to urbanization it is the process of transforming a society, region or territory from rural to urban, that is, not represents only the growth of the population of cities, but the increase of this in relation to the inhabitants of the field. Therefore, when the urban population of a given location grows in greater numbers than that of the countryside, we say that an urbanization process is taking place.
It is important to emphasize that, in Brazil, it is considered urban - according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) – that society residing in cities or districts with more than two thousand inhabitants.
Mental Map: Urbanization
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There is also another direction for urbanization, which would be the implementation of infrastructure in city spaces. For example: eventually, irregular areas – such as slums and squatters – emerge in the space of cities, but these areas do not have electricity, basic sanitation and asphalt. When such localities receive these structures from the city hall, we say that the area has been urbanized, that is, it has acquired the minimum conditions to assume the characteristics of an urban space.
In general terms, the process of urbanization of societies usually occurs from what is meant by rural exodus, which is the massive transfer of population from the countryside to the cities. This factor is generally associated with industrialization in cities and the mechanization of the countryside, where the peasant worker is, in a way, replaced by machinery in the productive space.
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Historically, humanity's first urbanization process occurred at the inauguration of the Neolithic period, when cultivation techniques and exploitation of natural resources, allowing human beings to organize themselves in society, partially abandoning nomadism and thus forming the first cities.
However, it was only after the industrialization processes that the city began to gain greater relevance, overtaking the countryside in economic and productive terms. The first most intense urbanizations took place in countries of classical industrialization, today considered developed, such as England, France and the United States. Currently, this phenomenon is in full swing in the underdeveloped world, with the recent industrialization of many peripheral nations.
The organization of urban space is something increasingly recurrent these days, since most cities are located in large population agglomerates, which transform the space of cities into a true confluence of places, landscapes and cultural practices everyday.
* Mind Map by Rafaela Sousa
Graduated in Geography
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PENA, Rodolfo F. Alves. "What is urbanization?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/geografia/o-que-e-urbanizacao.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
