Rapid Urbanisation – Problems and Solution
Urbanization, as the name goes, is more of a characteristic of human civilization and it is said to be the center of politics, social life, and economy of a country. The term urbanization is derived from a Latin word named ‘urb’ which means city. The need for urbanization is for the people who are below the poverty line as they are pushed towards their progress to some urbanized centers. This development if not administered aptly then it can cause a huge problem to the country as in the rise of population, pollution, crimes, slums, and many more. In this essay, the problems and the solutions related to rapid urbanization has been underlined.
Before discussing the various problems and solution it is very much necessary the main causes that are responsible for rapid urbanization. They are:
- Industrial revolution – Employment in the industries catches the attention of most of the people living in rural areas. Therefore, people are more inclined and keener to come to join the industrial sectors that are in the urban area and hence migrated from rural to urban.
- More job opportunities – There are an ample amount of job opportunities in urban areas than in rural areas (Park et al. 2017).
- Migration – It is the main cause of the rapid growth of megacities. People are forced to move to cities as they are forced by poverty and the cities are having many growth opportunities for them.
- The emergence of large manufacturing centers.
- Easy transportation facilities – Transportation facilities in cities are better than those in rural areas.
- Infrastructure – In rural areas, hospitals, restaurants, movie halls, schools, colleges all are of less in number than the cities. Therefore, to lead a good life people tend to come to the urban area from the rural (Singh et al. 2016).
- The growth of the private sectors in an urban area.
Most of the developing countries are facing this issue of the rapid growth in urbanization which tends to unemployment as there is a shortage in the jobs. The unemployment rate is rising high and the private and the government is being failed to produce enough jobs to meet the demand of the fast-growing population. Many problems are related to the rapid growth in the urbanization are: inadequate infrastructure, flooding, slum creation, population density, transportation problem, affordable housing is becoming less in number, pollution, crime, poverty, congestion, biodiversity gets threatened and people are more prone to infectious diseases (Ling, 2017).
Inadequate infrastructure is said to be one of the serious problems as many developed countries are still facing this as an issue to them. This problem led to bad roads, inadequate water supply, basic amenities, and a lack of power supply. The next problem that arises mostly due to rapid urbanization is flooding, it is also a serious problem that is been faced during the rainy season. Due to the increase in population because of urbanization the drainage system in the city gets affected. This leads to the disaster such as flood and transportation in the roads gets difficult by this. Since people are coming from rural to urban areas and due to that the affordability of the houses in the city gets costlier therefore people are living in slums. Since more people are migrating from the rural area therefore population density arises and due to which overcrowding is always there on road, lack of sanitation facility, unemployment, and poverty is rising to a great extent (Peerzado et al. 2018).
Since the population is increasing day by day, therefore, problems related to transportation, overcrowding is happening. Since the rate of unemployment is becoming higher therefore the people are idler, they are jobless and to survive they choose the path of crime. Therefore, urbanization is also responsible for the increase in crimes in developing areas. Without security in the economy and due to their poor living conditions, crime is inevitable. Since the population is increasing day by day in the cities therefore the need for houses is also increasing (Glaeser and Henderson, 2017). Since there is no such place for living, therefore, the forest is getting cut, due to which the biodiversity gets threatened. Many plants are animals are becoming endangered. No matter small or big, every species in the environment plays an important role in the earth. Without the variation in their life, human lives suffer. Biodiversity provides people with food, medicine, and air. Due to urbanization physical activity gets reduced and unhealthy nutrition is increased as a result people are becoming more prone to infectious diseases. According to a prediction from the World Health Organisation, it is been said that by the end of 2022 the percentage of death due to heart disease will be increasing by 70% (Drakakis-Smith, 2017).
There are more problems of urbanization than the solution. The solutions are less in number. Some of the solutions that are needed to be done to control rapid urbanization are as follows:
- Building eco-friendly and smart cities – The government must look into this and build cities more environmentally friendly considering the growth of the population in the cities. People should not reside in unsafe or polluted areas. The government must also introduce more infrastructure, recycling, pollution management, renewable energy, green public transportation, water recycling, and so on (Kabisch et al. 2017).
- The government must also take initiatives in creating more job opportunities as the population is growing to a large extent.
- The government must also provide subsidies for basic healthcare, education, energy, public transportation, and must also start a campaign to control the population (Elmqvist et al. 2016).
To summarize urbanization is the expansion of the urban areas due to the migration of the people from the rural areas which are related to modernization and industrialization. Rapid urbanization has more problems and has fewer solutions. Therefore, in this essay majority of the problems and the solutions to that have been discussed. The different types of initiatives that are needed by the government to stop the negative impacts of urbanization are also discussed. Urbanization is good for the financial growth of cities but careful planning is required to develop and offer the necessities for living a healthy life.
Reference list
Drakakis-Smith, D. ed., 2017. Economic growth and urbanization in developing areas (Vol. 2). Routledge.
Elmqvist, T., Zipperer, W., and Güneralp, B., 2016. Urbanization, habitat loss, biodiversity decline: solution pathways to break the cycle. In, Seta, Karen; Solecki, William D.; Griffith, Corrie A.(eds.). Routledge Handbook of Urbanization and Global Environmental Change. London and New York: Routledge., 2016, pp.139-151.
Glaeser, E., and Henderson, J.V., 2017. Urban economics for the developing world: An introduction. Journal of Urban Economics, 98, pp.1-5.
Kabisch, N., van den Bosch, M., and Lafortezza, R., 2017. The health benefits of nature-based solutions to urbanization challenges for children and the elderly–A systematic review. Environmental Research, 159, pp.362-373.
Ling, L., 2017. Existing Problems and Development Countermeasures of New Urbanization in Huizhou. Building Technology Development, (20), p.1.
Park, H., Fan, P., John, R., and Chen, J., 2017. Urbanization on the Mongolian Plateau after economic reform: Changes and causes. Applied Geography, 86, pp.118-127.
Peerzado, M.B., Magsi, H., and Sheikh, M.J., 2018. Urbanization and causes of agricultural land conversion in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. International journal of development and sustainability, 7, pp.755-763.
Singh, J., Vittal, H., Karmakar, S., Ghosh, S., and Niyogi, D., 2016. Urbanization causes nonstationarity in Indian summer monsoon rainfall extremes. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(21), pp.11-269.
