Quick questions on Causes of urbanisation: WACE Year 12 Geography

Urbanisation is driven by two processes: migration and natural increase.

Developed countries urbanised early, during the Industrial Revolution, as factories drew workers to cities over many decades. This gradual pace allowed infrastructure and services broadly to keep up. These countries are now highly urbanised, often above eighty percent, and their urban populations grow slowly, mainly through natural increase and immigration. Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth, with most people in a few coastal cities.

Developing countries are urbanising rapidly now, often without the industrial job base that drove earlier urbanisation. Growth is fuelled by high rural-urban migration and high natural increase together. Because cities grow faster than housing, services and jobs can be provided, the result is informal settlements, underemployment and strained infrastructure. This sets up the megacity and liveability challenges examined elsewhere in Unit 4.

Geographers describe a typical urban transition in which a country moves from being mostly rural, through a phase of rapid urbanisation as industry and migration drive city growth, to a highly urbanised, slow-growing end state. Developed countries have largely completed this transition, which is why their urban populations now grow mainly through natural increase and immigration rather than rural-urban migration. Many developing countries are in the steep middle phase, where the urban share is climbing fastest and the planning pressures are most intense. Placing a country on this transition helps explain not only how urbanised it is but how quickly that is changing, and therefore how severe its housing, service and infrastructure challenges are likely to be.