urbanization

An aerial view of the lakes near Selfoss, a small town in southern Iceland. It is a centre for food processing and manufacture. Since the building of a bridge over the River Ölfusá, the town has evolved into the commercial centre of the region, providing a variety of financial, legal, and retail services.

Process by which the proportion of a population living in or around towns and cities increases through migration and natural increase. The growth of urban concentrations in the USA and Europe is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating back only about 150 years to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (although the world's first cities were built more than 5,000 years ago). The UN Population Fund reported in 1996 that within ten years the majority of the world's population would be living in urban conglomerations. Almost all urban growth will occur in the developing world, creating ten large cities a year.

Urbanization has had a major effect on the social structure of industrial societies, affecting not only where people live but how they live.

The UN Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) reported in 1996 that the growth of most cities was slower in the 1980s than in any of the previous three decades, owing to many people moving out of, rather than into, cities during that time.