Into the city, out of the city

Urbanisation
Urbanisation is the process by which an increasing percentage of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities. The growth of towns and cities leading to an increasing proportion of a country’s population living there. Rapid urbanisation is a feature of most LEDCs. It as a gradual process common in LEDCs where 1 million people move from the countryside to the cities every three days.

Suburbanisation

Suburbanisation is the process by which people, factories, offices and shops move out from the central areas of cities and into the suburbs. The commuter towns with a residential population who sleep in the town but who travel to work in the nearby large urban area. The suburbanised village has increasingly adopted some of the characteristics (new housing estates, more services) of urban areas.

Central city

A central city is the large city in the middle of a number of villages and small towns. These small towns and villages have grown larger because of suburbanisation.

Suburbs

Suburbs is an area of housing around the edge of a city. A suburb is an area of a town or city, a little away from the main part, where there are fewer big buildings and mainly houses, schools and shops. These are called suburbs or 'the suburbs'.

New towns

When suburbanisation started around 1965 in the Netherlands, the Dutch government allowed some villages near a city to become a suburb. Those placed are called “New towns”.

Compact city

The land use policy of building more inside and close to the cities is called the compact city policy. The central cities had to be occupied again. More houses had to be built in the central cities to fill the space.

 

Housing shortage

If the demand for housing is greater than the supply, we call this a housing shortage.

There are three causes for a housing shortage:

1. Commercialisation of the city centre: houses in the old city centre make room for shops and offices.
2. Family size reduction: The families nowadays are smaller and there are more single people.
3. Residential thinning: there are fewer houses than before. Small houses are often converted into one large house. This is called residential thinning.

Agglomeration
Cities are constantly growing. Sometimes the city expands and absorps neighbouring towns, suburbs and villages linked to it.


Migration
Migration is the movement of people within or between areas. The movement of people from one place to another to live or to work. Such an area may be a town, a province, a country or even a continent. Therefore, migration occurs at all scale levels.


Natural increase
An increase in human population, due to a high birth rate and a low mortality rate, is known is natural increase.

Megacities

A megacity is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of ten million people. A megacity can be a single metropolitan area or two or more metropolitan areas that converge. 

In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities, a figure that rose to 47% by the end of the twentieth century. In 1950, there were 83 cities with populations exceeding one million; by 2007, this number had risen to 468. If the trend continues, the world's population as a whole will double every 45 years.

Rank	Megacity	Country	Continent	Population
1	Tokyo	Japan	Asia	34,800,000
2	Guangzhou	China	Asia	31,700,000
3	Shanghai	China	Asia	28,900,000
4	Jakarta	Indonesia	Asia	26,400,000
5	Seoul	South Korea	Asia	25,800,000
6	Delhi	India	Asia	24,000,000
7	Mexico City	Mexico	North America	23,800,000
8	Karachi	Pakistan	Asia	23,500,000
9	Manila	Philippines	Asia	22,200,000
10	New York City	United States	North America	21,600,000
11	São Paulo	Brazil	South America	21,600,000
12	Mumbai	India	Asia	21,400,000
13	Beijing	China	Asia	19,300,000
14	Los Angeles	United States	North America	17,200,000
15	Osaka	Japan	Asia	16,800,000
16	Dhaka	Bangladesh	Asia	16,300,000
17	Cairo	Egypt	Africa	16,100,000
18	Kolkata	India	Asia	16,000,000
19	London	United Kingdom	Europe	15,500,000
20	Buenos Aires	Argentina	South America	14,500,000

1975		2000		2015 Projected
Tokyo New York Shanghai Mexico City São Paolo	19.8 15.9 11.4 11.2 10	Tokyo Mexico City Mumbai São Paolo Shanghai New York Lagos Los Angeles Kolkuta Buenos Aires Dhaka Karachi Delhi Jakarta Osaka Metro Manila Beijing Rio de Janeiro Cairo	26.4 18.1 18.1 17.8 17 16.6 13.4 13.1 12.9 12.6 12.3 11.8 11.7 11 11 10.9 10.8 10.6 10.6	Tokyo Mumbai Lagos Dhaka São Paolo Karachi Mexico City New York Jakarta Kolkuta Delhi Metro Manila Shanghai Los Angeles Buenos Aires Cairo Istanbul Beijing Rio de Janeiro Osaka Tianjin Hyderabad Bangkok	26.4 26.1 23.2 21.1 20.4 19.2 19.2 17.4 17.3 17.3 16.8 14.8 14.6 14.1 14.1 13.8 12.5 12.3 11.9 11 10.7 10.5 10.1

 Source: State of the World Population 200,1 Chapter 3,  UNFPA

Challenges in megacities:

Megacities will have to face different challenges of social, economic and ecologic dimensions, and should develop new solutions and actions, to answer to citizens to all their needs.

• Buuildings, housing, slums
• Homelessness
• Traffic congestion
• Waste
• Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl)
• Gentrification
• Environmental problems (air pollution)
• Energy
• Water

Urbanisation and suburbanisation

Urbanisation means an increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas compared to rural areas.

Although the Netherlands is an urban society, more and more people are choosing to live on the edge of urban areas - with many relocating to the countryside. This is called counter-urbanisation or suburbanisation.