Generally speaking, an urban area is a place where a
few thousand people live in a relative, densely settled area.
Of course, up to millions of people living in a densely settled area.
But, that minimum threshold, whether it's 2,000 people, or 5,000 people
that defines what's urban versus what's rural depends on each country.
The difference between
rural and urban has some pretty basic points to it that are very
important for us to remember as we think about the process of economic development.
And as we think about the nature of inequality within countries.
First huge differences what people do in rural areas versus
what they do in urban areas to earn a living is
quite distinct, overwhelmingly people living in rural areas are
in farm families generally. These families own some land or work
some land, and agriculture is the mainstay of rural areas,
whereas industry and services are the mainstays of urban areas.
What that means is that as.
Countries experience economic development with a rising proportion of the population
in urban areas and a shrinking proportion of the population in rural areas.
That also signifies that a rising proportion of the labor force, of the
workers, are in industry and services and a declining proportion.
Are in agriculture. This is a nearly universal
trend as part of the process, of gross domestic product per capita rising, a
rising share of the population, working in
industry and services as opposed to agriculture.
Generally speaking, though it can vary, rural areas are poorer.
Than urban areas.
So income per person tends to be higher in urban
areas than in rural areas and that's one of the magnets that is pulling people in
migration children of farmers that are moving from
the farms to the cities in search of work.
And higher incomes.
Generally the location of rural and urban areas differs when you think about it.
Urban areas tend to be at the coasts. They tend to be where it's easier
to engage in trade.
Whereas rural areas tend to be where it's propitious to grow food often.
In the interior of the country.
So, even the balance of rural and urban is also, typically,
a balance of interior and coastal orientation of the country.
Of course, population density, very different.
It's low
in rural areas, a high land to person ratio.
Whereas the land per person in an urban area can be very low,
urban areas can be packed with the thousands of people per square kilometer.
The quality of public services tends to differ it's harder to provide
electricity, piped water sewerage systems in rural areas where populations
are disbursed. Relative to urban areas.
This is one of the reasons why income levels tend to be higher in urban areas.
And one other factor that is quite notable is that the
fertility rates meaning how many children note woman tends
to have on average in this society tends to be
higher in the rural areas then in the urban areas.
There are many reasons for this, but one is that children are often seen as good
economic workers for the farm, where as in an urban area, children are expensive.
Children are going to school, not working on a farm, and the result is that
often when households move from the rural to urban areas they also choose.
To have fewer children.
Now, if you look at the map of the proportions of populations in
urban and rural areas, it looks a bit like the map of income per person.
The richer parts of the world tend to be more urban,
the poorer parts of the world tend to be more rural.
But looking at the map you can notice a few things.
First, the Americas both North and South America,
very highly urbanized societies. 70 or 80% of the population.
Again tropical Africa still quite rural, perhaps 65 or
70% of the population living in rural areas only.
30%, or so of the population living in urban areas.
One thing that is for sure, though, everywhere in the
world, urbanization is proceeding rapidly.
It's part of the economic development process, and if you look at
the map of the growth rates of the urban areas, that is the.
Annual proportionate increase of populations living in urban areas.
It's actually in Africa where urbanization rates are extraordinarily high.
Sometimes urban areas
growing 5% per year.
How long does it take for an urban area to double?
If it's growing at 5% percent per year.
ha.
Remember the rule of 70 that I mentioned earlier?
Divide 70 by 5%. That's 14.
It's 14 years then for an urban area to double.
For a city of 1 million that's growing at 5% per
year to become a city of 2 million. That's a pretty short period of time.
You can see that the growth rates of the rural areas is extraordinarily high.