impact of urbanization essay

Essay on Urbanization for Students and Children

500 words essay on urbanization.

Urbanization refers to the movement of the population from rural areas to urban areas. It is essentially the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas. Furthermore, urbanization is quite a popular trend in the contemporary world. Moreover, people mostly undertake urbanization due to more work opportunities and a better standard of living. According to the expert prediction, by 2050, 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized.

Causes of Urbanization

First of all, political causes play a big role in urbanization. Many people get forced to leave rural areas for urban areas due to political unrest. Therefore, many families go to urban areas in search of food, shelter, and employment .

Another important cause of urbanization is an economic cause. Furthermore, poverty is a widespread phenomenon in rural areas. Moreover, farmers are finding it very hard to earn enough money and make a living. Consequently, rural people move to urban areas in search of better job opportunities.

Education is a strong cause of urbanization. Urban areas offer opportunities for seeking high-quality education. Moreover, urbanization offers opportunities for studying at universities and technical colleges. Such handsome education opportunities attract many young people in rural areas to move to urban areas.

Environmental degradation also plays a part in contributing to urbanization. Deforestation destroys the natural habitat of many farming families. Furthermore, mining and industrial expansion also harm the natural habitat of farming families.

The social cause is another notable reason for urbanization. Many young rural people migrate to urban areas in order to seek a better lifestyle. Moreover, many young people want to escape the conservative culture of rural areas. Most noteworthy, urban areas offer a more easy-going liberal lifestyle. Furthermore, cities have clubs to attract youth.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Benefits of Urbanization

First of all, urban areas are much more efficient in providing resources than rural areas. Important and basic amenities like housing, clean water, and electricity are easily available in urban areas.

People in urban areas find it quite easy to access to various important services. Most noteworthy, these services are high-quality education, expert health care, convenient transportation, entertainment, etc. Furthermore, some or all of the services are unavailable in rural areas.

Urban areas offer better employment opportunities. Furthermore, these employment opportunities are the result of industrialization and commercialization.

Urban areas play a critical role as creators and disseminators of knowledge. This is because of the highly connected urbanized world. Most noteworthy, the geographical proximity of people in urban areas helps in the propagation of ideas.

Urban areas enjoy the benefits of technological development. Furthermore, many types of technologies get implemented in urban areas. Moreover, urban people quickly get in touch with the latest technology. In contrast, many rural individuals remain ignorant of many types of technologies.

To sum it up, urbanization is a process which is on a continuous rise. Furthermore, urbanization ensures the transformation of rural culture into urban culture. Moreover, the government must be vigilant to the rapidly increasing urbanization. A fully urbanized world looks like the ultimate destiny of our world.

FAQs on Urbanization

Q1 State any two causes for urbanization?

A1 Any two causes for urbanization are high-quality education and good job opportunities in urban areas.

Q2 Why urban areas offer better employment opportunities?

A2 Urban areas offer better employment opportunities due to high industrialization and commercialization.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Urbanization — Causes and Effects of Urbanisation

Causes and Effects of Urbanisation

• Categories: Urbanization

About this sample

Words: 1713 |

Published: Oct 11, 2018

Words: 1713 | Pages: 4 | 9 min read

Table of contents

Industrialisation, social benefits and services, modernization and changes in the mode of living, rural-urban transformation, technological and infrastructural advancements, housing problems, development of slums, traffic congestion, provision of essential services.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 984 words

3 pages / 1488 words

2 pages / 991 words

4 pages / 1723 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Urbanization

Cities are home to a diverse mix of people and cultures, bustling with activity and opportunity. However, with the ever-increasing population and urbanization, cities also face a range of complex problems. Traffic congestion, [...]

Urbanization And Urbanization During The Renaissance The Renaissance was a period of great cultural, artistic, and intellectual growth in Europe. However, it was also a time of significant urbanization, as cities grew in size [...]

(Include a list of references in the appropriate academic format)

In the landscape of urban development, the term "gentrification" has gained prominence as neighborhoods undergo transformation due to the influx of wealthier residents. This essay delves into the multifaceted problems and [...]

Wood is one of the longest standing building materials in existence… homes built over 10,000 years ago used timber as a primary source for construction materials it is also used as a dominant form of fuel for heat, additionally [...]

Toronto's multicultural tapestry has long been celebrated, boasting a myriad of unique enclaves that serve as conduits for cultural exchange and diversity. However, as the city experiences burgeoning development and an emphasis [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Letter to the Editor
• Open access
• Published: 02 January 2020

Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?

• Md Abdul Kuddus 1 , 2 , 4 ,
• Elizabeth Tynan 3 &
• Emma McBryde 1 , 2  

Public Health Reviews volume  41 , Article number:  1 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

343k Accesses

150 Citations

31 Altmetric

Metrics details

Urbanization has long been associated with human development and progress, but recent studies have shown that urban settings can also lead to significant inequalities and health problems. This paper is concerned with the adverse impact of urbanization on both developed and developing nations and both wealthy and poor populations within those nations, addressing issues associated with public health problems in urban areas. The discussion in this paper will be of interest to policy makers. The paper advocates policies that improve the socio-economic conditions of the urban poor and promote their better health. Further, this discussion encourages wealthy people and nations to become better informed about the challenges that may arise when urbanization occurs in their regions without the required social supports and infrastructure.

Urbanization refers to the mass movement of populations from rural to urban settings and the consequent physical changes to urban settings. In 2019, the United Nations estimated that more than half the world’s population (4.2 billion people) now live in urban area and by 2041, this figure will increase to 6 billion people [ 1 ].

Cities are known to play multifaceted functions in all societies. They are the heart of technological development and economic growth of many nations, while at the same time serving as a breeding ground for poverty, inequality, environmental hazards, and communicable diseases [ 2 ]. When large numbers of people congregate in cities, many problems result, particularly for the poor. For example, many rural migrants who settle in an urban slum area bring their families and their domesticated animals—both pets and livestock—with them. This influx of humans and animals leads to vulnerability of all migrants to circulating communicable diseases and the potential to establish an urban transmission cycle. Further, most urban poor live in slums that are unregulated, have congested conditions, are overcrowded, are positioned near open sewers, and restricted to geographically dangerous areas such as hillsides, riverbanks, and water basins subject to landslides, flooding, or industrial hazards. All of these factors lead to the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, pollution, poor nutrition, road traffic, and so on [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The problems faced by the poor spill over to other city dwellers. As the trend to urbanization continues, this spillover effect increases and takes on a global dimension as more and more of the world’s populations are affected [ 3 ].

Some of the major health problems resulting from urbanization include poor nutrition, pollution-related health conditions and communicable diseases, poor sanitation and housing conditions, and related health conditions. These have direct impacts on individual quality of life, while straining public health systems and resources [ 6 ].

Urbanization has a major negative impact on the nutritional health of poor populations. Because they have limited financial resources and the cost of food is higher in cities, the urban poor lack nutritious diets and this leads to illness, which contributes to loss of appetite and poor absorption of nutrients among those affected. Furthermore, environmental contamination also contributes to undernutrition; street food is often prepared in unhygienic conditions, leading to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses (e.g., botulism, salmonellosis, and shigellosis) [ 6 ]. Urban dwellers also suffer from overnutrition and obesity, a growing global public health problem. Obesity and other lifestyle conditions contribute to chronic diseases (such as cancers, diabetes, and heart diseases). Although obesity is most common among the wealthy, international agencies have noted the emergence of increased weight among the middle class and poor in recent years [ 7 ].

Populations in poor nations that suffer from protein-energy malnutrition [ 8 ] have increased susceptibility to infection [ 9 ] through the impact of micronutrient deficiency on immune system development and function [ 10 ]. Around 168 million children under 5 are estimated to be malnourished and 76% of these children live in Asia [ 11 ]. At the same time, the World Health Organization is concerned that there is an emerging pandemic of obesity in poor countries that leads to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, and stroke [ 12 ].

Obesity is caused by increased caloric intake and decreased physical activity [ 13 ], something historically associated with wealth. However, people in urbanized areas of developing countries are also now vulnerable to obesity due to lack of physical space, continually sitting in workplaces, and excessive energy intake and low energy expenditure. In these areas, infrastructure is often lacking, including sufficient space for recreational activities. Further, in developing countries, as in developed countries, large employers frequently place head offices in urban capitals and work is increasingly sedentary in nature [ 14 ]. Another culprit associated with the risk of developing obesity is the change in food intake that has led to the so-called nutrition transition (increased the consumption of animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods) in urban areas. For instance, in China, dietary patterns have changed concomitantly with urbanization in the past 30 years, leading to increased obesity [ 15 ]. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 300 million adults were affected, the majority in developed and highly urbanized countries [ 16 ]. Since then, the prevalence of obesity has increased. For example, in Australia, around 28% of adults were obese in 2014–2015 [ 17 ].

Pollution is another major contributor to poor health in urban environments. For instance, the World Health Organization estimated that 6.5 million people died (11.6% of all global deaths) as a consequence of indoor and outdoor air pollution and nearly 90% of air-pollution-related deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries [ 18 ]. Poor nutrition and pollution both contribute to a third major challenge for urban populations: communicable diseases. The poor live in congested conditions, near open sewers and stagnant water, and are therefore constantly exposed to unhealthy waste [ 6 ]. Inadequate sanitation can lead to the transmission of helminths and other intestinal parasites. Pollution (e.g., from CO 2 emission) from congested urban areas contributes to localized and global climate change and direct health problems, such as respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer for both the rich and the poor.

In addition to human-to-human transmission, animals and insects serve as efficient vectors for diseases within urban settings and do not discriminate between the rich and poor. The prevalence and impact of communicable diseases in urban settings, such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria, cholera, dengue, and others, is well established and of global concern.

National and international researchers and policy makers have explored various strategies to address such problems, yet the problems remain. For example, research on solutions for megacities has been ongoing since the early 1990s [ 19 , 20 ]. These studies have concluded that pollution, unreliable electricity, and non-functioning infrastructure are priority initiatives; nevertheless, air pollution, quality of water in cities, congestion, disaster management issues, and infrastructure are not being systematically addressed [ 19 , 20 ].

The impact of inner city transportation on health, such as road traffic, is emerging as a serious problem. Statistics show that a minimum of 10 people die every day on the railways in the city of Mumbai, India [ 21 ]. Vietnam is another example of a country that has seen a remarkable increase in road traffic accidents [ 22 ]. Improvements to the country’s infrastructure have not been able to meet the increasing growth of vehicular and human traffic on the street. Vietnam reportedly has a population of 95 million and more than 18 million motorbikes on its roads. A deliberate policy is needed to reduce accidents [ 21 ].

Although urbanization has become an irreversible phenomenon, some have argued that to resolve the problems of the city, we must tackle the root causes of the problem, such as improving the socio-economic situation of the urban poor.

Until the conditions in rural areas improve, populations will continue to migrate to urban settings. Given the challenges that rural development poses, the root causes are unlikely to be addressed in the near future. Therefore, governments and development agencies should concentrate on adapting to the challenges of urbanization, while seeking to reduce unplanned urbanization.

Some examples of policies and practices that should be considered include (i) policies that consider whole-of-life journeys, incorporating accessible employment, community participation, mobility/migration and social transition, to break generational poverty cycles; (ii) policies addressing urban environmental issues, such as planned urban space and taxes on the use of vehicles to reduce use or to encourage vehicles that use less fuel as well as encourage bicycle use, walking, and other forms of human transportation; (iii) greater cooperative planning between rural and urban regions to improve food security (e.g., subsidies for farmers providing locally produced, unprocessed and low cost food to urban centers); (iv) social protection and universal health coverage to reduce wealth disparity among urban dwellers; including introduction of programs and services for health, for example by establishing primary healthcare clinics accessible and affordable for all including those living in urban slums [ 23 ].

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable

United Nations. World urbanization prospects. New York; 2019.

McMichael AJ. The urban environment and health in a world of increasing globalization: issues for developing countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2000;78(9):1117-26.

Alirol E, Getaz L, Stoll B, Chappuis F, Loutan L. Urbanisation and infectious diseases in a globalised world. The Lancet infectious diseases. 2011;11(2):131-41.

Harpham T, Stephens C. Urbanization and health in developing countries. World health statistics quarterly Rapport trimestriel de statistiques sanitaires mondiales. 1991;44(2):62-9.

Moore M, Gould P, Keary BS. Global urbanization and impact on health. Int J hygiene and environmental health. 2003;206(4-5):269-78.

Kennedy G. Food security in the context of urban sub-Saharan Africa. Internet paper for food security, food Africa, internet forum 31 March–11 April 2003;2009.

World Health Organization. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic: World Health Organization; 2000. Available from https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/42330 . Accessed 4 Aug 2019.

Nour NN. Obesity in resource-poor nations. Reviews in obstetrics and gynecology. 2010;3(4):180-4.

Tomkins A, Watson F. Malnutrition and infection: a review. United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination/Subcommittee on Nutrition. Nutrition Policy Discussion Paper. 1989(5): p. 1-107.

Schaible UE, Stefan H. Malnutrition and infection: complex mechanisms and global impacts. PLoS medicine. 2007;4(5):e115.

Ahmed F, Zareen M, Khan MR, Banu CP, Haq MN, Jackson AA. Dietary pattern, nutrient intake and growth of adolescent school girls in urban Bangladesh. Public health nutrition. 1998;1(2):83-92.

World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. World Health Organization, Geneva (Fact sheet no 311); 2006.

Bleich SN, Cutler D, Murray C, Adams A. Why is the developed world obese? Annual review of public health. 2008;29(1):273-95.

Arundell L, Sudholz B, Teychenne M, Salmon J, Hayward B, Healy G, et al. The impact of activity based working (ABW) on workplace activity, eating behaviours, productivity, and satisfaction. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2018;15(5):1005.

Zhang J, Wang D, Eldridge A, Huang F, Ouyang Y, Wang H, et al. Urban–rural disparities in energy intake and contribution of fat and animal source foods in Chinese children aged 4–17 years. Nutrients. 2017;9(5):526.

World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. Geveva: World Health Organization; 2003.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Risk factors to health. Australia: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW); 2017.

World Health Organization. World Health Organization releases country estimates on air pollution exposure and health impact. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2016.

Mavropoulos A, ISWA S, SA CE, editors. Megacities sustainable development and waste management in the 21st century. World Congress; 2010.

Fuchs RJ, Brennan E, Lo F-C, Uitto JI, Chamie J. Mega-city Growth and the Future: United Nations University Press; 1994.

Doytsher Y, Kelly P, Khouri R, McLAREN R, Potsiou C. Rapid urbanization and mega cities: The need for spatial information management. Research study by FIG commission. 2010;3.

Ngo AD, Rao C, Hoa NP, Hoy DG, Trang KTQ, Hill PS. Road traffic related mortality in Vietnam: evidence for policy from a national sample mortality surveillance system. BMC public health. 2012;12(1):561.

Abebe T. Young people: Participation and sustainable development in an urbanizing world: Un-Habitat; 2012.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor for his/her thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving the manuscript.

This work was conducted as a part of a PhD programme of the first authors and funded by the College of Medicine and Dentistry at the James Cook University, Australia (JCU-QLD-933347).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Md Abdul Kuddus & Emma McBryde

College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Graduate Research School, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Elizabeth Tynan

Department of Mathematics, University of Rajshahi, -6205, Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Md Abdul Kuddus

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

MAK planned the study, analyzed, and prepared the manuscript. ET and EM helped in the preparation of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Authors’ information

Corresponding author.

Correspondence to Md Abdul Kuddus .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate, consent for publication, competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Kuddus, M.A., Tynan, E. & McBryde, E. Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?. Public Health Rev 41 , 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-019-0116-0

Download citation

Received : 02 September 2019

Accepted : 09 December 2019

Published : 02 January 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-019-0116-0

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Urbanization
• Public health

Public Health Reviews

ISSN: 2107-6952

• Submission enquiries: Access here and click Contact Us
• General enquiries: [email protected]

A cloak of smog gives Fresno, California, a hazy look. Smog, a hybrid of the words "smoke" and "fog," is caused when sunlight reacts with airborne pollution, including ash, dust, and ground-level ozone.

Urban Threats

Urbanization spurs a unique set of issues to both humans and animals.

The promise of jobs and prosperity, among other factors, pulls people to cities. Half of the global population already lives in cities, and by 2050 two-thirds of the world's people are expected to live in urban areas. But in cities two of the most pressing problems facing the world today also come together: poverty and environmental degradation.

Poor air and water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density and demands of urban environments. Strong city planning will be essential in managing these and other difficulties as the world's urban areas swell.

• Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty, with local governments unable to provide services for all people.
• Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with significant impact on human health.
• Automobile exhaust produces elevated lead levels in urban air.
• Large volumes of uncollected waste create multiple health hazards.
• Urban development can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such as flash flooding .
• Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss of urban tree cover.
• Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances, vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources.
• Combat poverty by promoting economic development and job creation.
• Involve local community in local government.
• Reduce air pollution by upgrading energy use and alternative transport systems.
• Create private-public partnerships to provide services such as waste disposal and housing.
• Plant trees and incorporate the care of city green spaces as a key element in urban planning.

FREE BONUS ISSUE

Related topics.

• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• AIR POLLUTION
• URBAN PLANNING
• WASTE MANAGEMENT

You May Also Like

Indonesia's giant capital city is sinking. Can the government's plan save it?

‘Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet’

The City Solution

How Urban Parks Are Bringing Nature Close to Home

In Uganda, a unique urban experiment is under way

• Perpetual Planet
• Environment
• History & Culture
• Paid Content

History & Culture

• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Human Geoscience pp 261–282 Cite as

Urbanization: Concept, Mechanism, and Global Implications

• Yuji Murayama 7 &
• Ronald C. Estoque 8  
• First Online: 22 September 2019

839 Accesses

1 Citations

Part of the book series: Advances in Geological Science ((AGS))

Urbanization has two types of impacts: positive and negative. On the one hand, urbanization brings positive impacts to society as it helps improve the social and economic aspects of people’s lives. On the other hand, urbanization brings negative social and ecological impacts, both locally and globally. This chapter discusses the concept of urbanization in the context of human geoscience, including its history, mechanism, and trend in the modern world. It presents an overview of the negative ecological and social impacts associated with urbanization, such as urban heat island, air pollution, flooding, health, urban poverty, crimes and violence, and traffic congestion. This chapter also discusses the inclusion of urbanization to the global sustainable development agenda, as well as the importance of geospatial technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing, for urban monitoring towards sustainable urban development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution .

Buying options

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Angel S, Blei AM, Civco DL, Sanchez NG, Lamson-Hall P, Madrid M, Parent J, Thom K (2015) Monitoring the quantity and quality of global urban expansion. Marron Institute of Urban Management—New York University, NY

Google Scholar  

Aniello C, Morgan K, Busbey A, Newland L (1995) Mapping micro-urban heat islands using Landsat TM and a GIS. Comput Geosci 21:965–969

Article   Google Scholar  

Bagan H, Yamagata Y (2014) Land-cover change analysis in 50 global cities by using a combination of Landsat data and analysis of grid cells. Environ Res Lett 9:64015

Bhatta B (2010) Analysis of urban growth and sprawl from remote sensing data. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg

Book   Google Scholar  

Blaschke T (2010) Object based image analysis for remote sensing. ISPRS J Photogrammetry Remote Sens 65:2–16

Bloom DE, Canning D, Fink G (2008) Urbanization and the wealth of nations. Science 319:772–775

Bolund P, Hunhammar S (1999) Ecosystem services in urban areas. Ecol Econ 29:293–301

Chen J, Hill AA, Urbano LD (2009) A GIS-based model for urban flood inundation. J Hydrol 373:184–192

Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, Farber S, Grasso M, Hannon B et al (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253–260

Cox W (2014) Traffic congestion in the world: 10 worst and best cities. New geography. www.newgeography.com/content/004504-traffic-congestion-world-10-worst-and-best-cities (26 July 2016)

Cox W (2016) The TomTom Traffic Index: 2015. Wendell Cox Consultancy, Belleville, IL, USA

Dahiya B (2012) Cities in Asia, 2012: demographics, economics, poverty, environment and governance. Cities 29:S44–S61

Daily GC (1997) Nature’s services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC

DEMOGRAPHIA (2016) Demographia: world urban areas, 12th annual edn. Wendell Cox Consultancy, Belleville, IL, USA

Eigenbrod F, Bell VA, Davies HN, Heinemeyer A, Armsworth PR, Gaston KJ (2011) The impact of projected increases in urbanization on ecosystem services. Proc R Soc B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.2754

Elkington J (1997) Cannibals with forks: the triple bottom line of the 21st century business. Capstone, Oxford

Elmqvist T, Fragkias M, Goodness J, Güneralp B, Marcotullio PJ, McDonald RI et al (eds) (2013) Urbanization, biodiversity and ecosystem services: challenges and opportunities. A global Assessment. Springer, Dordrecht

EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) (2008) Reducing urban heat islands: compendium of strategies—urban heat island basics. US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC

Esch T, Heldens W, Hirner A, Keil M, Marconcini M, Roth A et al (2017) Breaking new ground in mapping human settlements from space—the global urban footprint. ISPRS J Photogrammetry Remote Sens 134:30–42

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2012) Examining the potential impact of land use/cover changes on the ecosystem services of Baguio city, the Philippines: a scenario-based analysis. Appl Geogr 35:316–326

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2013) Landscape pattern and ecosystem service value changes: implications for environmental sustainability planning for the rapidly urbanizing summer capital of the Philippines. Landscape Urban Plan 116:60–72

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2014) Measuring sustainability based upon various perspectives: a case study of a hill station in Southeast Asia. Ambio 43:943–956

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2015a) Intensity and spatial pattern of urban land changes in the megacities of Southeast Asia. Land Use Policy 48:213–222

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2015b) Classification and change detection of built-up lands from Landsat-7 ETM + and Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS imageries: a comparative assessment of various spectral indices. Ecol Ind 56:205–217

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2016) Quantifying landscape pattern and ecosystem service value changes in four rapidly urbanizing hill stations of Southeast Asia. Landscape Ecol 31:1481–1507

Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2017) Monitoring surface urban heat island formation in a tropical mountain city using Landsat data (1987–2015). ISPRS J Photogrammetry Remote Sens 133:18–29

Estoque RC, Murayama Y, Akiyama CM (2015a) Pixel-based and object-based classifications using high- and medium-spatial-resolution imageries in the urban and suburban landscapes. Geocarto Int 30:1113–1129

Estoque RC, Murayama Y, Tadono T, Thapa RB (2015b) Measuring urban volume: geospatial technique and application. Tsukuba Geoenviron Sci 11:13–20

Estoque RC, Murayama Y, Myint SW (2017) Effects of landscape composition and pattern on land surface temperature: an urban heat island study in the megacities of Southeast Asia. Sci Total Environ 577:349–359

Folke C, Jansson A, Rockström J, Olsson P, Carpenter SR, Chapin FS III et al (2011) Reconnecting to the biosphere. Ambio 40:719–738

Foresman TW (ed) (1998) The history of geographic information systems: perspectives from the pioneers. Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ

Gibson P (2000) Introductory remote sensing: principles and concepts. Routledge, New York, NY

Gómez-Baggethun E, Baton DN (2013) Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning. Ecol Econ 86:235–245

Gómez-Baggethun E, Gren A, Barton DN, Langemeyer J, McPhearson T, O’Farrell P et al (2013) Urban ecosystem services. In: Elmqvist T, Fragkias M, Goodness J, Güneralp B, Marcotullio PJ, Robert I, McDonald RI (eds) Urbanization, biodiversity and ecosystem services: challenges and opportunities: a global assessment. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 175–251

Gong H, Simwanda M, Murayama Y (2017) An internet-based GIS platform providing data for visualization and spatial analysis of urbanization in major Asian and African cities. ISPRS Int J Geo-Inf 6:257

Goodchild MF (2010) Twenty years of progress: GIScience in 2010. J Spat Inf Sci 1:3–20

Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, Redman CL, Wu JG, Bai XM, Briggs JM (2008) Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319:756–760

Haase D, Larondelle N, Andersson E, Artmann M, Borgström S, Breuste J et al (2014) A quantitative review of urban ecosystem services assessment: concepts, models and implementation. Ambio 43:413–433

Handayani HH, Estoque RC, Murayama Y (in press) Estimation of built-up and green volume using geospatial techniques: a case study of Surabaya, Indonesia. Sustain Cities Soc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2017.10.017

Hoag H (2015) How cities can beat the heat. Nature 524:402–404

Hou H, Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2016) Spatiotemporal analysis of urban growth in three African capital cities: A grid-cell-based analysis using remote sensing data. J Afr Earth Stud 123:381–391

Hoverter SP (2012) Adapting to urban heat: a tool kit for local governments. Georgetown Climate Center, Washington, DC

Howard L (1818) The climate of London, vol 1. W. Phillips, London

Huang Y, Yu B, Zhou J, Hu C, Tan W, Hu Z, Wu J (2013) Toward automatic estimation of urban green volume using airborne LiDAR data and high resolution remote sensing images. Front Earth Sci 7:43–54

Jansson A (2013) Reaching for a sustainable: resilient urban future using the lens of ecosystem services. Ecol Econ 86:285–291

Jha AK, Bloch R, Lamond J (2012) Cities and flooding: a guide to integrated flood risk management for the 21st century. The World Bank, Washington, DC

Koomen E, Rietveld P, Bacao F (2009) The third dimension in urban geography: the urban-volume approach. Environ Plan B Plan Des 36:1008–1025

Lavender S, Lavender A (2016) Practical handbook of remote sensing. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL

Lwin KK, Murayama Y (2009) A GIS approach to estimation of building population for micro-spatial analysis. Trans GIS 13:401–414

Lwin KK, Murayama Y (2011) Modelling of urban green space walkability: eco-friendly walk score calculator. Comput Environ Urban Syst 35:408–420

MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: current state and trends: findings of the condition and trends working group. Island Press, Washington, DC

Myers SR et al (2013) Safety in numbers: are major cities the safest places in the United States? Ann Emerg Med 62:408–418

Myint SW, Gober P, Brazel A, Grossman-Clarke S, Weng Q (2011) Per-pixel vs. object based classification of urban land cover extraction using high spatial resolution imagery. Remote Sens Environ 115:1145–1161

Murayama Y, Thapa RB (eds) (2011) Spatial analysis and modeling in geographical transformation process: GIS-based applications. GeoJournal Library Series, 100, Springer, Dordrecht

Murayama Y (ed) (2012) Progress in geospatial analysis. Springer, Tokyo

Murayama Y, Estoque RC (2017) Future of metropolitan areas in developing Asia and Africa. In: Murayama Y, Kamusoko C, Yamashita A, Estoque RC (eds) Urban development in Asia and Africa—geospatial analysis of metropolises. Springer Nature, Singapore, pp 415–420

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Murayama Y, Estoque RC, Hou H, Gong H, Simwanda M, Subasinghe S and Zhang X (2016) Visualization of land-use/land-cover changes in major Asian and African cities. Annual Report on the Multi Use Social and Economic Data Bank, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Murayama Y, Kamusoko C, Yamashita A, Estoque RC (eds) (2017) Urban development in Asia and Africa—geospatial analysis of metropolises. Springer Nature, Singapore

Oke TR (1973) City size and the urban heat island. Atmos Environ 7:769–779

Oke TR (1982) The energetic basis of the urban heat island. Q J R Meteorol Soc 108:1–24

Oke TR, Hannel FG (1970) The form of the urban heat island in Hamilton, Canada. WMO Tech. Note No. 108, WMO No. 254 TP. 141:113–126

Pok S, Matsushita B, Fukushima T (2017) An easily implemented method to estimate impervious surface area on a large scale from MODIS time-series and improved DMSP-OLS nighttime light data. ISPRS J Photogrammetry Remote Sens 133:104–115

Qin Y (2015) A review on the development of cool pavements to mitigate urban heat island effect. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 52:445–459

Ranagalage M, Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2017) An urban heat island study of the Colombo Metropolitan Area, Sri Lanka, based on Landsat data (1997–2017). ISPRS Int J Geo-Inf 6:189

Rothenburg R, Weaver SR, Dai D, Strauber C, Prasad A, Kano M (2014) A flexible urban health index for small area disparities. J Urban Health: Bull NY Acad Med 91:823–835

Seto KC, Reenberg A, Boone CG, Fragkias M, Haase D et al (2012) Urban land teleconnections and sustainability. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109:7687–7692

Sharma A, Conry P, Fernando HJS, Hamlet AF, Hellmann JJ, Chen F (2016) Green and cool roofs to mitigate urban heat island effects in the Chicago metropolitan area: evaluation with a regional climate model. Environ Res Lett 11:064004

Subasinghe S, Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2016) Spatiotemporal analysis of urban growth using GIS and Remote Sensing: a case study of the Colombo Metropolitan Area, Sri Lanka. ISPRS Int J Geo-Inf 5:197

Simwanda M, Murayama Y (2017) Integrating geospatial techniques for urban land use classification in the developing Sub-Saharan African City of Lusaka, Zambia. ISPRS Int J Geo-Inf 6:102

Thapa RB, Murayama Y (2009) Examining spatiotemporal urbanization patterns in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal: remote sensing and spatial metrics approaches. Remote Sens 1:534–556

Thapa RB, Murayama Y (2012) Scenario based urban growth allocation in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Landscape Urban Plan 105:140–148

The World Bank (2011) Violence in the city: understanding and supporting community responses to urban violence. The World Bank, Washington, DC

The World Bank (2016a) Reducing pollution. The World Bank, Washington, DC

The World Bank (2016b) Urban poverty: an overview. The World Bank, Washington, DC

TomTom International (2016) TomTom traffic index: measuring congestion worldwide. www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/ (26 July 2016)

UN (United Nations) (2015a) World urbanization prospects: the 2014 revision. United Nations, New York

UN (United Nations) (2015b) Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. United Nations, New York

UN (United Nations) (2015c) The millennium development goals report 2015. United Nations, New York

UN-Habitat (2010) State of the world’s cities 2010/2011: bridging the urban divide. Earthscan, London

UN-Habitat (2013) State of the world’s cities 2012/2013: prosperity of cities. Routledge, New Yok

UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) (2014) UNODC Annual report 2014. UNODC, Vienna, Austria

Voogt J, Oke TR (2003) Thermal remote sensing of urban climates. Remote Sens Environ 86:370–384

Voogt J (2002) Urban heat island. In: Munn T (ed) Encyclopedia of global environmental change, vol 3. Wiley, Chichester, pp 660–666

Voogt JA (2004) Urban heat islands: hotter cities. www.actionbioscience.org/environment/voogt.html (17 July 2016)

Voulgaris G, Murayama Y (2014) Tsunami vulnerability assessment in the Southern Boso Peninsula, Japan. Int J Disaster Risk Reduction 10:190–200

Weisbrod G, Vary D, Treyz G (2003) Measuring economic costs of urban traffic congestion to business. Transp Res Record: J Transp Res Board 1839:98–106

Weng Q (2012) Remote sensing of impervious surfaces in the urban areas: requirements, methods, and trends. Remote Sens Environ 117:34–49

Weng Q, Lu D, Schubring J (2004) Estimation of land surface temperature-vegetation abundance relationship for urban heat island studies. Remote Sens Environ 89:467–483

WHO (World Health Organization) (2006) WHO air quality guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide: global update 2005. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

WHO (World Health Organization) (2014) The urban health index: a handbook for its calculation and use. Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

WHO (World Health Organization) (2016a) WHO global urban ambient air pollution database (update 2016). World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

WHO (World Health Organization) (2016b) Air pollution levels rising in many of the world’s poorest cities. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

WHO (World Health Organization) (2016c) Global report on urban health: equitable, healthier cities for sustainable development. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

Wu J (2010) Urban sustainability: an inevitable goal of landscape research. Landscape Ecol 25:1–4

Zhang X, Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2017) An urban heat island study in Nanchang City, China based on land surface temperature and social-ecological variables. Sustain Cities Soc 32:557–568

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, 305-8572, Japan

Yuji Murayama

National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan

Ronald C. Estoque

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuji Murayama .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Hokkaido University of Education, Sapporo, Japan

Yukio Himiyama

Earthquake Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Kenji Satake

Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Murayama, Y., Estoque, R.C. (2020). Urbanization: Concept, Mechanism, and Global Implications. In: Himiyama, Y., Satake, K., Oki, T. (eds) Human Geoscience. Advances in Geological Science. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9224-6_19

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9224-6_19

Published : 22 September 2019

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-32-9223-9

Online ISBN : 978-981-32-9224-6

eBook Packages : Earth and Environmental Science Earth and Environmental Science (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Urbanisation Essay

500+ words urbanisation essay.

Urbanisation is an integral part of development. It is an index of transformation from traditional rural economies to modern industrial ones. The process of urbanisation started with the industrial revolution and resulted in economic development. Urban areas are an integral part of India’s development and growth. It accounts for two-thirds of India’s GDP. India’s urban population has increased rapidly over the past decade and this rapid urbanisation is set to continue in the future. This urbanisation essay discusses the opportunities that urban areas have and the major challenges faced by them. So, students must go through this essay to gather the information and then try to write the essay in their own words. They can also get the list of CBSE Essays on different topics to practise essays on various topics.

Meaning of Urbanisation

When people move from village or rural areas to towns/cities or urban areas for better job opportunities where they can get involved in non-agricultural occupations such as manufacturing industry, trade, management etc. is known as urbanisation. People mainly migrate to cities in search of jobs, new opportunities and to have a better lifestyle.

Urbanisation in India – History and Present Situation

Urbanisation in India is said to have begun somewhere around 600 B.C. culminating in the formation of early historical cities. During ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, the kings established various capital regions, which developed into towns. For example, Pataliputra (now Patna) and Vaishali developed as towns during the Magadh rule. Kanauj was the capital town of Harshavardhana in Uttar Pradesh. The establishment of the East India Company and the onset of British colonial control of India from the seventeenth century led to the growth of the urban centres of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. These cities (except Delhi) developed along the seacoast in the respective regions where the British had established administrative systems in various provinces.

In the present scenario, the urban population is growing rapidly. Because of this, opportunities are also increasing. Urbanisation in India is mainly due to the expansion of cities and the migration of people. Investments are made in housing, urban transport, road network, water supply, smart cities, power-related infrastructure and other forms of urban management.

Consequences of Rapid Urbanisation

Rapid urbanisation often leads to both healthy and unhealthy consequences and aspects.

Positive Aspect of Urbanisation

Urbanisation resulted in the development and setting up of many industries in the cities. Manufacturing units and the service sector started to grow in the urban areas. This has created employment opportunities for the people. This has resulted in rural-urban migration and caused the “industrialisation urbanisation process” to set in. The growth of cities has given rise to external economies. Urbanisation results in changes in the attitudes and mindset of the urban people resulting in modernisation in behaviour. This indirectly helped the country to attain faster economic development.

Negative Aspect of Urbanisation

Growing urbanisation has increased the congestion in urban areas, which has resulted in problems like traffic jams and too much concentration of population. Too much population is another unhealthy aspect of urbanisation. It has created urban chaos related to housing, education, sanitation, pollution, medical facilities, growth of slums, unemployment, violence, inadequate water supply, overcrowding etc. All these resulted in deteriorating the quality of human life.

Students must have found “Urbanisation Essay” useful for improving their essay writing skills. Visit BYJU’S website to get the latest updates and study material on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams at BYJU’S.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Request OTP on Voice Call

Post My Comment

• Share Share

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

Counselling

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Public Health

How does urbanization affect public health? New evidence from 175 countries worldwide

Zhenhua zhang.

1 Institute of Green Finance, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

Mingcheng Zhao

2 School of Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

Yunpeng Zhang

Yanchao feng.

3 Business School, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Urbanization is an essential indicator of contemporary society and a necessary historic stage in the industrialization of all countries. Thus, we explore the impact of urbanization on public health using the OLS estimation and a two-way fixed effect model based on annual panel data from 175 countries from 2000 to 2018. This paper also addresses potential endogeneity issues and identifies causal relationships using the coefficient stability tests, system GMM, and instrumental variable method. The results demonstrate that urbanization positively affects public health. Furthermore, we find that the impact of urbanization on public health can be mediated through living standards, and nations with higher living standards reduce the effect of urbanization on public health. An increase in the urbanization rate can promote public health by improving residents' living standards. Our results have significant real-world implications for the research of urbanization and the formulation of public health policy.

1. Introduction

Urbanization is the process of transforming rural population into an urban population ( 1 ), and is usually taken as a measure of social and economic development. The United Nations predicts that by 2050, the urban population will grow to 6.252 billion, with an urbanization rate of 67.2%. Rapid urbanization has given rise to “urban disease”, causing many social and environmental problems, such as, the disorderly development of urban space, excessive population aggregation, overemphasis on economic development, ignoring environmental protection, severe traffic congestion, shortage of energy resources, deterioration of the ecological environment, and thus on ( 2 ). How does urbanization affect public health? This is a question of great theoretical and practical significance. However, few studies focused on this issue in recent years, and the empirical evidence is relatively lacking.

Public health is one of the critical concerns of countries in the development process. The existing studies' ideas and methods of analyzing the relationship between urbanization and public health provide a solid reference for this paper. From the perspective of crude mortality and life expectancy at birth, this paper uses annual panel data of 175 countries from 2000 to 2018 to comprehensively evaluate the impact of urbanization on public health using multiple causal reasoning methods. We also adopt several kinds of robustness tests to increase the accurate of our findings.

The potential innovations of this paper are as follows: First, in the field of research data, we further expand the capacity of public health indicators and the number of countries and employs more extensive data to evaluate the relationship between urbanization and public health, making the evaluation effect more accurate. Most of the data in the existing literature cannot consider both time and region at the same time, and generally, there is a long-time span but only focus on a specific area, which is not comprehensive. For example, although Kegler et al. ( 3 ) obtained the relationship between urbanization and public health, its research scope only focused on the United States and was not universal. Although Li et al. ( 4 ) examined the relationship between the above two, they only used data from China. Such conclusions may not hold true on a global scale. Therefore, this paper uses panel data covering major countries in the world with a longer time span to conduct empirical research, which can more accurately assess the causal relationship between the two and obtain more general conclusions. It extends previous studies and enriches the literature in related fields.

Second, the relevant literature on the impact of urbanization on residents' health is not common, and most of it is a simple comparison of the health gap between urban and rural residents or a review ( 2 ), which lacks rigorous research based on empirical studies. In the existing empirical studies, some researchers adopted questionnaires for their analysis ( 5 , 6 ). The lack of flexibility in the questionnaire will limit the responses of the respondents, and some more detailed and in-depth information may be omitted. Few studies based on econometric models mainly only conduct some simple regression and do not give clear answers in causal identification and robustness test of results ( 7 , 8 ). This paper not only empirically tests the impact of urbanization on public health but also employs the bounding value analysis method of Oster ( 9 ), system GMM estimation, and the instrumental variable method of Lewbel ( 10 ) to determine the causal relationship between the two, and ensures the reliability of the results through a series of robustness tests. This study makes up for the lack of empirical evidence.

Third, living standards are closely related to urbanization and public health, and many studies have shown the pairwise links between the three ( 11 , 12 ). In terms of channel analysis, this paper pioneeringly selects living standards as the mediating channel of urbanization rate affecting public health revealed the logic behind the mechanism of urbanization impact on public health for the first time. It can open the “black box” of the channel between urbanization impact and public health, and further strengthen the overall knowledge of the relationship between the two, enrich the relevant theories, and provide a more accurate reference for the government when formulating development policies.

The remaining parts of this paper are arranged as follows: the second part is the literature review; the third part is the research design and data situation; the fourth part is the empirical analysis, including the preliminary analysis and benchmark regression analysis; the fifth part is causal identification issues and strategies. The sixth part is a further discussion of the potential channel analysis; the seventh part summarizes the conclusion and proposes the policy suggestion. In Appendix , we carry out the robustness test.

2. Literature review

The impact of urbanization has long been a contentious issue. Researchers have noticed that increasing urbanization will have an impact on various aspects. For example, urbanization is closely related to economic development. Some scholars believe that the increase in urbanization rate can change the industrial structure, improve industrial production efficiency ( 13 ), enhance regional innovation ability, and drive the development of surrounding areas ( 14 ). Positive urbanization will promote the healthy development of the economy ( 15 ). However, the improvement of urbanization will accelerate the development of limited resources, contributing to many environmental pollution problems. Urbanization will worsen water quality ( 16 ) and increase carbon dioxide emissions ( 17 ). Urbanization changes the natural factors within the geographic system, and urban expansion and urban agglomeration may change the global distribution of PM 2.5 concentration ( 18 , 19 ), leading to a rise in PM 2.5 concentration ( 20 ). In addition, the increase in urbanization rate also significantly impacts other aspects of development. The research of Satterthwaite et al. ( 21 ) proved that urban expansion would lead to the lack of agricultural land and the urban bias of infrastructure, services, and subsidized public funds.

For a long time, public health has been widely concerned by scholars. From the previous research content, the relevant research mainly focuses on two aspects. The first part mainly focuses on the influencing factors of public health, such as health expenditure ( 22 ), environmental policy ( 23 ), lifestyle, and social status ( 24 ). In addition, relevant studies have also shown that medical resource allocation ( 25 ), family-level harmony ( 26 ), and education ( 27 ) are all key influencing factors of public health. In the second aspect, scholars focus on selecting and constructing public health measurement indicators. Most of the public health indicators in existing studies are related to physical health. Examples include empirical stress and obesity rates ( 28 ), respiratory diseases ( 29 ), mortality ( 30 ), and life expectancy ( 31 ). Thurber et al. ( 32 ) adopted age-standardized health indicators, considering the correlation between physiological health indicators and age.

The impact of urbanization on public health has always been a controversial topic, and different scholars have different opinions on it. Some researchers argue that urbanization is harmful to public health through many channels. First, rapid urbanization will lead to a series of environmental pollution problems ( 33 ), including water pollution ( 16 ), dust pollution ( 34 ), and carbon dioxide emission ( 35 ) in urban residents' daily life. Environmental pollution is widely believed to harm citizens' health ( 36 – 39 ). Second, urbanization may lead to more chronic diseases and mental illnesses. Son et al. ( 40 ) adopted the Community Health Survey data in South Korea from 2008 to 2010 and found that urbanization would cause more asthma among residents. According to the research of Lambert et al. ( 41 ), urbanization will cause anxiety and emotional disorders, which is not conducive to the mental health of residents and will increase the incidence of infectious diseases ( 42 , 43 ), affecting public health levels. Third, urbanization has changed people's living and working habits, resulting in adverse health effects. For example, Patil ( 44 ) found that urbanization changed diet and exercise habits, leading to the risk of obesity and overweight. Gong et al. ( 1 ) revealed that urbanization had led to changes in human activity patterns, diet, and social structure in China, resulting in frequent hypertension and other diseases. Fourth, in the process of urbanization, the supply of infrastructure and medical facilities commonly lags behind the speed of population agglomeration, which leads to various problems such as population crowding and difficult medical treatment ( 1 , 45 ), which harms public health.

In contrast, another view holds that urbanization positively affects residents' health. The role of urbanization in promoting public health is mainly reflected in medical services. The level of medical and health services is compatible with urbanization development ( 46 ). There are significant differences in health resources between urban and rural areas ( 47 ). Health insurance coverage is higher in urban areas than in rural areas ( 48 ), and urban residents benefit from improved sanitation facilities ( 49 ). Urbanization also indirectly affects public health by affecting education and income. Lounkaew ( 50 ) used data from the PISA 2009 literacy test in Thailand and concluded that the education level of urban students was higher than that of rural students. As mentioned above, education is an important factor influencing public health ( 27 ). Chauvin et al. ( 51 ) compared urbanization in the United States, Brazil, China, and India and found that urbanization would lead to an urban-rural income gap, and India had the largest urban-rural income gap. Residents' income significantly affects their health level ( 52 ), while urbanization indirectly affects public health by increasing the income level of urban residents. Based on literature review and reality analysis, we propose a research framework (see Figure 1 ).

Research framework of the impact of urbanization on public health.

3. Research design

3.1. econometrics model.

In 1972, Grossman first analyzed residents' micro-health demand by establishing health production functions. This function considers many factors, including income pattern, living standards, education, environment, etc. ( 53 ). The model has been enriched and perfected in subsequent studies ( 54 – 56 ).

With the continuous increase of urban population and urbanization rate, the demand for public health services also increases. Urbanization has led to improvements in living standards, education and regional investment in public health ( 49 , 50 ). On the contrary, regional environmental conditions, residents' working pressure and other factors may be negatively affected by urbanization ( 17 , 44 ). Therefore, it is reasonable to take urbanization as an explanatory variable affecting residents' public health.

Based on the relevant literature and practical experience ( 57 – 60 ), real GDP per capita, primary school enrollment rate, women's fertility rate and domestic private health expenditure is closely related to public health and health conditions. Therefore, we take these factors as control variables to control the impact of these factors on public health status. According to the Grossman model, a simplified health production function can be expressed as:

where H represents the resident health variable and X i (i = 1, 2, 3, … n ) represents the factors affecting public health.

If the vector X i affecting individuals is converted into a set of variables representing urbanization, economy, health expenditure, education, life standard, trade, foreign direct investment, the health production function can be expressed as C-D (Cobb- Douglas) production function:

where ( Urb, Eco, Hex, Edu, Lst, Tra, FDI, O ) represents urbanization, economy, health expenditure, education, life standard, trade, foreign direct investment and other factors affecting health, respectively, α, β, γ, λ, η, θ, σ, μ is the corresponding elastic coefficient, and Ω is the estimated value of the initial public health. This paper selects relevant economic variables, health variables, education variables and life variables for empirical analysis. In addition, in the robustness test, this paper adds trade variables and FDI variables. By taking the logarithm Equation (2), Equation (3) is obtained:

Based on Equation (3), the econometric model of this paper is set as follows:

where Health it refers to the public health condition of country i in year t , and Urbanization it is the urbanization level of country i in year t . Control it is a matrix of control variables to control for other factors that may impact public health. u it is the stochastic disturbance term.

3.2. Variable selection and data source

Crude death rate and life expectancy at birth are two indicators used to measure public health in a specific region and are widely used by scholars ( 61 , 62 ). Therefore, we select crude death rate(log death ) and life expectancy at birth(log life ) as dependent variables in this paper. For comparative study, we also subdivide life expectancy at birth into male life expectancy at birth(log lifem ) and female life expectancy at birth(log lifef ). These two variables are also added to the explained variables.

To measure the level of urbanization which is an explanatory variable, we refer to relevant literature ( 63 , 64 ) to measure the urbanization level of a region by the urbanization rate. This paper measures the urbanization rate by the urban population ratio to each country's total population.

Our study uses annual panel data for 175 countries from 2000 to 2018 (list of countries in Appendix section), with data from the World Development Indicators (WDI) database in World Bank. The time period was chosen because the World Bank database lacked data before 2000, and urbanization in many developing countries had just started since 2002. According to the data of the World Bank, the growth rate of the global urbanization rate has been < 2% since 2018, significantly slowing down. Therefore, the sample time selected in this paper is from 2000 to 2018. We take the logarithm of all the variables selected to eliminate heteroscedasticity and reduce the amount of data for calculation. In addition, taking logarithms can also avoid interpretation difficulties due to inconsistent units. After taking the logarithm of the independent and dependent variables simultaneously, the estimated variable parameter can be interpreted as the elasticity.

3.3. Descriptive statistics

The descriptive statistics of the main variables are shown in Table 1 . As can be seen from Table 1 , the urbanization rate( urban ) ranges from 8.246 to 100%, with a standard deviation of 22.97, indicating a considerable gap in the level of urbanization in various countries in the world. The mortality rate( death ) is 8.461 deaths per 1,000 people and, even more alarmingly, 37.83 deaths per 1,000 live births. The average life expectancy( life ) is 70.02 years, with a standard deviation of 9.123, and there are significant differences in life expectancy between sexes. More specifically, the average life expectancy for women( lifef ) is 72.54 years and for men( lifem ) is 67.59 years.

Descriptive statistics.

4. Empirical results and discussion

4.1. preliminary analysis.

Before the formal regression begins, we plot scatter plots between the urbanization rate and the crude death rate and between the urbanization rate and life expectancy to visualize the relationship between the variables. As shown in Figure 2A , there is a negative correlation between the urbanization rate and the crude death rate. The result of linear fitting presents a linear relationship between them. As presented in Figure 2B , there is a high correlation between urbanization rate and life expectancy, and the relationship between them is linear.

Health indicators and urbanization rate. (A) Crude death rate vs. urbanization rate. (B) Life expectancy vs. urbanization rate.

Before regression analysis, we conduct a panel unit root test to avoid “spurious regression.” We performed unit root tests using the methods of PP-Fisher ( 65 ) and ADF-Fisher ( 66 ), which are unit root test methods specifically used for imbalanced panel data. Table 2 reports the results of the unit root test. As can be seen from the table, the null hypothesis of unit root is rejected for all variables, that is, they are stationary series.

Panel unit root test results.

4.2. Benchmark results

First, we estimate a linear regression model using the OLS estimation. Table 3 reports the OLS regression results of the impact of urbanization rate on public health. The empirical results in column (1) indicate that the urbanization rate has a strong negative effect on the crude death rate. More specifically, 1% increase in the urbanization rate reduces the crude death rate by 0.06%. The results in columns (2) to (4) show that the urbanization rate positively affects life expectancy at birth. Its coefficient is 0.014, which is statistically significant at the 1% level. While OLS estimation provide a simple answer, urbanization and public health indicators change over time and vary greatly across countries. The bias in coefficient estimation could be considerable, leading to misleading inference. As is shown in Table 4 , we conduct four Hausman tests for four different dependent variables. The p -values in the statistical results are ~ 0, so the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, we choose the fixed effects model. Considering the influence of the time factor, we use the two-way fixed effect model to carry out the analysis. Table 4 reports the results of the regression analysis of the two-way fixed effect model. The empirical results reveal that the coefficient of urbanization rate in column (1) is −0.653 at the 1% significance level. The results in columns (2) to (4) prove that a 1% increase in the urbanization rate leads to a significant 0.179% increase in life expectancy at birth. Regarding gender, urbanization increases women's life expectancy by 0.008% points more than men's.

OLS estimation results.

** and *** indicate significance at the 5 and 1% levels, respectively. Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

Two-way fixed effect estimation results.

* , ** , *** indicate significance at the 10, 5, and 1% levels, respectively; the values in parentheses of the regression coefficients are the standard errors of the clusters at the country level.

5. Causal identification issues and strategies

5.1. excluding omitted variable bias.

Before this part, we used a two-way fixed effect model for estimation. Although the two-way fixed effect model controls for country and year fixed effects and mitigates the omitted variable bias to some extent, the reality is highly complex, and many factors affect the independent and dependent variables. Therefore, the control of the two-way fixed effect model is limited. In particular, when factors that influence urbanization rates and public health and change over time are not fully taken into account, the resulting estimators are biased even using two-way fixed effect models. To solve the problem of inconsistent coefficient estimation, we refer to relevant literature and adopt the bounding value analysis of Oster ( 9 ).

Previous studies often carried out a coefficient sensitivity analysis by adding control variables. In the past, scholars believed that if the treatment effect coefficient was still stable when new observable variables were added to the model, the deviation caused by omitted variables would be considered small. However, these studies have ignored the information reflected by R 2 . Therefore, Oster ( 9 ) based on the hypothesis that the relationship between treatment effect and unobservable variables can be deduced from the relationship between treatment effect and observable variables and improved the robustness test method of omitted variable bias. When there are unobservable variables, the estimator β * = β ~ - [ δ ( β • - β ~ ) ( R max - R ~ ) / ( R ~ - R • ) ] can be used to test whether the benchmark regression results are affected by omitted variables. β • , R • and β ~ , R ~ correspond to the estimated coefficients of the core explanatory variables and the goodness-of-fit of the regression equations when the constrained control variables and the observable control variables are introduced into the estimation, respectively. R max represents the maximum goodness of fit when the unobservable variable can be observed. δ represents the relative strength of the correlation between observable variables and unobservable variables and the variables of concern.

We conduct a bounding value analysis of four health indicators used in this study. We set R max to 1.3 R ~ and δ to 1. The results of the bound estimation are presented in Table 5 . To make the results more precise, we reproduce the above regression results using two-way fixed effect estimation in column (1) of Table 5 . Column (2) of Table 5 reports the bound estimation. The result shows that the interval formed by β * and β ~ does not contain 0. It means that our two-way fixed effect estimations are robust to potential omitted variable bias. In addition, by comparing columns (1) and (2), we find that the coefficient of the impact of the urbanization rate on the crude death rate changes from −1.128 to −0.653 after considering the omitted variable bias. This indicates that the impact of the urbanization rate on the crude death rate is stronger after accounting for omitted variable bias. We find the same results for other health measures.

Bound estimation results.

5.2. System GMM estimation

To solve the problems of endogeneity and estimation bias that may exist in the model, we use the system GMM method for estimation. We also use two test methods that Arellano and Bover ( 67 ) proposed to verify the validity of instrumental variables and the system GMM estimation results. The first is the second-order serial correlation test AR (2), whose main function is to test whether the residuals estimated by the system GMM have a serial correlation. The second is the overidentification constraint test, which is mainly used to verify whether the instrumental variables used in the system GMM estimation are jointly effective. In the empirical study, the Hansen test method is adopted for identification.

Table 6 reports the test results of the system GMM model with crude death rate, life expectancy, female life expectancy, and male life expectancy as explained variables in turn. The p -values of the four second-order serial autocorrelation tests AR( 2 ) are all >0.1, and the Hansen test is also >0.1, which means that there is no second-order serial correlation in the regression equation. The instrumental variables are generally valid. This confirms that the GMM model setup is reasonable. As shown in the table, urbanization negatively affects mortality and positively affects life expectancy. The positive impact of urbanization on public health is robust.

System GMM estimation results.

5.3. 2SLS estimation

In addition, to make the results of this paper convincing, we further employ the instrumental variable method to conduct two-stage least squares regression to address the potential endogeneity problem. This paper employs the urbanization level of one-stage lag as an instrumental variable. We first take urbanization as the dependent variable, and the urbanization lagging behind by one period as the independent variable for regression to obtain the residual term. The residuals (log urbanhat ) were used as explanatory variables to replace urbanization in model (1) for regression, and the results are shown in Table 7 . Urbanization has significantly improved public health. Specifically, every 1% increase in the urbanization rate will reduce the crude death rate by 0.494%. The remaining coefficients are as expected. This proves that our results are reliable.

2SLS estimation results.

5.4. Instrumental variable method

To further solve the possible endogeneity problem, we also construct a new and effective instrumental variable for re-estimation with the help of the heteroscedasticity instrumental variable method proposed by Lewbel ( 10 ). He introduced a new method that an instrumental variable could be constructed with the help of a set of observable exogenous variable vectors Z in the absence of relevant traditional instrumental variables or in the presence of weak instrumental variables.

The operation method is as follows: in the first stage, the endogenous variable is regressive to the exogenous variable Z, the residual term ε 2 is obtained, and ( Z - Z ¯ ) ε 2 ^ is constructed as the instrumental variable in the second step estimation, where Z ¯ is the mean value of the exogenous variable vector. This heteroscedasticity-based discrimination method requires that the residuals of the first stage regression be heteroscedasticity. In the second stage, the instrumental variables estimate in the first step are used to estimate the effect of the explanatory variables on the explained variables. According to Lewbel ( 10 ), this paper sets the following model.

where Y 1 is the four indicators to measure public health, Y 2 is the urbanization rate, X is all the control variables, and ε 1 and ε 2 represent the error terms. Z ϵ X or Z = X . We first estimate the residual term of Equation (6) by regression with the whole sample, and test the heteroscedasticity of the residual term. The null hypothesis of homoscedasticity can be rejected if the p -value is 0, and the existence of heteroscedasticity of the residual term of Equation (6) is proved. Then, the instrumental variables are constructed according to ( Z - Z ¯ ) ε 2 ^ , and Equation (5) is re-estimated. The results are listed in Table 8 .

IV estimation results.

The regression results of instrumental variables in Table 8 illustrate that urbanization significantly negatively impacts the crude death rate. Specifically, the coefficient of the urbanization rate is −2.171. Columns (2) to (5) of the table indicate that the level of urbanization significantly boosts life expectancy.

In summary, we try to solve the possible endogeneity problem of benchmark regression using Oster ( 9 ) bound estimation, system GMM estimation, and instrumental variable method. The results from Tables 5 – 8 all reveal that the urbanization rate significantly improves the public health level.

6. What is driving the results?

A key question is raised: What are the potential channels through which urbanization affect public health? This paper attempts to explore whether living standards can be such a channel. Related studies ( 12 , 68 ) found a correlation between urbanization rate and living standards. In addition, it is widely believed that rising living standards improve public health. Real GDP per capita is commonly used to represent the standard of living ( 69 , 70 ). For living standards to be a potential channel, two conditions must be met. First, real GDP per capita needs to be correlated with urbanization rates. Table 9 reports the relationship between the urbanization rate and real GDP per capita(log gdp ). The results show that the increase in urbanization rate can significantly improve living standards. Specifically, for every 1% increase in the urbanization rate, the real GDP per capita increases by 0.573%.

Effect of urbanization on the potential channel.

Second, put living standards, urbanization rate, and public health into the same regression model, and the coefficient of urbanization rate should be reduced or insignificant. The results are presented in Table 10 . Columns (2) and (5) of Tables 10 , ​ ,11 11 show that when living standards, urbanization rate, and public health are added to the same regression model, the coefficient on urbanization rate decreases significantly. Our research suggests that the standard of living is one channel through which urbanization rates affect public health. We also examine whether living standards moderated the relationship between urbanization and public health to further probe its channel role. More precisely, we include an interaction term between urbanization rate and living standards (log urban * log gdp ) in Equation (4), as shown in columns (3) and (6) of Tables 10 , ​ ,11. 11 . The coefficient of the interaction term is significant and opposite to the coefficient of the urbanization rate. It means that living standards negatively moderate the impact of the urbanization rate on public health. In other words, the relationship between urbanization and public health is lower in countries with higher living standards.

Test results of potential channel mechanism (crude death rate and total life expectancy).

Test results of potential channel mechanism (female and male life expectancy).

7. Conclusions and suggestions

Public health is a significant development goal and one of the priorities of government work all over the world. The concentration of population into cities and towns, known as urbanization, is a worldwide trend. And the process of urbanization itself is a process of economic development and modernization. This paper uses the annual panel data published by the World Bank from 2000 to 2018 to examine whether urbanization affects public health and potential channels.

First, increased urbanization has significantly improved public health. Urbanization has considerably reduced the crude death rate and increased life expectancy at birth. This further confirms the conclusions of Shen et al. ( 46 ) and Jiang et al. ( 56 ). From a gender-specific perspective, urbanization increases women's life expectancy at birth more than men's.

Second, the cause-and-effect relationship between increasing urbanization rate and improved public health status is valid. To solve the problem of causal identification and ensure the establishment of a causal mechanism of action, we use the bounding value analysis method, system GMM estimation, and the instrumental variable method to deal with the possible endogeneity problem. The results of these tests suggest that there is indeed a causal link between urbanization and public health.

Third, the results of our estimation are robust. We also perform robustness checks by replacing the explained and core explanatory variables, grouping regressions, and adding more control variables. The results demonstrate that our conclusion is credible.

Fourth, further research shows that the impact of urbanization on public health can be mediated through living standards. Specifically, the increase in urbanization rate significantly promotes residents' living standards, and the rise of residents' living standards positively impacts public health. In addition, living standards can also be used as a moderating variable of urbanization and public health. The impact of urbanization on public health is stronger in countries with low living standards than in countries with high living standards.

The results of our research presented above can provide some references for relevant policymakers. On one hand, policymakers should make improving the quality of urbanization development a top priority and strive to play a positive role and reduce its negative impact. On the other hand, the impact of urbanization on public health is stronger in countries with lower living standards. This conclusion has important implications for developing countries. In the context of rapid urbanization, policymakers in developing countries can further improve the level of health security of residents by promoting their urbanization.

There are still some limitations in this paper. First, in terms of the potential channel of urbanization affecting public health, only living standards is selected as the mediating variable. Future studies may focus on more channels when the data is available. Secondly, this paper estimates public health through the health demand function, and adopts the mortality rate and life expectancy as the measurement indicators of public health. Future studies can use different public health measures based on the health supply function, which is conducive to enrich the contributions from novel perspectives.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

ZZ: conceptualization, methodology, and formal analysis. MZ: data curation and writing—original draft. YZ: visualization and investigation. YF: writing—review and editing, supervision, and resources. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the editor and reviewers for their critical suggestions of this manuscript.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72034003, 71874074, 71804063, 72004105, and 72104097), Youth Project of Gansu Natural Science Foundation (22JR5RA542), General Project of Gansu Philosophy and Social Science Foundation (2022YB014), Lanzhou Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (22-A42), Research and Interpretation Project of the Spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress of Lanzhou University (2023lzdxjbkyzx008), Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Ministry of Education (20JYC630049), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2021-sp72).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1096964/full#supplementary-material

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Published: 29 May 2003

Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate

• Eugenia Kalnay 1 &
• Ming Cai 1  

Nature volume  423 ,  pages 528–531 ( 2003 ) Cite this article

40k Accesses

1672 Citations

16 Altmetric

Metrics details

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 04 September 2003

The most important anthropogenic influences on climate are the emission of greenhouse gases 1 and changes in land use, such as urbanization and agriculture 2 . But it has been difficult to separate these two influences because both tend to increase the daily mean surface temperature 3 , 4 . The impact of urbanization has been estimated by comparing observations in cities with those in surrounding rural areas, but the results differ significantly depending on whether population data 5 or satellite measurements of night light 6 , 7 , 8 are used to classify urban and rural areas 7 , 8 . Here we use the difference between trends in observed surface temperatures in the continental United States and the corresponding trends in a reconstruction of surface temperatures determined from a reanalysis of global weather over the past 50 years, which is insensitive to surface observations, to estimate the impact of land-use changes on surface warming. Our results suggest that half of the observed decrease in diurnal temperature range is due to urban and other land-use changes. Moreover, our estimate of 0.27 °C mean surface warming per century due to land-use changes is at least twice as high as previous estimates based on urbanization alone 7 , 8 .

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

Surface warming in global cities is substantially more rapid than in rural background areas

Zihan Liu, Wenfeng Zhan, … Xuhui Lee

High-spatiotemporal-resolution mapping of global urban change from 1985 to 2015

Xiaoping Liu, Yinghuai Huang, … Zhenzhong Zeng

Magnitude of urban heat islands largely explained by climate and population

Gabriele Manoli, Simone Fatichi, … Elie Bou-Zeid

IPCC Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001)

Google Scholar  

Pielke, R. A. Sr et al. The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system: Relevance to climate-change policy beyond the radiative effects of greenhouse gases. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 360 , 1–15 (2002)

Article   Google Scholar  

Gallo, K. P. & Owen, T. W. Satellite-based adjustments for urban heat island temperature bias. J. Appl. Meteorol. 38 , 806–813 (1999)

Article   ADS   Google Scholar  

Owen, T. W., Gallo, K. P., Elvidge, C. D. & Baugh, K. E. Using DMSP-OLS light frequency data to categorize urban environments associated with US climate observing stations. Int. J. Remote Sensing 19 , 3451–3456 (1998)

Easterling, D. R. et al. Maximum and minimum temperature trends for the globe. Science 277 , 364–367 (1997)

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Gallo, K. P., Easterling, D. R. & Peterson, T. C. The influence of land use/land cover on climatological values of the diurnal temperature range. J. Clim. 9 (11), 2941–2944 (1996)

Hansen, J. E. et al. A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res. 106 , 23947–23963 (2001)

Gallo, K. P., Owen, T. W., Easterling, D. R. & Jamason, P. F. Temperature trends of the US historical climatology network based on satellite-designated land use/land cover. J. Clim. 12 (5), 1344–1348 (1999)

NRC Board on Atmosphere Sciences and Climate Committee Panel, John M. Wallace, chair, pages 1–71. Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change (National Research Council, Washington DC, 2000).

Kalnay, E. et al. The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 77 , 437–431 (1996)

Kistler, R. et al. The NCEP/NCAR 50-year reanalysis: Monthly means CD-ROM and documentation. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 82 , 247–267 (2000)

Runnalls, K. E. & Oke, T. R. Dynamics and controls of the near-surface heat island of Vancouver, BC. Phys. Geogr. 21 , 283–304 (2000)

Travis, D. J., Carleton, A. M. & Lauritsen, R. G. Contrails reduce daily temperature range. Nature 418 , 601 (2002)

Article   ADS   CAS   Google Scholar  

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by a Risk Prediction Initiative grant. We are grateful to A. Senserini, who performed most of the computations, to J. E. Janowiak and W. Ebisuzaki who provided the data, and to R. Murnane, T. Oke, J. Hansen, E. Rassmusson, R. Pielke Sr, T. vonder Haar and Z. Li for discussions.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20770-2425, USA

Eugenia Kalnay & Ming Cai

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eugenia Kalnay .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary figure 1 (doc 993 kb), supplementary figure 2 (doc 935 kb), supplementary figure 3 (doc 945 kb), rights and permissions.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Kalnay, E., Cai, M. Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate. Nature 423 , 528–531 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01675

Download citation

Received : 18 December 2002

Accepted : 23 April 2003

Issue Date : 29 May 2003

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01675

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

This article is cited by

Ambient temperature and emergency department visits for mental disorder before and during the covid-19 pandemic.

Nature Mental Health (2024)

Augmented human thermal discomfort in urban centers of the Arabian Peninsula

• Abdullah Aldossary
• Sami G. Al-Ghamdi

Scientific Reports (2024)

Exploring the effect of building form and arrangement on outdoor thermal comfort in residential complexes (case study: Tabriz city)

• Sepideh Pouri
• Paria Saadatjoo
• Leila Rahimi

Environment, Development and Sustainability (2024)

Emphasizing the land use-cloud-radiation feedback in detecting climate effects of land use and land cover changes

• Deming Zhao

Climate Dynamics (2024)

Urban climate change assessment in case of Aligarh City, North India

• Salma Sultana
• Shahab Fazal
• Deepika Vashishtha

Arabian Journal of Geosciences (2024)

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines . If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Essay on Urbanization for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Urbanization is the process in which people migrate from backward and rural areas to urban areas often attributed to modernization and industrialization. Industrial revolution has given rise to Urbanization by creating job opportunities that induces people from rural areas to migrate to urban areas. With economic and social reforms demand for man power has increased in urban areas.

Fill Out the Form for Expert Academic Guidance!

Please indicate your interest Live Classes Books Test Series Self Learning

Verify OTP Code (required)

I agree to the terms and conditions and privacy policy .

Fill complete details

Target Exam ---

Long and Short Essay on Urbanization in English

Here are essays on urbanization of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam. You can select any Urbanization essay as per your need:

Urbanization Essay 1 (200 Words)

Urbanization refers to movement of mankind from rural areas to urban areas and how society adapts the changes. India is facing serious problem of rise in urban population presently. With Urbanization there is increase in social, economic and political progress but on the other hand it also leads to socio-economic problems due to unplanned growth in urban population and lack of infrastructural facilities.

The natural growth in population combined with the growth due to migration puts heavy load on public utilities like housing, water, health, education, transport and other commodities and services.

People from rural areas migrate to urban areas for better employment opportunities, better education, health and medical facilities, commercialization, better standard of living, social status and so on. Modern-day farming involves new technology lessening the need of manpower leading to Urbanization.

There are several problems that upsurge due to Urbanization that need serious attention. Some of the chief problems in India due to Urbanization are overpopulation, poverty, environmental degradation, unemployment, transport, sanitation, pollution and so on.

Planning and investment is required for infrastructural development. Developing clean cities and green cities is essential. Provisions of essential services such as health, education, clean water, food and electricity among the masses should be the goal. Spreading awareness and educating people about family planning and population control should be emphasized.

Urbanization Essay 2 (300 Words)

Introduction

Urbanization is the rise in growth of people living in cities and towns. Urbanization also means the transformation of society whereby rural economy is being transformed to advanced industrial economy. It is highly accepted notion that urban areas as compared to rural areas have achieved better social, economic and political development. People from the rural areas are induced to urban areas to take advantage of its advanced economic and social benefits.

Urbanization in India

Urbanization began to stimulate in India after independence due to rise in the development of the private sector. Population living in urban areas in India according to census 2001 was 28.53%, standing at 31.16% as per census 2011. A survey conducted by UN state of the world population report in 2007, predicts 40.76% population in India is expected to live in urban areas by 2030 and will lead to world’s urban population surge by 2050.

Main causes of Urbanization in India are Industrial revolution, Urbanization for economic development, economic opportunities and infrastructure facilities, development of private sectors, employment opportunities, land fragmentations and better standard of living.

Like every coin has two sides, Urbanization has several positive as well as negative effects. The positive factors of Urbanization are generation of employment opportunities, better and higher education, healthcare and medical facilities, housing, transport, new technology, social integration, electricity and better standard of living. The negative effects of Urbanization are unemployment, overcrowding, global warming, traffic congestions and air pollution, poverty, shortage in supply of water, urban crime, trash disposal issues and so on. With the passing time negative impacts of Urbanization are increasing immensely.

Due to growth in population, industrialization and infrastructural development has become a necessity in rural areas. This will also raise employment opportunities in rural areas. Better education, healthcare, transport, sanitation facilities should be provided in rural areas.

Urbanization Essay 3 (400 Words)

Urbanization is the process in which people leave rural areas and shift to urban areas either due to push or pull factors. Urbanization turns out to have positive effects when happens to the certain extent. The positive effects of the Urbanization include employment to the unemployed, better education, health care and medical facilities, infrastructural development and access to new and advanced technologies. Urbanization is the process of development. However, over Urbanization in cities especially metro cities is resulting in adverse effects.

Positive Effects of Urbanization

Here is a detailed look at the positive effects of Urbanization:

• Efficiency: Urban areas are more efficient in providing resources than rural areas. Basic amenities such as clean water, housing and electricity are easily provided.
• Accessibility: Apart from the basic resources people in urban areas get easy access to health care and medical facilities, higher and better education, transport, entertainment etc.
• Better Employment: People from rural areas often migrate to urban areas in search of better employment opportunities. Due to industrialization and commercialization there are several job and business opportunities available in cities.
• Education: There are more schools, universities and colleges in urban areas as compared to rural areas. Students migrate to urban areas for higher or better education with or without their families. Students can choose from a variety of career options available in cities for their bright future.
• Health care: There are several health care and medical facilities available in urban areas as compared to rural areas.
• Better social amalgamation: Urbanization promotes cultural and social fusion. People of various religions, castes and gender work and socialize together breaking down the norms of social and cultural barriers.

Push and Pull Factors of Urbanization

There are various push factors and pull factors of Urbanization in India. Push factors are the factors due to which people have to leave rural areas and move to urban areas for instance, unemployment, poverty, lack of infrastructure and limited resources. Pull factors are the factors that induced people to move to urban areas e.g. employment opportunities, better education, infrastructure development, commercialization, health and medical care.

Urbanization also means the transformation of society whereby rural culture is being transformed to modern urban culture. It is alteration from traditional rural economies to industrial economies. Urbanization allows the overall urban population to enjoy the fruits of economic and social development. However, due to increase in global warming due to Urbanization serious measures need to be taken for clean and green cities.

Urbanization Essay 4 (500 Words)

The mass movement of people from rural areas to urban areas, i.e., cities and towns is called Urbanization, the process in which population in cities and towns increases. Higher the population, higher is the demand of public utilities like housing, sanitation water, health, education and so on. Urbanization is subjected to range of elements such as urban planning, economics, sociology and health care.

The concept of Urbanization is increase in developing and developed society as people want to move to cities and towns to enjoy the benefits of social and economic development that include better education, health care, housing, better work opportunities and sanitation.

Main Causes of Urbanization

Here are some of the main causes of Urbanization:

• Industrialization
• Commercialization
• Social benefits
• Employment opportunities
• Modernization
• Better Education

Here is a look at these factors in brief:

Industrialization is the concept of moving from agricultural sector to industrial sector. Industrialization creates economic growth and employment opportunities. With industrial revolution in developing and developed countries, more and more people are moving from rural areas to urban areas for better employment opportunities.

Modern-day trade and commerce also result in Urbanization. In modern times, development of marketing institutions and methods of trade have significantly contributed to Urbanization. There are better commercial opportunities and returns in urban areas than in rural areas. As a result, people are tempted to urban areas.

• Social Benefits

There are several social benefits in urban areas compared to rural areas like better education, better health care, transport, sanitation and social status. Better recreational facilities are available such as play grounds, theatres, parks and clubs. Thus, people move to urban areas for enjoying the benefits of modern lifestyle.

• Employment Opportunities

In rural areas people mainly have to depend on agricultural sector for their living whereas in the urban areas there are several employment opportunities in various sectors such as education, health care, transport, banking, media, television and sports to name a few.

Agricultural sector mainly depends on monsoon. In times of natural calamities and drought, people have to migrate to urban areas in search of employment. With modern farming technology manpower needed in farming sector is decreased leading to Urbanization.

Urban areas are characterized by new technology, infrastructural development, better health care and medical facilities, liberalization and better standard of living. This induces people from backward and rural areas to move to urban areas.

The management of administration is also responsible for Urbanization. The government has not maintained the rapidity with city growth in terms of infrastructure management or spatial.

As compared to rural areas there are better education facilities available in urban areas. The schools and colleges providing professional education are all located in urban areas. Thus young girls and boys either alone or with their families shift to urban areas to seek quality education.

Poverty and economic degradation are the major problems rising with Urbanization that need serious attention. Planning and investment in sustainable industries, eco-friendly infrastructure and eco-friendly technology is essential. Encouraging the use of eco-friendly products and technology among the masses is vital. Creating more and more job opportunities and equality will help fight poverty.

Urbanization Essay 5 (600 Words)

Increase in the volume of total population in urban areas is called Urbanization. Rising population in urban areas creates rise in the demand of basic amenities such as food, health, transport and shelter in such areas. This contributes to the development of land for housing, economic support institutions, commercialization, transport and so on.

Problems Due to Urbanization

Given below are the problems that we face due to Urbanization:

• Overcrowding

Overcrowding means over population in the urban areas due to migration. Cities where the population is rising every single day are getting overcrowded. This is the current situation in all the big cities in India. Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi are some of the examples of overcrowded cities.

When the population increases, the demand for housing also increases. The factors that are mainly responsible for the lack of housing facilities are lack of financial resources, poverty and unemployment.

• Unemployment

The chief cause of unemployment is over population in the urban areas due to migration of people from rural locations to these areas. The growth in economic opportunities fails to keep pace with growth in urban population.

The unplanned growth in the urban areas is growing the spread of slums. Rise in slum settlements in India is a striking feature. Urbanization, poverty and overpopulation, has increased the growth of slums as high rate of land and property in urban areas is beyond the reach of rural migrants and urban poor.

Large use of vehicles for transport has increased traffic congestion making the movement slow and difficult.

• Urban Crime

With the rise in urban population there is rise in poverty and unemployment. Due to poverty there is rise in crimes like theft, pick pocketing, cheating and murders.

• Air Pollution

Urbanization is a major cause of air pollution and global warming. Industries release greenhouse gases causing rise in the temperature of the earth and creating air pollution. Larger use of vehicles release gases by fuel combustion. Large amount of garbage from the landfills is burnt causing air pollution.

Water is the most important element of nature to sustain life. Due to overcrowding in the cities the supply of water is falling short compared to the demand.

• Trash Disposal

As the number of citizens grow in urban areas the problem of trash disposal rises. The large quantity of garbage in the cities increases severe health issues. In most of the areas in cities there is no garbage disposal facility. When the landfills get full innumerable poisons leak around its surroundings, inviting diseases, like malaria, diarrhoea, typhoid, etc. Air travel also carries bacteria from one person to another spreading disease even more.

Ways to Keep Urbanization in Check

Here are some ways to keep Urbanization in check:

The chief reason of Urbanization is the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas in search of employment opportunities. Developing agricultural and rural industries will provide employment opportunities in rural areas.

• Infrastructural Development in Rural Areas

Construction of roads, buildings, hospitals, parks, educational centres, etc. is vital for rural development. This will help rural people get better education and health care locally and also provide more job opportunities. Government should develop transport networks and related infrastructure.

• Overall Development

Industrial and private sector development in rural areas is necessary. The focus of government should be nationwide Urbanization. Planning and investment in Urbanization of rural areas is essential.

• Population Control

Over population is also a chief cause for Urbanization. Educating people about family planning and creating awareness among the rural communities is crucial.

• Global Warming

One of the major problems of Urbanization rapidly rising is global warming. Use of renewable energy sources like solar energy, wind energy, hydropower should be encouraged. Investments in energy efficient industries and technologies will lead to clean economy. Reforestation instead of deforestation should be promoted.

Urbanization is on a rapid increase in our country. While it is good that our country is progressing and that more and more people want to lead a modern life, get better education and good employment opportunities, Urbanization can have negative repercussions as well. It is thus essential to control Urbanization.

Related Information:

Essay on Population

Essay on Unemployment

Essay on Deforestation

Essay on Pollution due to Urbanization

Related content

Talk to our academic expert!

Language --- English Hindi Marathi Tamil Telugu Malayalam

Get access to free Mock Test and Master Class

Register to Get Free Mock Test and Study Material

Offer Ends in 5:00

112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples

🏆 best questions to ask about urbanization, ✍️ urbanization essay topics for college, 📌 discussion questions about urbanization, 👍 good research questions on urbanization, ❓ questions about urbanization.

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Urbanization Essay These resources are easily exploited because of the availability of facilities and labor in the cities, which leads to economic development and improvement of living standards of the city dwellers.
• Urbanization Negative Impacts Change within a society may have political, social and economic effects on the society. This essay examines the negative economic and social impacts of changes that are associated with urbanization. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Urbanization and the Environment Due to urbanization, the number, the size, the kind and the compactness of cities, in addition to the effectiveness of their management of the environment are major concerns for attainment of the international sustainability.
• Urbanization in Mexico Some services are available in the urban areas but most of the residents are not in the position to pay for them.
• Urbanization and Technological Development in the Philippines In the course of writing the material, not only data from previous works were used, but also static data that allowed us to track the dynamics of the development of Philippine in the last 15-20 […]
• Technological Innovation Effect on Urbanization By the 20th century, as large-scale industrial production became effective, the idea of urbanization appeared, leading to the further growth of the world’s leading cities. As such, the idea of urbanization is the cornerstone of […]
• Urbanization Merits and Challenges Urbanization is in most cases associated with the human movement from the rural to the urban areas. This is as a result of increased population in the rural areas in relation to the lands and […]
• Social, Economic and Environmental Challenges of Urbanization in Lagos However, the city’s rapid economic growth has led to high population density due to urbanization, creating social, economic, and environmental challenges the challenges include poverty, unemployment, sanitation, poor and inadequate transport infrastructure, congestion in the […]
• Urbanization Process in Mesopotamia History of the involvement of the cities in the world has different reasons that lead to the development and establishment of the towns.
• Urbanization: Origins and Growth of Cities That is why there is no doubt that the emergence of social classes and the distribution of labor significantly contributed to the rise and growth of ancient cities.
• American Cities and Urbanization After the Civil War American cities’ central development and urbanization occurred in the years after the end of the Civil War. Firstly, the active development of urbanization was caused by the fact that people began to move to cities […]
• Aspects of Chinese Urbanization The urban changes in Beijing started in the second half of the 20th century. Since the 1990s, urbanization in China has continued to increase due to economic and technological advancements.
• Urbanization and Suburbanization Therefore, more people come to life in the city, in order to be able to take advantage of the many opportunities it offers.
• Demography, Urbanization and Environment The coefficients of migration, immigration, and emigration show the movements of people, which also change the number of people living in a particular territory.
• Urbanization and Technological Development in Third-World Countries Extensive consolidation is necessary to get rid of poverty and improve the internal situation in third-world countries. It is essential to establish cooperation in all spheres of human life and competently use the resources of […]
• US Urbanization and Migration Trends at the End of the 19th Century It discussed the factors leading to successful urbanization, the challenges of urban life, and the effects this trend caused on the history of the state and its further development.
• Impacts of Immigration and Urbanization Urbanization is a special term that describes the decreasing proportion of people who live in rural areas, the population shift from rural to urban areas, and the possible ways of societies’ adaption to these changes. […]
• Technology and Migration in the Industrial Urbanization The history of the United States has a life-changing period between the end of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth – industrial urbanization.
• Information and History of Ecuador: Urbanization, Natural Resources and Politics Official Name: Republic of Ecuador Area: 272,046 square kilometers Official Language: Spanish Currency: US dollar Capital: Quito Largest City: Guayaquil Regime: Unitary presidentialconstitutional republic Constitution: August 10, 1998.
• United States History in 1864-1900 Years: Industrialization, Urbanization, and the Commercialization of Farming The Western frontier advanced in the years 1864 and 1900 by the establishment of democracy in America, industrialization, urbanization and the commercialization of farming.
• Urbanization and American Immigrant Myth The questions of urbanization and the growth of megacities have raised the significant attention of many people recently. The are several reasons for that, such as “the neoliberal globalization since 1978”, the wrong actions of […]
• Rapid Urbanization and Underdevelopment The essay through examples of the developing world and the developed world establishes the linkage between rapid urbanization and underdevelopment in both; the cities as well as the outlying peripheral areas.
• The Relationship Between the High Rate of Urbanization in Africa and AIDS Spread This movement results in to increase in the number of people in the towns and cities in a particular year. The increased social interaction of people in towns has led to increased HIV/AIDS infections in […]
• New Urbanism: The Problems of Urbanization The scales of differentiating private to public space include the following: spatial, degree of exclusivity and openness, and modes of social encounter.
• Aegean’s Urbanization: Technology and Pattern The intense trading activity in the Aegean region was also supported by the geographical positioning of the region near to the ocean so as to be accessible to the urban civilizations of the Near East.
• Agricultural Revolution and Changes to Ancient Societies in Terms of the State, Urbanization, and Labor This made the climate and soil more adaptable to plant growth and farming as some of the wild variants of barley and fruit began to grow in the region on their own.
• Rural Residents in “Rapid Urbanization” by Jennifer Weeks Research shows that many rural dwellers in developing nations move to towns and as cities struggle to accommodate the high growth, the rural residents often end up living in slums that are already teemed.
• Urbanization and Sub-Urbanization in the United States The exposition resulted in the creation of a beautiful urban space, and people acknowledged the benefits of city planning as well as the cooperation of different professionals.
• Urbanization Processes in Post-Socialist China To explain this phenomenon, this paper answers three questions what is the cost of forming this middle class what led to the emergence of this middle class how has the formation of the middle class […]
• Affirmative Action, Social Movements and Urbanization Affirmative action, according to Messerli, can be conceptualized as the preferential treatment of minorities in various aspects in the society. The following are some of the arguments supporting and opposing affirmative action in employment and […]
• China’s National New-Style Urbanization Plan The problems related to the rapid growth of the city population have accumulated at a certain point and started to prevent the further improvement of the quality of life of the population.
• Industrialization, Urbanization, and Migration The beginning of the Industrial Revolution is shown both in the article and the book focusing on terrible working conditions in the factories.
• Urbanization in Hong Kong and Effects on Citizens However, “while the proportion of people living in small cities is expected to decline, the million-plus cities accounting for about 40% of the total urban population in 2011 is expected to increase to 47% percent […]
• Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Urbanization Challenges As documented in the literature, Port-au-Prince is faced with many urban challenges and problems, ranging from social and geographic segregation to elevated poverty levels and occurrence of natural disasters which compound the problem of poverty.
• China’s Success in the Urbanization Process The current paper aims at reflecting and analyzing the article to comprehend the reasons of why the challenges appear during the process of urbanization when it is so important for the society and becomes a […]
• Urban Economics: The Urbanization Process and its Effects However, the rate of urbanization started to increase in the late 20th century and by the beginning of the 21st century, a significant portion of the developing world’s population lived in urban settlements.
• How do Migration and Urbanization Bring About Urban Poverty in Developing Countries? When there is a high rate of rural to urban migration, there is pressure on the limited resources in the urban centers.
• History of Urbanization in Brazil in 1980 In addition, according to Morrison, “there is a disparity in term of salary or wage differentials, and therefore aspirations and lifestyles, among classes in the country”.
• Urbanization and Environment The resources can be identified through the acquisition of knowledge about the environmental conditions of the areas in which urban development is expected to take place.
• Baseball and Urbanization For instance, at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, the urban population in the United States was 5% of the total population.
• Human Geography: Urbanization The high prices of food in some regions of the world make most of the people to starve. Most of the people in developed countries like in US, UK, Canada and Australia are well endowed […]
• Is Taiwan Urbanization Rate Growing? Urban & Rural Areas The ratio of the urban population to the total population determines the degree of Taiwanian urbanization. There has been a decline in the agricultural industry and this could be one of the ways to revive […]
• The Pressures of Urbanization on the Environment
• Urbanization Problems And Sustainable Development
• The Urban Mortality Transition and Poor-Country Urbanization
• Urbanization and Agricultural Policy in Egypt
• Urbanization Has Negatively Affected Biological Diversity
• Urbanization and Food Security: Empirical Evidence from Households in Urban Southwest Nigeria
• Urbanization and Rural Development in the People’s Republic of China
• Urbanization Migration And Development In Asia Economics
• The Roles of Women in Urbanization vs the Challenges of Living in the Countryside
• Urbanization, the Creation of Cities and the Impacts on the Natural Environment
• Urbanization, Mortality, and Fertility in Malthusian England
• Urbanization Of Urbanization During The 19th Century
• Urbanization and Labor Market Informality in Developing Countries
• Urbanization in India: Evidence on Agglomeration Economies
• Relocating or Redefined: A New Perspective on Urbanization in China
• Wildlife and the Impact of Urbanization
• Urbanization and the Viability of Local Agricultural Economies
• Sustainable Development Policies Can Reduce Urbanization Problems
• The Causal Relationship between Urbanization, Economic Growth and Water Use Change in Provincial China
• Urbanization Of Poverty And The Sustainable Development Of Urban Areas In Chile
• Urbanization as a Fundamental Cause of Development
• The Affect of Industrialization and Urbanization After Civil War
• Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Beijing’s Urbanization Efficiency from 2005 to 2014
• Role of Landscape Architecture in Urbanization
• Urbanization, Gender, and Business Creation in the Informal Sector in India
• World Capitalism and Third World Urbanization
• The Major Problems Associated with Rapid Urbanization
• Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay
• The Negative Impact of Urbanization on the Earth and Environment
• Urbanization, Lifestyle Changes and the Nutrition Transition
• The Role of the Demographic Transition in the Process of Urbanization
• Regional Differences in China’s Urbanization and its Determinants
• Urbanization in Romania During the Twentieth Century up to Today
• Urbanization Trends in Chicago Versus Houston
• What is the Role of Globalization on Urban Urbanization
• Technological Progress and the Urbanization Process
• Urbanization, Productivity and Innovation: Evidence from Investment in Higher Education
• The Relationship Between Urbanization And Industrialization
• Urbanization Is the Main Contributor to Disaster Occurrence in Developing Countries
• Urbanization, Inequality, and Poverty in the People’s Republic of China
• What Are the Economic Effects of Urbanization?
• Does Urbanization Increase Pollutant Emission and Energy Intensity?
• Does Urbanization Help Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas?
• What Is Urbanisation and Its Effects?
• Why Urbanization Is a Problem?
• What Are the Main Effects of Urbanization?
• What Is the Impact of Urbanization on the Environment?
• What Are the Three Main Causes of Urbanization?
• What Are the Negative Impacts of Urbanization on the Environment?
• What Are the Five Problems That Can Come Out of Urbanization?
• What Are the Effect of Urbanization on Society?
• How Does Urbanization Affect Population?
• How Does Urbanization Affect the Economy?
• How Does Urbanization Create Pollution?
• What Are the Six Environmental Impacts of Urbanization?
• What Are the Four Stages of Urbanization?
• What Is History of Urbanization?
• When Did Urbanization Become a Trend?
• Why Did Urbanization Become Popular?
• What Are the Three Reasons Why Urbanization Is Increasing?
• Does Population Mobility Contribute to Urbanization Convergence?
• How Has Urbanization Changed the World?
• What Is Evolution of Urbanization?
• Is Urbanization Increasing or Decreasing?
• What Are the Factors Affecting Urbanization?
• What Is the Most Important Feature of Urbanization?
• How Is the Pattern of Urbanization Changing?
• What Is the Pattern of Urbanization Around the World?
• What Is the Trend of Urbanization in India?
• What Is the Impact of Urbanization in India?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 30). 112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/urbanization-essay-topics/

"112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples." IvyPanda , 30 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/urbanization-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2023) '112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples'. 30 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/urbanization-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/urbanization-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "112 Urbanization Essay Topics, Questions, and Examples." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/urbanization-essay-topics/.

• Postmodernism Essay Topics
• Modern History Topics
• Electricity Essay Ideas
• Gentrification Paper Topics
• Water Issues Research Ideas
• Biodiversity Research Topics
• Deforestation Research Ideas
• Environment Research Topics
• Green Building Questions
• Industrial Revolution Research Ideas
• Manufacturing Essay Topics
• Noise Pollution Essay Titles
• Progressive Era Research Topics
• Urban Planning Research Ideas
• Socioeconomic Status Paper Topics