Industrial growth in the united states has most directly contributed to the process of —

Confusing Urban Population Growth and Urbanization

Urbanization is often treated as equivalent to urban population growth. Thus the Wikipedia definition of urbanization at the time of writing this (18 January 2013) states that: “Urbanization refers to the increasing number of people that live in urban areas.” However, only about half of estimated global urban population growth can be ascribed to the increasing share of the population that is urban (i.e., to urbanization), the other half being the result of natural population growth. Thus, the world's population between 2000 and 2010 is estimated to have grown at 1.2% per annum, and the urbanization level is estimated to have been growing at 1.0% per annum, and the urban population growth rate has been 2.3.

Urbanization as Process

Urbanization is a process during which the industrial structure becomes increasingly oriented around secondary and the tertiary industries instead of primary industries. In this sense, urbanization also involves changes in the working population from agricultural to nonrural industrial and service occupations as well as changes in thinking patterns, lifestyle, behavior models, values, and culture. In material terms, urbanization often involves the development of modern urban infrastructure and public service facilities that cater for these changing economic and social circumstances. For this reason, urbanization is a complex and multifaceted process involving population migration from rural to urban areas, rural and urban land conversions, spatial reconfiguration of settlements, and changing governance and management. Generally, processes of urbanization can be summarized in four aspects:

Urbanization involves a complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes that result in an increase in the proportion of the population of a territory that lives in towns and cities, an increased concentration of population in the larger settlements of the territory, and an increasing density of population within urban settlements. At the international scale, levels of urbanization are closely correlated with levels of economic development, while rates of urbanization are inversely correlated with levels of economic development. Demographic processes of immigration and migration, as well as natural population growth, are important determinants of urbanization, but these are in turn underpinned by other processes, especially structural economic change. In detail, patterns of urbanization are the outcome of the interaction of these processes, which are themselves influenced by the feedback effects that stem from the changing attributes of urban systems, urban ecology, and urban political economy.

Counterurbanization as Process

As process, counterurbanization (or what is sometimes called “counterurbanizing”) is the transformation of a settlement system or urban region from a concentrated (urban) to more deconcentrated (counterurban) state (Fig. 1). In a settlement system, it occurs when an inverse relationship exists between the size of a settlement area (e.g., a county, parish, or community) and population growth—a scenario resulting from higher levels of net migration and/or net natural increase in smaller settlement areas. Brian Berry first documented this process in North America, when he observed that between 1970 and 1974, growth was higher in American nonmetropolitan than metropolitan counties—a situation attributed to outmigration from the nation's largest settlement areas. Similar periodic population turnarounds were subsequently observed in many parts of the developed world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and various European countries (e.g., United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Hungary).

Other scholars suggest that counterurbanization is occurring in a settlement system when a reversal is observed in the relationship between settlement area size and net migration. In Geyer and Kontuly's original neoclassical differential urbanization model, counterurbanization is one of three dominant stages that contribute to development of a rigid hierarchical network of large (primate), intermediate, and small cities. Urbanization, the first stage, is described as a positive relationship between net migration and settlement size. It is followed by a second stage of polarization reversal, which sees lower levels of net migration in primate cities and higher levels in intermediate-sized centers of the urban hierarchy, reflecting a parabolic or leptokurtic relationship. The third stage is counterurbanization, defined as a negative relationship between settlement size and net migration. This progression, from urbanization to polarization reversal to counterurbanization, is presented as a cyclical process of population concentration and deconcentration, which, in theory, will result in a rigid hierarchical structure as the urban system moves toward a long-run equilibrium state.

As a negative relationship between settlement size and migration, counterurbanization has been identified periodically in many national and subnational settlement systems, often reflecting the downstream movement of particular ethnic and demographic groups. It has been recorded in many advanced states (e.g., United States, Sweden, former West Germany, France, Denmark, and Norway) and several emerging nations. In some transitioning places it has dominated briefly (e.g., in Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso), and in others it has been a substream event (e.g., South Africa). This relationship has not yet emerged in many South American, Asian, and African systems, but polarization reversal is widespread here, suggesting that urbanization is no longer the dominant trend, and that counterurbanization may occur in the future.

Counterurbanization is also interpreted by others as a stage in the transformation of an urban region. Urbanization, the first stage, accompanies the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society and sees growth concentrated in urban cores. During suburbanization, the second stage, growth occurs beyond the urban core, at the expense of the core's population. The third stage, counterurbanization (sometimes called deurbanization, des-urbanization, or peri-urbanization) is growth of outlying areas beyond the built-up suburban ring and is accompanied by population decline in the core and its suburbs. Reurbanization, the final stage, is growth of the urban core, driven by the inward movement of both counterurbanite and suburbanite populations. Many metropolitan regions have experienced a counterurbanization period, particularly in advanced economies. In some British, German, French, and Danish cities it has followed suburbanization, but in Sweden it has occurred simultaneously with reurbanization. Counterurbanization around urban centers is not as widespread in regions of Japan or India. In the National Capital Region Delhi, for example, insufficient infrastructure restricts outward movements. Here, reurbanization, rather than counterurbanization, has followed the suburbanization phase.

Abstract

Planetary urbanization refers to a body of research focused on questions of extensive urbanization at the world scale. The notion of planetary urbanization is inspired by theses on the complete urbanization of society dating back decades but the perspective consolidated in the early 21st century in response to growing academic and policy concerns with world urbanization. Planetary urbanization has spearheaded a heated debate, which includes the long-standing question whether political economy excludes other concerns in critical urban studies such as race studies, feminist, and queer geography. Planetary urbanization is still evolving, and it can only be assessed provisionally. The approach could benefit from further contributions centered on the coproduction of urban knowledge.

Abstract

Urbanization in Africa has become somewhat differentiated from the processes experienced elsewhere, particularly in Asian countries. Global market forces caused some deindustrialization in sub-Saharan Africa and urban economies weakened in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Urban incomes declined in real terms, presenting major challenges to policy makers. In a range of countries, the rate of growth in levels of urbanization slowed as net in-migration rates fell as urban economic opportunities became less attractive. GDP growth rates have since strengthened largely due to natural resource-based developments. The impact of these on urbanization is very variable between and within countries.

Land-Based Accumulation

Urbanization entails urban population increase but it also gets facilitated by the horizontal expansion of cities. In China, this equates to the territorial expansion that brings more land resources under the control of urban governments. For critics such as You-tien Hsing (2010), urbanization is synonymous with local state's territorial expansion, the process of which is summarized as ‘urbanization of the local state’:

Local state leaders seek to legitimize themselves as urban promoters and builders, and urban agendas dominate local development policy, while local politics predominantly revolves around farmland conversion and industrial or commercial development projects. Urban construction has therefore expanded from an accumulation project to a territorial project of local state building. Urban modernity, now captures the political imagination of local state leaders. I call this dynamic the ‘urbanization of the local state.’

Hsing, 2010: p. 6

The control of urban land resources has become vital for Chinese cities' development, as the land reserves are the major sources of financing investments. Chinese local governments are known for their pursuit of land-based revenues, a practice that has gained importance throughout the 2000s in particular along with increased land commodification (Lin et al., 2014). With the reform of taxation system and decentralization, local governments are to retain a certain share of budgetary revenues, while extrabudgetary revenues raised locally are kept in the hands of local governments without having to be transferred to the central government. Land-related revenues such as land use premium and administrative fees upon land-use transaction constitute a substantial share of extrabudgetary revenues. Land-related revenues may also include loans borrowed by local government investment arms with the use of land as collateral (Ding, 2005). It is estimated that “These loans plus the revenue generated from conveyance fees accounted for 40 to 50 percent of the Hangzhou municipal government budget in 2002. In turn these revenues were used to fund more than two-thirds of the city's investments in infrastructure and urban services” (Ding, 2005). A recent study on Guangzhou suggests that the municipality's land conveyance income accounted for “about 20–25% of the total fiscal revenue” (Lin et al., 2014: p. 13) in the 2000s and “contributed 40–60% of the total urban fixed capital construction fund” (Lin et al., 2014: p. 14). China's dualist structure of land-ownership places the ownership of urban lands in the hands of the state (hence state-ownership of urban lands), while rural lands are owned by rural collectives. This provides monopoly control of land resources for local governments as de facto landlords (Shin, 2009), whose power of land administration has been delegated by the central government.

The utilization of land resources therefore becomes an important avenue of revenue maximization for local governments that strive to address the need of development, especially in the context of China's macroeconomic growth that depends heavily on investment in fixed assets (Shin, 2014a: pp. 505–507). The utilization of land resources may happen in four ways. First, urban governments may strive to gain their control over existing urban space that used to be occupied and controlled by what You-tien Hsing (2010) referred to as ‘socialist landmasters,’ that is, government institutions, state-owned enterprises, and militaries, which often make claims on the use rights of lands they occupied for years. They would do so in order to generate land revenues for their own benefits. Second, rural lands that used to lie outside the urban government control are subject to reclassification as urban lands through administrative boundary adjustments so that rural counties merge with neighboring municipalities. Third, the designation of development zones in rural counties bring greater opportunities for urban governments to raise more land-related revenues, as the strategic insertion of excluded landscapes boost the exchange value of land use rights (Wu and Phelps, 2011). Fourth and finally, existing urban spaces may be subject to revalorization through redevelopment in order to put them into a higher and better use (Shin, 2009). This process will involve expropriation of various fragmented property rights as well as the sorting of existing residents and businesses.

Abstract

Peri-urbanization—the process by which urbanization draws into the orbit of urban cores even distant hinterlands so that they assume ever more physical, economic, social, and cultural characteristics normally associated with cities—is one of the most commonly studied processes within scholarship on urbanization in the Global South. Increasingly, Global South urbanization and peri-urbanization are being driven by globalization and the incorporation of the Global South into the global economy, not least through the workings of finance capitalism. But this incorporation is uneven; there are winners and losers. This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of globalization, the global circulation of finance capital, and uneven peri-urban development in the Global South and draws attention to the different consequences of peri-urbanization for different cities and communities.

5 Conclusion

Urbanization is still an ongoing process in many parts of the world resulting in environmental challenges and decreased quality of life for the ever-growing global urban population. Focusing on adaptation of current building practices to decrease the negative impact on urban heat and stormwater runoff is crucial. This involves integration of more soft pervious surfaces that reflect incoming radiation and that can contribute to continued evapotranspiration. The effects of changed building practices are certain and they will decrease the negative effects of urbanization. Additional work is required to mitigate the more uncertain effects of a future changing climate.

The Effects of Urbanization on Agricultural Land Use

Urbanization has a variety of impacts on agricultural land use that combine to threaten the viability of the agricultural industry and the natural-resource base. Urbanization influences agricultural land use most directly by converting agricultural land to urban uses: a permanent, irreversible consequence. Indirectly, urbanization influences agricultural land use through changes in the economic environment of urban fringe areas. As the demand for land in the urban fringe grows, the pressure on land prices to reflect urban values, rather than farm-use values, increases. When farmers and rural landowners can receive more money by selling land for uses other than farming, they can no longer economically justify keeping the land for farm use. Alternatively, there may be abandoned farms, idled lands, or financial problems for those who continue to farm. As urban and suburban residents move into agricultural areas, conflicts inevitably arise which may threaten or restrict farm operations, such as nuisance complaints, vandalism, trespassing, and robbery. Urban encroachment onto farmland may also cause changes in farmers' status in their communities, increase land speculation, taxation, and demand for public services, and result in an increase in nonfarm ownership of land. Farmers facing these effects may respond by selling the land, intensifying production, or reducing investments in the farm operation.