Causes of urbanisation: WACE Year 12 Geography
“Explain the causes and global patterns of urbanisation in developed and developing countries”
Urbanisation is the rising share of a population living in towns and cities; it is driven by rural-urban migration pulled by jobs and services and pushed by rural poverty, and by natural increase within cities; developed countries urbanised early and slowly during industrialisation and are now highly urbanised, while developing countries are urbanising rapidly today, producing fast city growth and major planning challenges.
What this dot point is asking
SCSA wants you to define urbanisation, explain its causes, and contrast the timing and pace between developed and developing countries. A strong answer separates the drivers and links the pace of urbanisation to the planning pressures that follow.
What urbanisation is
Urbanisation is the increase in the proportion of a population living in urban areas, usually caused by people moving from rural to urban areas and by higher natural increase in cities. It is distinct from urban growth, which is simply the rise in the absolute number of city dwellers.
More than half the world's population now lives in urban areas, and the share is rising fastest in Asia and Africa.
Causes of urbanisation
Urbanisation is driven by two processes: migration and natural increase.
Rural-urban migration is shaped by push and pull factors.
- Push factors drive people out of rural areas: poverty, lack of land, low farm incomes, mechanisation reducing farm work, drought, and limited services and education.
- Pull factors draw people to cities: jobs in industry and services, higher wages, better education and health care, and the perception of opportunity.
Natural increase adds to city populations because migrants are often young adults who then have children, and because urban health care lowers death rates.
Push factors are negative conditions that drive people away from rural areas, such as poverty and lack of work. Pull factors are positive attractions that draw people to cities, such as employment and services. Most rural-urban migration results from push and pull operating together, and the perceived gap between rural and urban opportunity is often larger than the real one.
The developed-world pattern
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.
In nineteenth-century Britain, urbanisation unfolded over generations as industry expanded, giving cities time to build housing, water and transport. In contrast, cities such as Lagos and Dhaka are urbanising within a few decades, far faster than infrastructure can be provided. The same process, urbanisation, produces orderly growth in one context and overwhelmed services and informal settlements in the other, purely because of pace and resources.
The developing-world pattern
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.
A strong answer ends by linking the pace of urbanisation to the planning task: slow, industrially driven urbanisation is more manageable than fast, service-outpacing urbanisation.
The urban transition
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. Counter-urbanisation, where some people move from large cities back to smaller towns and rural areas, can also appear in highly urbanised societies, showing the process is not strictly one-directional.
- Confusing urbanisation with urban growth
- Urbanisation is a proportion; urban growth is a number. Use the terms precisely.
- Giving only pull factors
- Rural push factors are equally important; include both.
- Ignoring natural increase
- Migration is not the only cause; cities also grow from within.
- Treating all countries the same
- Contrast developed and developing patterns explicitly, including pace.
Exam-style questions
Questions in the style of SCSA exam questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer. They are written by ExamExplained unless tagged "Past paper"; the year shows the paper a question is modelled on.
WACE 2021-style10 marksExplain the causes of urbanisation and analyse why it occurs at different rates in developed and developing countries.Show worked answer →
A 10 mark response needs the causes and a developed contrast.
Causes. Explain urbanisation as driven by rural-urban migration, shaped by rural push factors (poverty, mechanisation, limited services) and urban pull factors (jobs, wages, services), together with natural increase as young migrants have children and urban death rates fall.
Contrast of rates. Developed countries urbanised early and gradually during the Industrial Revolution, so infrastructure broadly kept pace, and are now highly urbanised with slow growth. Developing countries are urbanising rapidly now, often without an industrial job base, driven by high migration and high natural increase together, so cities grow faster than housing, jobs and services can be provided.
Conclude by linking pace to outcomes: slow industrial urbanisation is manageable, while fast service-outpacing urbanisation produces informal settlements and strain. Markers reward classified causes and an explicit developed-versus-developing contrast.
WACE 2023-style6 marksDistinguish between urbanisation and urban growth, and explain why the distinction matters.Show worked answer →
A 6 mark response needs accurate definitions and the significance.
Definitions. Urbanisation is the increase in the proportion of a population living in urban areas. Urban growth is simply the rise in the absolute number of city dwellers.
Why it matters. A country can have rapid urban growth while its urbanisation level barely changes if rural populations are also growing, and a highly urbanised country can still add millions of city residents through natural increase. Mixing the terms produces incorrect analysis of where a country sits in the urban transition.
Conclude that one is a proportion and one is a number, and precise use is essential for marks. Markers reward the two definitions and a clear statement of why they are not interchangeable.