What is Urbanisation?

Urbanisation is happening fastest in poorer countries

Urbanisation is the growth in the percentage of a country's population living in urban areas. It's happening in countries all over the world-more than 50% of the world's population currently live in urban areas (3.4 billion ppl) and this is increasing everyday. But urbanisation differs between richer and poorer countries. 

1. most of the population in richer countries already live in urban areas. e.g. more than 80% of the UK's population live in urban areas
2. not many of the population in poorer countries currently live in urban areas e.g. around 25% of the population of Bangladesh live in urban areas.
3. most urbanisation that's happening in the world today is going on in poorer countries and it's happening at a fast rate

Urbanisation is caused by rural-urban migration

Rural-urban migration is the movement of people from the countryside to the cities. 

This causes urbanisation in richer and poorer countries.

The reasons why people move are different in poorer and richer countries though.

Reasons why people in poorer countries move from rural areas to cities:

1. there's often a shortage of services (e.g. education, access to water and electricity) in rural areas. Also ppl from rural areas sometimes believe that the standard of living is better in cities. (even though this often turns out not to be the case)
2. there are more jobs in urban areas. Industry is attracted to cities because there's a larger workforce and better infrastructure than in rural areas.
3. In rural areas some people are subsistence farmers. This means they grow food to feed their own family and sell any extra to make a small income. Poor harvests and crop failures can mean they make no income and even risk starvation.

Reasons why people in richer countries move from rural areas to cities: 

1. most urbanisation in rich countries occurred during the Industrial and the Agricultural Revolutions (18th and 19th centuries)-machinery began to replace farm labour in rural areas, and jobs were created in new factories in urban areas. People moved from farms to towns for work. 
2. in the late 20th century, people left run-down inner city areas and moved to the country. But people are now being encouraged back by the redevelopment of these areas.

Good healthcare and high birth rate in cities

It's normally young people that move to cities to find work. These people have children in the cities, which is what is meant by 'natural increase in population'.. fancy terms. So this increases the proportion of the population living in urban areas. Also, better healthcare in urban areas means people live longer, again increasing the proportion of people in urban areas.