive, they depends their specialized characteristics to definition. But in general condition, urbanisation likely the increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities. And the definition of urbanisation is ‘Urbanisation is the process by which large numbers of people become permanently concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities. Internal rural to urban migration means that people move from rural areas to urban areas.’ (Long1998) ‘In this procedure, numbers of people augment in cities than in countryside. If the population growth in cities more than village, the natural increase of urbanisation will be happen.

However this condition is infrequence. When more than 50% of population lives in the country, it will be regard to urbanized.’ (Long1998). Greatest urbanisation occurs in developing nations. As Anthony and Overman(2005) points out that ‘Rapid urbanisation is a major feature of developing countries. Some 2 billion more people are likely to become city residents in the next 30 years, yet urbanisation has received little attention in the modern development economics literature.’ This essay will explain why negative effects of urbanisation outweigh the positive, and attempt to propose some reason which can support this viewpoint.

Urbanisation has a long history, and began with the industrial revolution. A study by Potter and Lloyd-Evan (1998:PP.3-11) indicate that ‘In history, Industrialization and urbanisation happened together, but the relation has lasted for 600 years, since the first town appeared, has a radically change over the past four decades.’ ‘In the 19th and early 20th centuries, urban growth was occurring mainly in the developed nations. The reason for this was the spread of industrialization and the associated rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels. These days the urbanization is much faster than those days and it is most rapid in the Third World countries. Today the largest and fastest growing cities are in developing countries, of the new urban-industrial development (Envio Facts 2001, Girardet 1996).

‘People living in the country often see the city as a more desirable place to live, whether they are living in developing or developing countries.’ Lynch (2004:134) ‘Migration to cities is commonplace, particularly in places where traditional rural lifestyles are changing rapidly, and where population growth, changes inland tenure and pulls people off the land.’ Girardet (1999) But why people migrate from rural areas to cities? There are two kinds of reasons maybe can explain that why rural people explore for city life. The first factor is urban pull factor. The people who live in the country are dreamed for higher wages, better housing, public services and facilities, better school and hospital, more jobs opportunity, and more experience when they live in big city.

The second one is urban push factor. It is true that most of country man is farmers, without higher level of education, availability of media, or facilities that they need. Then they might be stimulated to move to urban areas, because of city has better health care, education facilities, higher standard of living, transports and communication systems. ‘Development also pulls people into cities. As they grow, their impact on adjacent rural communities increases as new urban employment opportunities and the expansion of transport and communications systems attract people from outlying areas.’(Satterthwaite 1996)

With people migrate in urban area, it will have many impacts, urbanisation brings with it several consequences both adverse and beneficial. They impact on social and environmental areas. Some impacts are common to both developing and developed countries, but some are more specific to developed nations, because there are facts of people who hope to migrate to the town. As result of urbanisation, cities have more problems to overcome such as pollution, overpopulation, congestion, crime, and so on. One of biggest problem is overpopulation, it appear in developing country and developed country, but in developing country, overpopulation problem is more serious, China is a developing country with the biggest population in the world. Nowadays, the urbanization in China is growing rapid ‘Some 300 million people –a quarter of China’s population will be moving to cities, converting from peasant farming and craft-based living to urban-industrial lifestyles.’ Girardet (1999) Firstly, China have to tackle the problem of the shortage of space, the land in China is limited.

More people means smaller share of space for individual. Especially cities will become more crowded. Secondly, abundant of food and materials are needed to feed, warm and shelter this large population, so many resources are used up at a shocking speed, and China’s ecological environment is worsening. As a result, people’s life quality will be negatively affected. moreover, since so many people are struggling for the limited chances to receive the higher education and for the limited jobs, some people will certainly be kept out of the colleges or become unemployed, which may bring forth illiterates or semi-literates among the younger generation or cause the financial problem to some families. Besides feeding and educating, a good management of such a big population may become very difficult. On the other hand, overpopulation also will cause crime rate rising. A lot of people from the countryside pour into city, it will make job, food and house shortage, some people can not find job and no house to live, in order to survive, they had to choose the way of crime.

Unemployment and poverty force people into anti-social activities, it will become a breeding ground for criminal activities. ‘As the city life pulls in all sorts of people, and allows for all sorts of activities to flourish, criminals, too, find their share of opportunities here.’(Charlie2012) Of course, rising levels of pollution is also worth to attention. Urbanisation brings problem of global warming, moreover it also causes air population and water issues problems. Increasing number of residences and high-rise apartments and industries, makes temperature increases drastically. Factories and automobiles are symbols of urbanization. Because of the harmful emissions of gases and smoke from factories and vehicles, they can make air population. Urbanization need built more factories, dumping of sewage from factories in water bodies, water pollution occurs which can lead to outbreaks of epidemics. ‘Huge cities create enormous amounts of waste, and the urban lifestyle includes creation of waste that is mostly non-biodegradable, thanks to the generous use of plastic wares.

This leads to an unprecedented increase in the garbage that stays in our landfills, polluting the soil for years to come.’ (Charlie2012) Urbanization is often viewed as a negative trend, but there are also has some positives include convenience and improvements in economy. People can access to education, health, social services and cultural activities in cities easy than in country, and cities are much more advanced, sophisticated and comfortable, and also have advanced communication and transport networks, these infrastructure provides people with convenient. In addition, many of people into the city can built town and improve the economic, then the living standards will be better and many productions that people cannot afford in the past time can be owned in today. Although urbanisation has some positive effect, the negative effect is more impotent and serious.

Urbanisation also course many problems in rural areas, ‘It is a fact that people move to city create depopulation of countryside and a second consequence or result of this, is reduce in food production and in the provide of food to the country as a whole. This is turn can also lead to a rise in pieces because of the law of supply and demand.’ Lynch (2004:134)

In the conclusion, Urbanization happens because of the increase in the extent and density of urban areas, and always occurred with industrialization, people live the countryside to the city that wants a better life. There are many negative effects of urbanisation on cities and on rural areas, and some positive effects on cities. ‘It is obvious that negative effects outweigh positive effects. Between 1960 and 2025, a period of some 75 years, the overall level of world urbanisation will have increased from 29 to 61 per cent.’ Potter and Lloyd-Evans (1998 pp.3-11) Government should do their best to make a good plan to urbanisation and improving the environment pollution, also need help the people who can not find the job and house.

References

Lynch, T. (2004) Study Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Girardet, H.(1999) Creating sustainable cities. Bristol: The Schumacher Society Potter, R.B and Lloyd-Evans, S.(1998)The city in the developing world. Harlow: Pearson Education Charlie, S. (10/11/2012) Challenges of urbanization.[online].Available from: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/challenges-of-urbanization.html H.G. Overman and A . J.Venables. (Dec 2005) Cities in the developing world.[online]. Available from: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/research/Researchpapers/102%20overman.pdf