Urbanization, industrialization and development are concomitant processes. It is difficult to say what exactly is the cause of what. The changes are symmetrical. Agricultural society was a village society. Industrialization caused urbanization by providing better opportunities to work in the urban areas. Better employment situation, better wages and charm of city life attracted people to move towards cities and urbanization started. This is the reason why more developed countries which started urbanizing in 19th century are the most urbanized countries today. Less developed countries most of which were colonies of the developed countries did not experience industrialization and remained less urbanized. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century when they became independent, that they started building the infrastructure, providing various services to their population and developing industry. Then they started urbanizing. Several of their cities have now developed as business, service and administrative cities. On the other hand, cities too promote development and industrialization. The reasons are associated with high density of population, economy of scale, culture that promotes creativity and innovation and makes the individual free from traditional institutions, provides greater participation in global processes, better transportation and communication facilities, better infrastructure and conditions that promote need for achievement.
Yet, there is a huge difference between urbanization and development. Urbanization is quintessentially a demographic phenomenon while development is an economic phenomenon. Urbanization is a process of population concentration. When people move from rural areas, where density of population is lower, to urban areas, where density of population is higher, urbanization takes place. Looked at from this perspective when wanderers and food gatherers developed settled agriculture and started living in villages urbanization started. Gradual increase in the size of village/habitation led to more urbanization. In the developing countries where urbanization is occurring quite fast this is because people are moving from rural areas to urban areas, and also from smaller urban areas to big cities. On the other hand, development requires huge investments and improvement in productivity. |