Urban growth is the rate at which the population, land area, or significant land use increases. Also defined as the growth of metropolitan areas or cities, it is something that started way back between 5000 and 6000 B.C., especially due to the movement of people from rural areas to urban areas – places with high human population, economic activities, and infrastructure. The 19th century, in particular, was a mark of actual urban growth.
And since 1800, the urban revolution has rapidly increased, reaching new levels in the history of the world today. Urban growth is also closely linked to urbanization or urbanism, a term that refers to an increasing proportion of a population residing in urban areas such as cities, suburbs, towns, and contributions.
Human civilization has been changing the Earths environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts
~ Jamais Cascio
Urban growth is, therefore, utilized as an indicator of a country’s or an area’s economic condition and development. It’s often influenced by certain factors such as surplus resources, development of infrastructure, commercialization, education, and mining, among others.
This article seeks to shed more light on the causes of urban growth and will also differentiate between urban growth and urbanization, which are sometimes used interchangeably.
Various Causes of Urban Growth
Some of the common causes of urban growth include:
1. The Natural Increase in Population
The rate of death and births characterizes the natural expansion of an area. In areas where births are more than deaths, the population is bound to increase. People who migrate to towns and cities are young people searching for housing, jobs, or better education.
Young men and women have a high fertility rate; therefore, they increase in numbers quickly and will eventually look for new spaces within the urban area to settle and fend for their kind.
2. Migration
Immigration is a major contributor to the increase in the population of a place. Many people are forced to move to urban areas for jobs, education, and housing. Inadequate funding and social infrastructure have also driven people to urban areas.
In other cases, political, racial, economic, or religious conflicts have forced people to move to neighboring urban areas.
3. Industrialization
The industrial revolution brought about new production techniques. By this, manufacturing has created more job opportunities by allowing people to be employed in new sectors.
With modern farm machinery, employment in rural areas is reduced, forcing workers to move in search of new jobs in tertiary and manufacturing industries.
Also, in pursuit of increased wages, men and women continue to abandon jobs in rural areas by moving to industrial cities. Many people move to urban centers to look for well-paying industrial jobs, as urban centers have uncountable opportunities.
4. Commercialization
Whereas industrialization has played an essential role in the growth of urban areas, commerce, and trade have profoundly influenced the growth of cities. In ancient times, cities like Athens, Sparta, and Venice were great commercial centers.
In modern life today, commercial activities in city and industrial areas continue to attract more and more people as traders and workers, thereby contributing to the growth of cities and town areas.
Businesspeople prefer going to the cities to sell their commodities because they can make higher profits there. The kind of economic pull urban centers have attracts more and more people to move to urban areas.
5. Advancement of Transport and Communication
When factories were introduced, local transportation was weak, forcing the laborers to reside near their place of work. The cities were partitioned into dwelling areas, market areas, factory areas, slums, and so on.
Increased population led to housing congestion and added to the existing community by extension of boundaries.
Today, people prefer to live near their place of work, not because of poor transport but to shorten the distance they have to travel and avoid the traffic jam on their way to and from work. Active transportation helps make cities more habitable by easing communication and transportation and creating convenient accessibility.
6. Availability of Educational and Recreational Facilities
Most training institutions, colleges, elementary schools, and technical institutions are in urban areas. Also, most libraries are located in the cities. Recruiting agencies, as well as the examination councils, are situated in the cities.
Clearly, due to the location of these facilities, most students and adult learners are attracted to the town for easy accessibility to higher education. Opera and Amusement Theaters are also in urban areas, drawing more people to the cities.
7. Urban Planning Policies
Urban planning typically forces city leaders to find ways of making a sustainable city, including proper town development and expansion plans.
As a strategy aimed at converting vision into implementation, it acts as a guide for making the most out of a city by improving infrastructure, building its economic growth, and enhancing the city’s living standards and the resident’s well-being.
With better living standards and infrastructures in the city, more people are attracted to the municipality, consequently increasing its population.
8. Topographical Factors
The topography of an area can have a huge impact on the growth of a city. An area with a suitable topography is usually easy to develop and expand. Urban areas in or around an excellent topographical area are easily extended and refined, thus drawing more people to such areas.
9. Unbalanced Spatial Development
In many countries, there are developed and less developed regions. Many people tend to move to more developed areas.
Occasionally, urban centers (cities) are more developed than rural areas because of the available facilities and opportunities offered in urban areas. On this account, the population and size of the metropolitan area will automatically increase within a given period.
10. Transformation and Modernization in The Way of Living
Transformation and modernization play a very significant role in attracting people to the cities. As technology improves, together with highly sophisticated infrastructure, liberation, communication, dress code, medical facilities, and other social services offered, people tend to believe they can live a more comfortable life in the cities.
In growing urban areas, people easily embrace changes in their styles of living, for instance, mode of dressing, attitude, habits, and views. As a result, more people are attracted to the cities, which continue to grow daily.
11. Mining and Investments
As more urban areas continue being successful and well-off due to discovering minerals, resource exploitation, agricultural activities, or business operations, urban areas continue to grow economically.
Societies continue being financially liberal due to the availability of jobs in urban areas. As a result, more investors are attracted to invest in such cities, promoting their growth.
12. Presence of Functional Administrative and Social Support Offices
The presence of administration dominance in an urban center promotes its growth. Many cities today hold offices for various administration and governance functions, influencing people to live in these areas for better governance and social amenities like security, sanitation, housing, education, and healthcare.
Differences Between Urban Growth and Urbanization
The difference between urban growth and urbanization can be categorized using three broad aspects, including:
1. Population (Immigration Versus Rural-Urban Migration)
Urban growth is characterized by population increase, while urbanization can be termed as the increasing proportion of a country’s population living in an urban area. Urbanization is typically expressed as a percentage of the total population living in urban areas.
Urban growth, on the other hand, pertains to the actual increase in population within urban areas. It reflects the population growth occurring within cities and towns. It is usually quantified as the net change in the number of people living in urban areas over a specific period.
Urbanization, therefore, mainly involves rural-urban migration. Contrarily, urban growth involves the immigration of people and the absolute population shift in the population of people dwelling in those urban areas.
2. Land Area (Extensive Land Area Versus Intensive Land Area Coverage)
In terms of urbanization, the land area covered is often extensive, owing to large-scale economic development.
In other words, urbanization is linked to economic development in the sense that it cannot occur if there lacks widespread economic development that covers a wide geographical area, which often comes about due to high per capita income.
On the other hand, urban growth can take place without far-flung economic growth, and it is not strictly influenced by extensive land area coverage.
3. Infrastructural Versus Economic/Commercial Change
Urban growth primarily happens when there is infrastructural development in manufacturing, invention, housing, and new transport systems or routes that encourage the immigration of people into new urban spaces.
On the other hand, urbanization is mainly influenced by increased commercial or economic activities within an area. The meaning of this is that the economic hub of an area defines urbanization. The more the economic, capital investments, and trade activities within an area, the more urbanized it becomes.
Effects of Urban Growth
As urban areas continue to expand and evolve, the effects of urban growth become increasingly prominent, bringing about a range of implications that reshape communities and environments alike.
1. Increased Air Pollution
Urban sprawl increases car, bus, and truck traffic by creating longer and more frequent commutes, which leads to a major increase in air pollution and ground-level smog. Vehicles using fossil fuels are the number one cause of air pollution in many urban areas, with serious implications for public, wildlife, and ecosystem health.
As more time is spent in cars and more traffic congestion occurs over a larger area, it contributes to the growing emissions of greenhouse gases and particulates, resulting in the continued degradation of air quality in urban areas.
2. Increased Water Pollution
Urban growth is the cause of water pollution as rainwater picks up gasoline, lawn chemicals, heavy metals, paint spills, motor oil, pet wastes, construction site erosion, and other pollutants in runoff from lawns, driveways, roads, and parking lots, which can eventually travel in large, concentrated amounts, polluting nearby water sources, such as a stream, river or lake.
3. High Water Consumption
Urban sprawl can create water distribution issues and lead to over-consumption as more water is consumed for lawn watering and other landscape activities, straining or even depleting local water supply systems.
According to the EPA, “a standard American family of four can use 400 gallons of water per day and about 30 percent of that is devoted to outdoor uses. Over half of that outdoor water is used to water lawns and gardens.
Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for almost one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 7 billion gallons per day. Other residential outdoor uses include washing automobiles, maintaining swimming pools, and cleaning sidewalks and driveways.”
4. Health Degradation
As communities are auto-dependent, we must drive to schools, shops, parks, entertainment, playdates, etc. Thus people become more sedentary, making it more difficult to get physical activity and maintain a healthy weight. Residents of sprawling counties were likely to walk less during leisure time and weigh more than residents of compact counties.
A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of overall mortality, cardiovascular disease, and some types of cancer. The effect of low physical fitness is comparable to that of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
5. Loss of Open Space and Wildlife Habitats
Urban growth threatens productive farmland, transforms parks and open spaces into highways and strip malls, and destroys more than one million acres of parks, farms, and open space annually.
The increased proximity and accessibility of urban activities to natural areas impose stress on ecosystems and species through noise and air pollution. The natural habitats of wildlife are disappearing beneath the concrete, which is threatening important ecosystems around the world.
” Sprawl is claiming farmland at the rate of 1.2 million acres (10.5 million hectares) a year. Throw in the forest and other undeveloped lands, and, for a net annual loss of open space, you’re waving good-bye to more than two million acres (10.8 million hectares).”
National Geographic
6. Increased Traffic Congestion
As urban areas spread out, trip times are lengthened, residents are forced to virtually drive everywhere, like drive to schools, work, shops, parks, entertainment, play dates, etc., spending more time in their cars and trucks, and traffic congestion occurs over a larger area.
7. Increases Risk and Damage from Floods
Sprawling developments drain and destroy wetlands that absorb floodwaters, and can be built in floodplains, leading to a higher susceptibility to floodwaters.
A report by Sierra Club shows that in the last eight years, floods in the United States killed more than 850 people and caused more than $89 billion in property damage. Much of this flooding occurred where weak zoning laws allowed developers to drain wetlands and build in floodplains.
