Urbanization in the 21st Century

The population of the world continues to grow more and more quickly, and for a variety of reasons, people in the developing world are moving into cities at a rate not seen since the Industrial Revolution swelled the cities of the developed world more than a century ago. The overall population growth rate for the world is 1 percent, while the growth rate for urban areas is nearly double, or 1.8 per cent. Growth will be even more rapid in the urban areas of less developed regions, averaging 2.3 per cent per year. Cities have existed for over 5 000 years. Even so, by 1800, only 2 per cent of the world’s population was urban. As we enter the ”urban millennium”, half of the world’s people are living in towns and cities, with 180 000 people added to the urban population each day