🌾 Leaving the countryside
Farm work can be hard and poorly paid. Land may be too small to support a family, and schools, clinics and shops can be far away.
Growing Cities » Why Cities Grow at Different Speeds
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: 6.1 A growing percentage of the world's population lives in urban areas (b)
- What the rate of urbanisation means
- How rural-urban migration makes cities grow
- How natural increase adds to city growth
- Why rates are different in developed and developing countries
Urban Environments is an optional topic. Check with your teacher that it is one of the two topics you are studying in Paper 2 Section A.
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Unlock This CourseWhat is the rate of urbanisation?
In the last lesson you saw that some parts of the world are urbanising much faster than others. This lesson asks why. First we need to be clear about what is being measured.
Key terms:
- Rate of urbanisation: how fast the percentage of people living in urban areas is rising.
- Rural-urban migration: the movement of people from the countryside to towns and cities.
- Natural increase: the growth of a population when there are more births than deaths.
- Birth rate: the number of babies born each year for every 1,000 people.
- Death rate: the number of people who die each year for every 1,000 people.
Two things make a city grow: people moving in and people being born. The first is migration. The second is natural increase. The mix of the two is different in different countries, and that explains why cities grow at different speeds.
Factor 1: rural-urban migration
Rural-urban migration is the main reason the urban percentage rises quickly. Each person who leaves a village for a city moves from the rural total to the urban total, so the urban percentage goes up straight away.
People move because cities seem to offer a better life. The reasons are covered in full in the Globalisation and Migration lessons, so here is just the short version.
🏙 Arriving in the city
Cities have more jobs in factories, offices and services. They also have more schools and hospitals, and the chance of higher wages.
Most rural-urban migrants are young adults looking for work. This matters for the next factor.
Factor 2: natural increase
Once people are living in a city, the city grows by itself as babies are born. Natural increase is found by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate.
Learn this
Natural increase = birth rate - death rate (per 1,000 people per year)
Worked example
Question: A city has a birth rate of 28 per 1,000 and a death rate of 8 per 1,000. Calculate the natural increase.
Answer: 28 - 8 = 20 per 1,000 per year. This is the same as 2 per cent a year (20 divided by 1,000, then multiplied by 100).
Natural increase is high when the birth rate is high and the death rate is low. Because rural-urban migrants are mostly young adults, they often have their children after arriving in the city. This raises the city's birth rate and adds to its natural increase.
Why rates differ between developed and developing countries
Put the two factors together and the contrast becomes clear.
🏢 Developed countries
Most people already live in cities, because urbanisation happened a long time ago. Few people are left in the countryside to move, so rural-urban migration is small. Birth rates are low, so natural increase is low or even zero. The rate of urbanisation is slow.
🌇 Developing countries
A large share of people still live in the countryside, so many can move to the cities. Rural-urban migration is high. Birth rates are often higher, and better health care has lowered death rates, so natural increase is higher. The rate of urbanisation is fast.
Summary table
- Developed: already highly urban, little rural-urban migration, low natural increase, slow urbanisation.
- Developing: still many rural people, lots of rural-urban migration, higher natural increase, fast urbanisation.
Remember that the gap is a matter of timing. Developing countries are going through the same change that developed countries went through earlier, but they are doing it faster and with far more people.
Common mistakes
- Writing that cities grow only because people move in. Natural increase also matters, especially in developing countries.
- Saying that developed countries are not urbanising at all. They are already highly urban, so the rate is slow.
- Mixing up natural increase with migration. Natural increase is births minus deaths, and does not include people moving.
- Giving only a developing country reason. For "why do rates differ" you need to contrast both types of country.
Exam-style question
(a) State what is meant by natural increase. [1 mark]
(b) Explain how rural-urban migration can increase the rate of urbanisation. [2 marks]
(c) Explain why the rate of urbanisation is faster in developing countries than in developed countries. [3 marks]
Model answer
(a) The growth in population when the birth rate is higher than the death rate. (1)
(b) People move from the countryside to the city to find jobs and services. (1) This lowers the rural population and raises the urban population, so the percentage living in urban areas goes up. (1)
(c) Developing countries still have many people in the countryside, so rural-urban migration is high. (1) Their birth rates are higher, so natural increase adds to city growth too. (1) Developed countries are already highly urban, with little migration left and low natural increase, so the rate is slow. (1)
Exam tip
For a "why do they differ" question, write about both types of country and use a linking word such as "whereas" or "because" to show the contrast.