Rapid Urbanization in the United States - Research Paper Example

Rapid Urbanization in the United s number Introduction With the recent advances in technology, globalization as wellas urbanization is inevitable. By historical standards urbanization is unprecedented. Most of the people around the globe are living in urban areas. Globally, urbanization is occurring more rapidly owing to migration. People move to cities in such of educational opportunities, job opportunities, and higher standards of living. According to a report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), about half of the globe’s population will be living in urban areas by the end of the 20th century. The rapid urbanization of globe’s population over the 20th century has dramatically risen from 125 (220 million) in 1900, to 30% (732 million) in 1950, to 55% (4.5 billion) in 2012. The figure is projected to increase to 65% (4.9 billion) at the end of 2013i. The U.S has the highest level of urbanization as compared to other developed nations. America has experienced the largest growth in their urban populations. Urbanization of the U.S has been a long and steady process. Currently, over a fifth of the American population lives in urban areas, and the proportion is still on the rise. However, it has slower annual rates of urbanization due to the fact that very few people reside in the rural areas. Rapid urbanization in the U.S has seen the emergence of megacities. From 1970s to 2014 the megacities have increased from 1 to 3. This shows there is a continuing trend towards even more larger urban agglomerations. In spite of the record growth in the U.S, most of the urban dwellers that live in small to medium sized cities with up to 1.5 million people often lack the basic services and infrastructure including lack adequate drainage systems, clean water, housing facilities, transport, and health facilities to absorb the ever increasing population. This leads to the development of city slums associated with poor living conditions, unemployment, poverty, and poor public health and sanitation. Therefore, rapid urbanization is accompanied by social and economic developments. In this perspective, the paper will discuss the concept of rapid urbanization in the United States and its effect. Discussion The growth of California in the 19th century, Chicago in the mid 20th century, and New York in the 21st century is due to rural to urban migration. Migration is influenced by political, economic, and demographic factors. Urbanization is described by Blaikie, Jones, and Brun as a significant increase in the number of people who are living in the urban areas and the cities’ suburbs than the rural areasii. Historically, urbanization has been closely associated with industrialization. An urban area is developed in an area known as a town or city while the rural area is an area that is the country sideiii. The city’s population is often dependent on its ‘hinterlands’ in order to be provided with food resources. Urbanization essentially results to the physical growth of the urban areas whether vertical or horizontal. Urbanization in the United States has been progressing throughout its whole history. In the past two centuries, America has transformed from a predominantly agricultural, rural country to an industrial urbanized one. This is attributable to the Industrial Revolution in the U.S as well as parts of Europe in the late 18th century along with early 19th century. As a result, the United States has experienced rapid industrialization. Industrialization is described as process that utilizes non-living energy sources on a large scale in order to enhance human productivity. Due to industrialization, surpluses increased both in the industry and agriculture. This meant that large amounts of people could be accommodated in the cities. As a result, the cities became ideal places for the location of factoriesiv. According to the U.S Census Bureau, in the 18th century, one out of every twenty Americans resided in urban areas. However, this ratio changed dramatically to one out of two in the 19th century, and to four out of five in the 20th centuryv. Glaeser asserts that the Industrial Revolution saw the emergence of huge manufacturing centers, provision of job opportunities, rural to urban migration, and availability of better infrastructure and other social amenitiesvi. Urbanization has led to the historic and rapid transformation of the social roots of humans of American people, where the predominant rural culture has been quickly replaced with the predominant urban culture. The onset of industrial and agricultural revolution in the late 18th century continued the movement of people from the rural areas to the demographically expanding regions, especially the urban areas. The ever increasing factories resulted in an intense need for labor something which convinced the people living in the rural areas to move to the city. This also drew some immigrants from Europe into the U.S. consequently, the United States transformed from an agricultural to an industrialized nation. Urbanization was fastest in the Northeastern America that acquired an urban majority by 1880. However, some of the states in the northeastern America has already acquired urban majority before then, such as, New York in 1870 and Massachusetts in 1850. The Western United States became urbanized later in the 1910s while the Southern United States became an urban majority in the 1950s. Today, Western America is the most urbanized region of the United States. The population of New York, Boston, and Chicago has grown from 300,000 inhabitants in the 18th century to over 60 million in the 21st century. Even today, most states in the U.S are continuing to urbanize with only four states out of the fifty having a rural majority. Currently, Maine is the least urbanized state in America with only 39% of the urban population as compared to the national urban population of 81%. About 10 million immigrants settled in the United States between 1860 and 1900. Majority of these immigrants were from western and northern Europe. After the 1900, new immigrants from other nations across the world started to come into the U.S including Jews, Armenians, Africans, Italians, Germans, Greeks, and Mexicans, among many others. Most of these migrants settled in the northeast and mid-west. On the other hand, the Western America experienced an influx of Chinese who were lured by the prospect of earning money by working on the western railroad system. Most of the Chinese immigrants settled in Californiavii. That is why in the 20th century exceptionally high rates of urbanization occurred in southern California. As a nation industrializes, the amount of people living in the urban areas has been found to increaseviii. The U.S was urbanized in the 18th and 19th century. The urban population increased from 18% in 1801 to 28% in 1891ix. Most of the people migrated from the rural areas as well as from Europe, Asia, and South America to the urban areas in the U.S to seek for employment especially in the new factories. The city areas commonly known as inner cities were developed during this period as housing rows were constructed particularly for the workers. However, the poor immigrants found life in America difficult and experienced numerous problems including working in dangerous factories, living in dirty and crowded conditions, poor pay, and discrimination from the native population. Bhatta argues that although the U.S has 85% of its population living in urbanized areas, more people are choosing to put up houses as well as other developmental projects on the edge of the urban areasx. In some instances, some people are relocating to the rural areas. This is referred to as counter-urbanizationxi. Benefits of urbanization to the U.S With the recent development being witnessed globally, it implies that urbanization has been very beneficial. Urbanization occurs at social, individual, and government levels in an effort to minimize the time together with expenses incurred in transportation and commuting, enhance opportunities for housing, job opportunities, education, and housing. Living in the city has the benefits of market place competition, the opportunities of proximity, and diversity. However, the benefits of urbanization are weighed against negative social issues, environmental issues, increased daily costs, stress, and also alienation issues to due to the mass marginalizationxii. Economic opportunities in one major reason for the rural drift to the cities. In the rural areas, people live in the family farms and it is usually difficult to access manufactured products. Besides that, the overall quality of life is subjective. Farm living has often been vulnerable to unpredictable environmental conditions, and in the times of floods, drought survival becomes exceptionally difficult. Urbanization of the American cities has led to the creation of more employment opportunities in the administrative sectors, political positions, industrial, education, health, transport, building, and oil sectors, among many others. Urbanization in America has led to education being utilized as a tool to eliminate social evils. By attending learning institutions, the citizens are educated on the importance of possessing skills that can be useful to the societyxiii. Urbanization has also led to the disappearance of religious as well as social taboos or sanctions. The urban places act as meeting points of all cultures from various localities promoting diversity. As a result, the developments that occur in the urban areas improve the society as a wholexiv. Urbanization in the U.S has also resulted to diffusion of the urban culture to the rural areas. People who migrate to the urban areas when they go back to country side they carry the urban behaviors with them. As a result, this results to the spread of urban culture to the rural areas. The other benefit of urbanization is that is has led to reduced transport costs, sharing of natural resources, and also exchange of ideas. This has resulted to corporation among various entities globally. Cities also serve as beacons for the rural population since they are a representation of higher living standards. Most urban centers offer a great variety of services ranging from housing, to education, to employment opportunitiesxv. Electrification, beautification programs, and construction of playgrounds, swimming pools, and parks have improved the quality of urban life in the 21st century. Urbanization also leads to the growth in industrial productions with production in various industrial sectors, such as, iron, cement, and fertilizer assisting in the economic growth of a nation. It has also led to growth in commerce and trade. There is greater market potential in the cities. As a result, the nation’s business sector is improved tremendouslyxvi. Finally, it has led the development of the American tourism industry. Most people from the foreign nations are often attracted to the good towns and cities with unique developmental styles in America. These styles are either maintained from the ancient times or developed according to the current technological advancements. As a result, the tourism is a source of foreign exchange for the nationxvii. Negative impacts of urbanization to the Unites States Fueled by the desire to become westernized, most states across the globe are turning industrialized countries at a very fast rate. With such internal growth, the nations have witnessed an increase in the demand for urban areas in order to accommodate the ever increasing population, technological advances, and economic demands. Todaro notes that urbanization results to a higher need to clear lands, an increase in pollutant emission in the atmosphere, loss of diversity in forests on a global scale, urban sprawl, unemployment, traffic congestion, inadequate housing, and food securityxviii. The rapid of the American cities has given rise to various features of urban life that has never been seen before in history. One such feature is the tremendous spread of tenements. These were narrow-four-story buildings with little plumbing, tiny rooms often full of people, sometimes no electricity, few windows and were mostly occupied by blacks and immigrants. These tenements were the only housing facilities available in ghettos and slums. The residents of these areas were forced by prejudice, poverty, and even law. They were associated with high pollution levels, high mortality rates, ethnic and social strife, poor sanitation, and diseases. The rich inhabitants of the cities escaped these conditions and moved outside the city center. Until today, these conditions are still prevalent with a gap between the high-class, middle-class, and low-class city dwellersxix. Now the rich live in the suburbs while the urban poor reside at the city center. The development of cities improves their economic standing. However, these developments have come with significant environmental costs. According to the 2013 survey by the UN World Economic and Social Survey, the vision of boosting social and economic well-being whilst protecting the environment has not been attained due to increasing inequality, climate change, rapid population growth, shortfall in development partnership, and environmental degradationxx. Rapid urbanization of American cities has resulted in environmental problems, like, contaminated water, smoke-polluted indoor air, loss of biodiversity, and deforestation. The most prevalent environmental issues include habitat loss for species, demand for construction land, an increase in invasive alien species, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions, economic incentives to clear land for agricultural use, and poor sanitationxxi . The rain quality is usually affected in areas with extensive air pollution. One such consequence is acidic rain that is caused by the presence of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere that dissolves with rain water to form sulphuric acid. The acidic rain is harmful both to plant and human lifexxii. Pollution is hazardous to human health. Rapid urbanization is a major contributor to land, water, and air pollutionxxiii. For example, the chemicals released to water sources and air may lead to asthma, cancer, bronchitis, and tuberculosis attacks. These problems are worsened if these people do not access reliable healthcare. Rapid urbanization has brought about increased mortality attributed to the non-communicable diseases that are associated with lifestyle, such as, obesity, heart diseases, and cancer. In the U.S urbanization has led to lifestyles that lead health risks, such as, obesityxxiv. Studies have also demonstrated that cholesterol levels and the body mass index increase proportionately with the degree of urbanization. Montgomery notes that in the United Kingdom and America the prevalence of diabetes in the urban areas has been shown to be twice as high as in the rural areasxxv. Rapid urbanization has also led to the phenomenon of urban heat islands. According to Sridhar an urban heat island is formed when the urban areas are developed leading to significant heat production and retention. In the rural areas, the heat is absorbed by vegetation and soil while in the urban areas the heat is absorbed by asphalt and urban structures. As a result, cities are often 1OC to 3OC warmer than their surrounding landscapes. Cities have also reduced up-take carbon-dioxide emissionsxxvi. In a view shared by Ellis, agricultural production is further compromised with cities’ thirst for water. There is often a rise in demand of water for industrial and domestic uses in highly urbanized areas. Most of the city authorities draw the water from the ground sources as well as surface water from much more far placesxxvii. As a consequence, this puts pressure on the distant ecosystems lowering the water table, which leads to increasingly dry zone soilsxxviii. In the 19th and 20th century the growth of cities outpaced the ability of the local governments to provide sewage systems, clean water, and garbage collection in poorer areas, thus leading to deplorable living conditions in these areas. The housing services were immensely affected. To this day, the urban authorities are finding problems to keep up with the explosive emergence of the shanty towns and homeless communities. The rapid urban growth has resulted to “urban sprawl" which is the scattered development that increases traffic, depletes local resources and destroys open space. Urban sprawl is associated with problems, such as, poor sanitation, air pollution, contaminated water, and overcrowdingxxix. Most of the urban poor who are able to find work spend their lives in insecure and poorly paid jobxxx. As a result, they end living in poorly sanitized areas. Studies have also indicated that high levels of unemployment and under employment are predominant issues in the urban areas. Nowak notes that with a surplus of willing workers, the wages are often low if they are employed. This situation attracts investors who want to take advantage of the cheap labor. More and more people will be attracted by these companies continuing the vicious cyclexxxi. As a result, these cities are faced with problems that are as a result of unemployment including increased crime rates, violence, poverty, and other deviant behaviors. According to Borowiecki, rapid urban growth often leads to overcrowding. Overcrowding is a common feature in cities, and it results to loss of privacyxxxii. As it has been evidenced by various studies, shortage of livable housing leads to the growth of slums. This is because most of the migrant workers and urban poor are not able decent jobs and housing. Consequently, the well-serviced expensive city centers were suddenly surrounded by inadequately serviced and underdeveloped serviced settlements that provided shelter for the increasing population. According to a report by the International Institute for Environment and Development in 2012, it was found out that the poor are usually bundled in inadequate housing that are in regions vulnerable to pollution since they are the only places these people can afford to put up accommodation or rent a house, such as the tenements. The industrial cities have become difficult places to live because of public health issues: contaminated water and air; emergence of communicable diseases because of overcrowding; negative social effects including lack of jobs, poverty, drugs, crime, psychological problems, violence, and other deviant behaviors; the settlements are ill equipped to accommodate the huge populations along with their sanitation needs; rampant pollution which is a health hazard; fire hazards as a result of flammable materials and congestionxxxiii. Pursuing this further, studies have also indicated that rapidly developed cities have some of its population living in unhealthy conditions. As a result of living in poorly sanitized areas, the people living in poor urbanized regions are often effected by water borne diseases including dysentery, diarrhea, and cholera on the increase due to lack of access to clean water together with poor sanitation. Due to the higher densities of people and increased activities in the city, transportation is a major issue. Rapidly expanding cities are associated with huge traffic problems. Therefore, lack of or inadequate public transport systems leads to commuting problems resulting to loss of efficiency. The other draw-back of rapid urbanization is poverty. Poverty causes illness and malnutrition. It is also a major source of mental stress as well as loss of self-esteem, which can result to depression, and have a further effect on one’s health. Since most people have migrated to urban areas, it leads to the reduction in rural population. A decrease in manpower in the rural areas affects agricultural productions because fewer workers are left in the rural areas. In the U.S, industrialization has negatively influenced the economy of small to medium sized farms as well considerably reducing the size of the rural labor marketxxxiv. Urbanization is often regarded as a positive development, since urban areas are considered to be more productive as compared to the rural areas; thus, a driver for economic development and growth. However, rapid urbanization has outstretched the capacity of the cities to absorb and cater for the ever increasing human population. If the population cannot be absorbed anymore, it leads to the development of slums and a threat to the dimensions of food security. Most urban inhabitants spend a large proportion of their disposable income on food. The 2007/2008 food crisis, in particular, showed the susceptibility of the urban poor and the strong link between national and food securityxxxv. Rapid urbanization means that more food will be transported and distributed within the cities. This puts more pressure on the rural transport technologies, infrastructure, and also food distribution outlets jeopardizing the food supplies stabilityxxxvi. Rapid urbanization has also led to air pollution. This is attributable to industrialization that occurs with urbanization. Currently, due to issues related to global warming, air pollution levels are being controlled and closely monitored. However, local levels authorities are finding it very hard to control pollution in the citiesxxxvii. Remedies Due to the various social and economic problems that come with rapid urbanization, solutions need to be found to prevent further troubles. With the current problems and the future situations in mind, it is required that every government needs to address the issues via clear distribution of its budget particularly targeting the main effects of urbanization. The United Nations agencies propose that urban infrastructure be installed prior to the occurrence of urbanization. In the light of the rapid urbanization it is easy to see that landscape planners who are tasked with locating landscape infrastructure including sustainable urban drainage, public parks, and greenways among other facilities need to do this before urbanization occurs. Moreover, they can also do it afterwards by revitalizing an area and creating greater livability within it. Policies need to be developed which encourage labor-intensive growth as a way of absorbing the increase of low-skilled as well as unskilled labor. The other solution is that governments should reverse the tax policies that lead to the creation of slums. Since urban slums increase traffic and destroy open space, state governments together with city authorities need to come up with tenements upgrading programmes in addition to enactment of laws that protect parks and open spacesxxxviii. Next, high-density cities have highly polluted environments. Therefore, programs that are aimed at curbing pollution need further funding and reinforcing laws on environmental protection. The small and inefficient plants which pollute the environment need to be closed. The other solution is that non-renewable dependence to be reduced by means using sustainable alternative energyxxxix. There should be development of laws that regulate logging in addition to increased protection of forest cover and natural reservesxl. Awareness programs to be initiated to educate the public on the importance of sustainable living. There also needs to be further development of the protected areas. There is need to come up with housing programs for the low-income groups. Finally, there should be proper management of the urban financesxli. Conclusion In summary, the industrial revolution of the 19th century stimulated rapid urbanization of the United States. Urbanization is described as the shift of population from rural to urban areas, along with the manner in which the community adapts to the change. Urbanization usually leads to the physical growth of the urban areas. Urbanization is associated with various problems including lack of adequate housing, environmental degradation, transport congestion, over-rapid growth, pollution of the environment, poverty, development of urban slums, increased crime rate, food security, sharp inequalities in employment and health, poor sanitation, and emergence of non-communicable diseases. In relation to a sustainable environmental, the regions settled by the urban poor are overcrowded leading to environmental degradation. Due to rapid urbanization, infrastructure meant for a certain population level breaks down as a result of the strain of serving too many people. In spite of the problems associated with rapid urbanization, some of the positives from urbanization include reduction in transportation as well as commuting problems, promotion of diversity, availability of job opportunities, better housing, education opportunities, and health. Living in the city also allows people to take advantage of opportunities of proximity. Urbanization also leads to greater variety of markets and products as compared to the rural areas. Considering that preventing urbanization is nearly impossible, the rural to urban migration of population can be alleviated by development of the rural areas which would create employment opportunities and also implementing sound economic policies that prevent rural to urban drift. These policies would assist minimize the strain on infrastructure and services in the urban areas thus preventing environmental degradation. In the same way, land issues need to be tackled, waste and recycling management, food security, and conservation of water sources and biodiversity. Read More