THE PROCESS OF  URBANIZATION AND ITS CAUSES.

    DR. Sujit Narayan Chattopadhyay

                      &

     Surjasnata Chattopadhyay

Regarding Urbanization:-

By definition urbanization refers to the process by which rural areas become urbanized as a result of economic development and industrialization. Demographically this word urbanization denotes the redistribution of population from rural to urban settlement over a period of time.

There are number of theories which have tried to explain the occurrence of urbanization. There are some authors like Childe or Harvey etc. who emphasized on the process of self-generated and endogenous urbanization. But in late eighteenth Century we have witnessed the rise of urban sectors in Great Britain through the wake of industrial capitalism. In a demographic sense, this theory focuses on the rural-urban population shift as the foundation of urbanization, but it identifies industrialization as he basic driver behind the movement of rural population to urban areas for factory work.

Before industrialization in the Great Britain, no society could be described as urban or urbanized. All countries primarily in West, that began to industrialize rapidly after Great Britain became highly urbanized by the mid-twentieth century which was followed by accelerated industrialization and then urbanization. 

What are the basic causes of Urbanization?

Among others, following four causes are important, which have led to the growing of Cities.

1.      Industrialization is one of the basic cause of urbanization. Industrialization at the initial stage expanded the employment opportunities to both skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled labour. Rural people started migrating from their native place to the cities in search of better employment and income opportunities.

2.      Social Factor also played a major role for attacking the rural people to the cities. The rural people were attracted to come to the cities for better standard of living, better educational facilities. They, in fact, wanted to raise the status of their life pattern and status of family.

3.      In rural sector people generally lived on agriculture, and they carried out a traditional family life pattern. Indian agriculture is heavily depending on monsoon. Apart from that the village cultivators also suffer during the time of drought situation or any other natural calamities. These naturally provoke the rural people to migrate to the cities.

4.      Urbanization is characterized by sophisticated technology better infrastructure, communication medical facilities etc. People feel that they can lead a comfortable life in cities and migrate to cities.

How rural community is absorbing the urban characteristics, and what are the consequences of this transformation on rural culture?

It is an important aspect that with the growing urbanization, the rural society is transforming its internal aboriginal pattern of life and other social tradition. Thus the interesting aspect of urbanization is that the cities are not only increasing in number in view of growing industrialization, but the rural community is also keen to adopt the urban culture, partially leaving out their unique aboriginal tradition of rural culture. As a consequence of their urban proximity, they start to follow the material culture of urban people, leaving their own traditional social character and own-ness. Here briefly we can discuss the consequences of Urbanization on the Rural with help of the available information.

The impact of urbanization can be taken into account with the help of many variables. Generally the person whose geographical or locational proximity with the  cities is firmly established, whether he or she may reside in cities or the hinterland , the effect of economic political or occupational organisation fall on him or her family more convincingly. Even he enjoy the benefit of taking the advantage of health, educational or general welfare provided by the state or by any individual initiative or entrepreneurship. In spite of this, it must also be kept in mind, that the social and cultural system of urban and rural societies differ and that these differences invariably have a direct or indirect bearing on the interaction between a city and its hinterland.

Initially, the impact of urbanization on the rural society, can be seen as societies become increasingly urbanized, the social emphasis is placed on achievement rather than on ascription. There are number of aspects where urbanization has brought about many changes in the life of its dwellers. Some of them are physical, social, psychological and cultural aspects.

I) Physical Aspects: - Industrialization has resulted in an increase in urban population which creates further pressure on urban land. As a result there is dearth of space, and consequently congestion and overcrowding occur. The situation may go to that extent where municipality finds difficult to provide the basic amenities to the migrated as well as existing population. The amenities include consumer goods (food and water) shelter and protection from infectious disease. Another consequence of an increase in population is the imbalance created between demand and supply of goods and commodities. The prices rise exorbitantly due to inflation and lack of adequate supply.

II) Social Aspects: - Increasing number of inhabitants in a settlement beyond a certain limit affect the relationship between them and character of the city. The greater the number of individuals participating in a process of interaction, the greater is the potential of differentiation between them whereby the personal trails, the occupation, the cultural life and the ideas, and belief and values get widely separated. These variations give rise to the spatial segregation of individuals. The bonds of kinship, neighborliness and sentiments of living together for generations are absent among these people due to such diverse origin and background. In such circumstances, competition and formal control mechanism substitute for the bonds of solidarity that hold a folk or a village society together. Another important outcome of an increase in population and the consequent increase in density is that personal mutual acquaintanceship between inhabitants, which ordinarily involve an increase in a neighborhood feeling, is lacking. Thus, the increase in number involves changed the character of the social relationship, the absence of anonymity and segmentalization of human relationship.

The high mobility in the urban life enables an individuals to assume diverse roes. This in turns leads to instability and insecurity in the society at large. The city dweller thus in a transitory habitat, does not generate binding tradition and sentiments and only rarely is found to be neighborly. All these have led to the growth of a number of social problems.

III) Psychological: - The level of  assimilation in the urban areas is concerned with the psychological aspects of adjustment acquiring the values, meaning, sentiments, prejudice or ideologies of that particular community. The problem of assimilation is more for migrants as they usually come from different backgrounds and struggle to settle down in the migrated cities. The rapid changed through globalization and liberalization in the economic sphere have brought many changes influencing the life of people residing in urban areas also.

Take for instance, India only after 1991; many business processing outsourcing (BPO) companies have started functioning in almost all the major urban centres. The result is that many young people have shifted to these organizations because they pay better and also the working conditions in these organizations are better, but the problem here is these organizations expect their employees to work for longer hours and sometimes in night shifts. Such changes are affecting the individual’s social life, including his/her family life.

IV) Cultural: - Urban impact may occur at different parts of a region or sub-region, and in many different ways, as urban culture becomes diffused beyond a city’s political boundary. The cultural content may be disseminated by human carriers, who transmit their ideas, techniques, skills and modes of behavior through interpersonal contacts or by mass transportation and communication. A villager, who has lived or worked in a city and returns to his/her village, is a carrier capable of transmitting to his village kin or friends some of the culture he/she has acquired through urban residence.

This process of diffusion is reversed through the flow of culture into the city from the outside. As a rural hinterland becomes urbanized in a cultural and social sense, so do urban communities become realized, partly by the presence in the city of rural or village folk who take with them their values and behavior patterns when they visit or take up residence in an urban community. But the outflow of urban culture is generally greater in volume and the impact is more penetrating, at least more dramatic and apparent, than the impact of rural culture on urban people and their social life. This process remains reciprocal.

V) Economic: - Economic impact of urbanization on villages can be seen in two ways: economic impact caused due to industrialization and economic impact due to migration of inhabitants in search of livelihood.

a) Industrialization: -The explosion in urban growth or the rapid urbanization process that gave rise to the modern industrial city depended on the process of industrialization. Thus, one finds that urbanization was closely tied to industrialization as cities developed adjacent to the sources of cheap energy, based first on water, power and then on coal and at sites where rivers, lakes or canals permitted the assembly and dispersal of bulky raw materials and finished products, a transportation pattern later reinforced by the rail roads.

So close was the relationship between industrial production and urbanization that in a review of the 19th century American city, Goheen noted, ‘Industrialization is almost synonymous with the growth of the modem city.’ This assessment was shared by the 19th century American commentators such as Frederick Engels, ‘Industry and Commerce attain their highest stage of development in the big towns, so that it is here that the effects of indus­trialization on the wage earners can be more clearly seen.’

The explosive urbanization, which is the result of industrialization, has also affected the agricultural technology. It has affected fanning by changing the ways that the crops and livestock are raised. Farmers with these modern methods are now able to grow enough food for the large densely populated cities also, apart from satisfying their own needs. Thus, one reason for rapid urbanization was increase in productivity.

Another is the development of transport and communication systems, which are also the result of industrialization. Thirdly, the new building materials such as steel and reinforced concrete, plus the invention of the elevator, have enabled the architects to design much taller and bigger buildings that can accommodate the increasing population.

The improvements in the public health and hygiene have not only cut the rate of mortality, but also increased the rate of migra­tion to the cities. Thus, one can find a strong correlation between industrialization and urbanization. Industrialization has brought about efficiency in every field due to mecha­nization processes. As a consequence, the cities are attracting more and more number of people leading to the growth of urban areas and rapid urbanization all over the world.

b) Migration: -Geographical mobility or migration of people within a country is a demographic response to disparities in the regional levels of socioeconomic development. Regions of higher economic development with higher incomes and wages tend to attract people and particularly economically active population from regions with relatively lower levels of development and consequently lower rates of wages and incomes. Migration constitutes the very foundation of the process of urbanization and is recognized as the chief mecha­nism by which urban areas continue to grow.

Migration has led to a massive movement of people from areas of low economic opportunities, concentrated in rural areas and in smaller sized urban settlements to the centres of high economic opportunities, which are hyper-concentrated in the metropolitan cities with population exceeding 1 million. Sometimes, this uncontrolled influx of migrants into the metropolitan cities is fraught with disastrous consequences. It has resulted in a number of jobless or underemployed people, which is one reason why a number of people are living in slums or as squatter settlements or on pavements as houseless population and decline in providing the basic amenities like water supply, sanitation and health.

The consequences of migration can be seen in the rural areas also. The impact is more if one male or female member of the family has migrated. These working males or females send money to their families living in rural areas and also visit them often. This results not only in the flow of wealth from urban centres to rural areas, but also the flow of urban culture to rural areas and vice versa.

If a person has migrated with his/her nuclear family to the city, but the extended members of his/her family are still residing in rural areas, then the migrated family may not visit their rural relatives so often, but the impact of urbanization is felt on such facilities also. In such cases, usually money is sent to the rural relatives once in a month or when it is needed. Along with money, the urban way of living is also transferred to the rural relatives whenever the family visits the rural centres. Thus, migration will not only bring about changes in urban centres, but will also bring about changes in rural areas.

VI) Political: - In urban areas, one can find many new immigrants. These new comers do not have the same social connections as the original inhabitants, so they increasingly resort to developing informal social networks for their survival. In the process, some rural traditional forms of organizations are forms of organizations are formed. Various forces try to exploit these organizations for personal or political gain.

Once the members of the organizations start understanding their importance, they start exercising authority collectively. In course of time, these organizations may take the form of political parties. Sometimes, the urban people may only influence the existing political party’s future in a democratic country.

VII) Environment: -Today’s urban environment is not a natural environment. It is an artificial environment created by man. The high density of population and rapid industrialization have polluted the urban environment to a great extent. The problem of environmental pollution has become a serious threat to the urban environment. The unhygienic conditions in which majority of the urban people are living because of the high cost of installing pollution control devices are expected to bring the paradoxical trap of poverty and pollution in the long run.