Interesting column from a source a little farther away than most people probably read: this appeared in an Indian newspaper today:

 

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-comment/100-years-we%E2%80%99ll-be-fully-urban-species-388

 

Chongqing is a dense and smoky inland city, the heavy-industry, high-rise home to over 30 million people. It is to China what Chicago was to 20th-century America, or Manchester to 19th-century England, and it’s growing at an extraordinary rate. Every day a tide of 1,500 new people washes in to Chongqing. Every day an extra 1.5 million square feet of floor space is constructed for new residents. It’s a vast megalopolis, a megacity of the sort that will soon take over the world.

 

I met Mr and Mrs Zhang on the day they first arrived in Chongqing from their rural village. It had taken them almost 10 years to raise enough money to move and required outrageous sacrifice: They pooled together their accumulated cash from years of sweated labour in motorcycle-parts factories, and had paid the full purchase price of 150,000 yuan (£14,000) for a clean and elegant three-bedroom apartment, turning them, legally, into city-dwellers. In the next few months they will bring their parents over from the village, shutting the farm down and ending their family’s millennia-long connection to the fields.

 

The Zhangs are the archetypal people of the 21st century, and we ignore their story at our peril. For the defining force of this century, almost certainly more significant than war, recession and perhaps even climate change, will be the huge and final shift of human populations from rural areas to cities. It’s a crucial issue — one that every politician, every economist and sociologist should be considering. Because the mind-boggling fact is that we will end this century as a fully urban species.

 

I don't agree with all of the points in the article, particularly the concern with shrinking the world's population growth rate and the conviction that this would be a good thing.  I've opined on that subject at length in the past.  However, given the Indian source, that kind of Malthusian thinking and concern with demographic pressures is more understandable here than it is for Western urbanists (most of whom live in countries with vastly more land than they realize).  However, I like seeing someone make the case in a mainstream publication that urbanization does more good than harm ... and I like seeing that some of the same questions that animate those on these boards find resonance halfway around the world.

Interesting conclusion, but it's based completely on developing countries - namely China and India.  Most American cities, for example, have been shrinking pretty quickly post-industrial revolution.  What's to say once countries like China and India modernize, their cities won’t suffer the exact same fate? Even the exact example given, the poor family selling the farm and moving to the city.. it parallels depression era America to a tee.  In 30 years that guys kids are moving to the suburbs, and that's almost a guarantee.

 

Cities are for some people, but they aren’t for everyone, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.  A completely urbanized world is often the setting for dystopian ideas.

Cities are for some people, but they aren’t for everyone, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.  A completely urbanized world is often the setting for dystopian ideas.

 

I think suburbia further dystopian ideas more than urban areas (at least at this point in the US).  Regardless, you say it's not ever going to change (that suburbs exist), but I think the point is that it may need to if the population of the planet keeps increasing.  We're just not going to have enough land to each take a decent sized chunk of it in many places in 100 years if the population keeps growing rapidly.

Interesting conclusion, but it's based completely on developing countries - namely China and India. Most American cities, for example, have been shrinking pretty quickly post-industrial revolution. What's to say once countries like China and India modernize, their cities won’t suffer the exact same fate? Even the exact example given, the poor family selling the farm and moving to the city.. it parallels depression era America to a tee. In 30 years that guys kids are moving to the suburbs, and that's almost a guarantee.

 

Cities are for some people, but they aren’t for everyone, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change. A completely urbanized world is often the setting for dystopian ideas.

 

I think for purposes of this article that suburbanites are "urbanized".  They are not farmers or living in a village economy.  They are a part of a city's large, specialized labor pool.

Interesting conclusion, but it's based completely on developing countries - namely China and India.  Most American cities, for example, have been shrinking pretty quickly post-industrial revolution.  What's to say once countries like China and India modernize, their cities won’t suffer the exact same fate? Even the exact example given, the poor family selling the farm and moving to the city.. it parallels depression era America to a tee.  In 30 years that guys kids are moving to the suburbs, and that's almost a guarantee.

 

Cities are for some people, but they aren’t for everyone, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.  A completely urbanized world is often the setting for dystopian ideas.

 

This is a hot topic right now. There's a really good book on it called "The Endless City". It contains essays from prominent sociologists, economists, architects, planners, etc. It also has a lot of interesting visuals - pictures, graphs, etc. to explain what is going on. Third-world countries are experiencing a lot of changes, especially ones with higher (economic) growth rates and that inherently translates to growth in industrialization and ultimately a shift to more of a service-based economy. It's happening everywhere. Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Mumbai. It's hard to survive living in those remote areas so they move to the city where there's a little more opportunity. We're now at the point where globally there are more people living in urbanized areas than rural areas. Urbanized doesn't mean hyper-dense like Manhattan; people are just closer to each other for convenience and efficiency, especially through sharing infrastructure. Remember, suburbs and probably most exurbs in America are a hell of a lot more urbanized than remote villages where many people in the world live (especially since we have excellent telecommunication, utilities, highways, etc. that bring us closer together and make space less irrelevant at this point). They will absolutely experience the same challenges we did though. I definitely see history repeating itself but overall, their quality of life should improve assuming we don't blow each other up over energy wars or something.

As David alluded to, suburbs and exurbs are urbanized areas. Most everybody here knows that, but the term can confuse those that are unfamiliar with the topic.

I know what an urbanized area is, the article was alluding to something different.

Indeed.