According to the level of urbanization, all states of the modern world can be divided into 3 groups:

States with a high level of urbanization - more than 70% (56 of them). These are mainly the economically developed countries of Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, as well as a number of “newly industrialized countries: and the oil-producing countries of Southwest Asia. In some of them (Japan, Australia, Belgium, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar) - the share of the urban population exceeded 80%;

States with an average level of urbanization (from 50 to 70%), there are 49 of them - Bulgaria, Algeria, Bolivia, Iran, Senegal, Turkey, and others;

States with a low level of urbanization (less than 50%). These are the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia, Oceania. *S 33 countries have an urbanization rate of less than 30%, and Burundi, Bhutan, Rwanda - less than 10%.

Factors contributing to the process of urbanization:

First, the rapid development of the economy, the construction of new plants and factories;

secondly, the development of mineral resources;

thirdly, the development of transport communications;

fourthly, the natural conditions under which the population practically does not engage in agriculture.

Certain functions are assigned to cities: there are cities - administrative centers, cities - resorts, cities - ports, cities - transport hubs, cities - centers of science, etc.

Despite high rates of urbanization, half of the world's population currently lives in rural areas. In addition, there are many countries where rural residents make up 80-90%. There are several forms of rural settlement: group (villages, villages, auls, villages), scattered (farms, small farms) and mixed.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, the world population reached the level of 7 billion people World population. Stages and milestones: population and environmental change. United Nations Population Fund Report. New York, 2011.

This historic event took place 12 years after the moment when it reached the level of 6 billion people. Virtually all of the world's population growth (93 per cent) occurs in developing countries. In addition, all future population growth is expected to take place in urban areas, predominantly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Currently, out of every 10 urban residents in the world, more than 7 live in developing countries, which also account for up to 82% of the world's population. Of the 187,066 new urban dwellers who will add to the population of the world's cities on a daily basis during the period 2012-2015, 91.5%, or 171,213 people, will be born in developing countries.

However, contrary to popular belief, rural-to-urban migration is no longer the main determinant of urban population growth in developing countries. Currently on natural increase account for about 60 percent of urban population growth, and the conversion of rural to urban areas—a process known as "reclassification"—about 20 percent.

These data show the extent to which the world's population is increasingly moving into urban areas. To finally shed light on these trends and the benefits associated with urbanization, several governments have taken appropriate policy, legislative and regulatory measures to unlock the potential of this phenomenon. In 2009, just over two-thirds (67%) of the world's countries reported that they had taken steps to reduce or even reverse rural-to-urban migrant flows.

AT modern world the intensive process of formation of agglomerations, conurbations, megacities, urbanized regions continues.

Agglomeration is an accumulation of settlements united into one whole by intensive economic, labor and socio-cultural ties. It is formed around large cities, as well as in densely populated industrial areas. in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. there were about 140 large-scale agglomerations. They are home to 2/3 of the country's population, 2/3 of the industrial and 90% of the scientific potential of Russia are concentrated.

Conurbation includes several coalescing or closely developing agglomerations (usually 3-5) with highly developed major cities. In Japan, 13 conurbations have been identified, including Tokyo, consisting of 7 agglomerations (27.6 million people), Nagoya - of 5 agglomerations (7.3 million people), Osaka, etc. The term "standard consolidated area" introduced in the USA in 1963 is similar. World population. Stages and milestones: population and environmental change. United Nations Population Fund Report. New York, 2011.

Megalopolis is a system of settlements, hierarchical in complexity and scale, consisting of a large number of conurbations and agglomerations. Megalopolises appeared in the middle of the 20th century. In UN terminology, a megalopolis is an entity with a population of at least 5 million inhabitants. At the same time, 2/3 of the territory of the megalopolis may not be built up. Thus, the Tokaido megalopolis consists of the Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka conurbations with a length of about 800 km along the coast. Megalopolises include interstate entities, such as the Great Lakes megalopolis (USA-Canada) or the Donetsk-Rostov system of agglomerations (Russia-Ukraine). In Russia, the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod region of settlement can be called a megalopolis; the Ural megalopolis is born.

The urbanized region, which is formed by a network of megalopolises, is considered to be a more complex, large-scale and territorially extensive settlement system. Among the emerging urbanized regions include London-Paris-Ruhr, the Atlantic coast of North America, etc.

The basis for the allocation of such systems are cities with a population of over 100 thousand people or more. A special place among them is occupied by “millionaire” cities. In 1900 there were only 10 of them, and now there are more than 400. It is cities with a million inhabitants that develop into agglomerations and contribute to the creation of more complex settlement and urban planning systems - conurbations, megalopolises and super-large formations - urbanized regions.

At present, urbanization is due to the scientific and technological revolution, changes in the structure of productive forces and the nature of labor, deepening links between activities, as well as information links.

Common features of urbanization in the world are Tarletskaya L. International demographic statistics: estimates and forecasts.// World economy and international relations, - №3, - 2008:

Preservation of interclass social structures and population groups, division of labor, which fixes the population at the place of residence;

Intensification of socio-spatial ties that determine the formation of complex settlement systems and their structures;

Integration of the countryside (as the settlement sphere of the village) with the urban and the narrowing of the functions of the village as a socio-economic subsystem;

High concentration of activities such as science, culture, information, management, and an increase in their role in the country's economy;

Increased regional polarization of economic urban planning and, as a result, social development within countries.

Features of urbanization in developed countries are manifested in the following:

Slowdown in growth rates and stabilization of the share of the urban population in the total population of the country. Slowdown is observed when the proportion of the urban population exceeds 75%, and stabilization - 80%. This level of urbanization is observed in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany;

Stabilization and influx of population in certain regions of rural areas;

Cessation of the demographic growth of metropolitan agglomerations concentrating the population, capital, socio-cultural and administrative functions. Moreover, in recent years, in the metropolitan agglomerations of the USA, Great Britain, Australia, France, Germany and Japan, there has been a process of deconcentration of production and population, which manifests itself in the outflow of the population from the cores of agglomerations to their outer zones and even beyond the agglomerations;

Change in the ethnic composition of cities due to the ongoing myth facies from developing countries. The high birth rate in migrant families significantly affects the decrease in the proportion of the "titular" population of cities;

Placement of new jobs in the outer zones of the agglomeration and even beyond.

Modern urbanization has led to a deepening of socio-territorial differences. A kind of payment for the concentration and economic efficiency of production in the conditions of urbanization was the territorial and social polarization constantly reproduced in the most developed countries between backward and advanced regions, between the central regions of cities and suburbs; the emergence of unfavorable environmental conditions and, as a result, the deterioration of the health of the urban population, especially the poor.

Urbanization is one of the most important global phenomena in the modern world. About what this term means, and what level of urbanization of Foreign Europe is described in this article.

General information

Before talking about the urbanization of foreign Europe, it is necessary to understand what is meant by each of these two concepts. Urbanization refers to the increase in the number of cities. This process is accompanied by a high growth rate of the urban population in the region, country, world, and, accordingly, the increasing importance of cities in the economic, political and cultural plans. Foreign Europe includes 40 countries located in the European part of the vast continent - Eurasia.

Common features

AT modern society The process of urbanization has the following features:

• A significant increase in the number of urban residents;
• Increasing the number of urban dwellers in big cities;
• Expansion of the territory of large cities, their "spread".

Rice. 1. Large and small cities on the map of Europe

Urban population growth

Throughout history, cities have always played a leading role in the life of society and its development. However, since the 19th century, the number of urban residents has increased markedly. At the beginning of the last century this trend intensified, and after the end of World War II, the era of a real “urban revolution” began. The number of inhabitants in cities is increasing not only due to the migration of the rural population, but also as a result of the administrative transformation of rural settlements into urban ones.

The urbanization of the countries of Foreign Europe is at one of the highest levels in the world. On average, about 75% of the European population are urban dwellers. The following table shows statistical data on the share of urban residents in the total population of each individual country of Foreign Europe.

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AT Western Europe the highest rate of urbanization, while in Eastern Europe the picture is just the opposite: this level varies from 40% to 60%. This is due, first of all, to the socio-economic development of countries: Western European countries are developed, and Eastern European countries are countries with a low per capita income.

Rice. 2 Paris agglomeration on the map

Big cities and their "sprawl"

At the beginning of the 20th century there were not so many large cities in the world - only 360. But by the end their number increased markedly - 2500. Today this number is close to 4 thousand. It is worth noting that if earlier cities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants were classified as large, today research “revolves” mainly around million-plus cities with a population of more than one million. There are many such cities in Europe. Among them, it is worth noting London (over 8 million), Berlin (over 3 million), Madrid (over 3 million), Rome (over 2 million) and others.

This trend became possible due to the development of scientific and technological progress, the growing role of science in the development of production, the increase in the general level of education, and the development of the non-productive sphere.

A distinctive feature of the modern process of urbanization is the "spreading" of large cities - the growth of their already considerable territory. In other words, large industrial centers, port cities, capitals go beyond their borders, growing into something more - an urban agglomeration.

But this is not the limit: many agglomerations are united into megacities. In foreign Europe, the largest metropolitan agglomerations are Paris and London. In addition, there are such large industrial agglomerations as Gdansk-Gdynia (Poland), Rhine-Ruhr (France), South Yorkshire (England) and others.

European urbanization has its distinctive features. Among them are suburbanization (settlement of urban residents in the suburbs), deurbanization (the outflow of urban residents to rural settlements) and ruralization (the spread of urban norms, lifestyles in rural areas).

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First trait - rapid urban population growth, especially in less developed countries.

In 1900, about 14% of the world's population lived in cities, in 1905. - 29%, and in 1990. – 45%. On average, the urban population is increasing annually by about 50 million people. By 2000 According to demographers' forecasts, the proportion of city dwellers may exceed 50%.

Second trait - Population and economy mainly in large cities. This is due primarily to the nature of production, the complication of its links with science and education. In addition, large cities usually satisfy people's spiritual needs more fully, better provide an abundance and variety of goods and services, and access to information repositories.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 360 ​​large cities in the world, in which only 5% of the total population lived. In the late 80s. there were already 2.5 thousand such cities, and their share in the world population exceeded 1/3. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of large cities will reach 4,000.

Among large cities, it is customary to highlight the largest millionaire cities with a population of over 1 million inhabitants. Historically, the first city was Rome during the time of Julius Caesar.

At the beginning of the 20th century there were only 10 of them, in the early 80s. - more than 200, and by the end of the century their number will probably exceed 400. In Russia in 1992. There were 13 such cities. More than 30 "super-cities" of the world already have over 5 million inhabitants each.

Third trait – “recognition” of the city expansion of their territories. Modern urbanization is especially characterized by the transition from a compact city to urban agglomerations - territorial groupings of urban and rural settlements. The cores of the largest urban agglomerations most often become the capitals, the most important industrial and port centers.

The largest urban agglomerations have developed around Mexico City, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and New York: 16-20 million people live in them. In Russia, of several dozen large agglomerations, the largest is Moscow with a population of 13.5 million people; it includes about 100 urban and several thousand rural settlements.

According to available forecasts, by the end of the 20th century, the number of the largest agglomerations will increase significantly.

Many of them are being transformed into even larger formations - urbanization areas and zones.

4. Levels and rates of urbanization.

Despite the presence common features urbanization as a global process in different countries and regions, it has its own characteristics, which, first of all, find expression in different levels and rates of urbanization.

By level of urbanization all countries of the world can be divided into 3 large groups. But the main differences can be observed between more and less developed countries. In the early 90s. in developed countries, the level of urbanization averaged 72%, and in developing countries - 33%.

The rate of urbanization largely depends on its level. In most economically developed countries that have reached a high level of urbanization, the proportion of the urban population has recently grown relatively slowly, and the number of inhabitants in capitals and other largest cities, as a rule, even decreases. Many city dwellers now prefer to live not in the centers of large cities, but in suburbs and rural areas. This is due to the rise in the cost of engineering equipment, dilapidated infrastructure, extreme complication of transport problems, pollution environment. But urbanization continues to develop in depth, acquiring new forms. In developing countries, where the level of urbanization is much lower, it continues to grow in breadth, and the urban population is growing rapidly. Today, they account for more than 4/5 of the total annual increase in the number of urban residents, and the absolute number of city dwellers has already far exceeded their number in economically developed countries. This phenomenon, known in science as an urban explosion, has become one of the most important factors in the entire socio-economic development of developing countries. However, the population growth of cities in these regions is far ahead of their real development. It occurs largely due to the constant “pushing out” of the surplus rural population into cities, especially large ones. At the same time, the poor usually settle on the outskirts of large cities, where there are belts of poverty, slums. Complete, as is sometimes said, "slum urbanization" has taken on very large proportions. That is why a number of international documents speak of an urbanization crisis in developing countries. But it continues to be largely spontaneous and disordered.

In economically developed countries, on the contrary, great effort on regulation of the process of urbanization, its management. Architects, demographers, geographers, economists, sociologists, and representatives of many other sciences are involved in this work, which is often carried out by trial and error, along with government agencies. Modern processes Growth, composition and distribution of the population raise many complex problems, some of which are global in nature, and some are specific to countries of various types. The most important of them are the continuing rapid growth of the world's population, interethnic relations, and urbanization.

Almost all the problems of world population, as never before, are closely intertwined in the process of world urbanization. They appear in the most concentrated form in cities. There is also concentrated - very often to extreme limits - the population itself and production. Urbanization is the most complex and diverse process affecting all aspects of world life. Therefore, it has been widely reflected in the literature, primarily in economic and socio-geographical literature. Let us note only some features of world urbanization on the threshold of the third millennium. Urbanization still continues at a rapid pace in various forms in countries of different levels of development, in different conditions of each country, both in breadth and depth, at one speed or another.

The rate of annual growth of city dwellers is almost twice as high as the growth of the world's population as a whole. In 1950, 28% of the world's population lived in cities, in 1997 - 45%. Cities of different rank, significance and size with rapidly growing suburbs, agglomerations, and even more extensive urbanized zones practically cover the main part of humanity with their influence. The major role in this is played by big cities, especially the cities with millionaires. The latter in 1950 numbered 116, in 1996 there were already 230. The urban lifestyle of the population, urban culture in the broadest sense of the word, is increasingly spreading in rural areas in most countries of the world. In developing countries, urbanization is mainly “in breadth” as a result of a massive influx of migrants from rural areas and small towns to big cities. According to the UN, in 1995 the proportion of the urban population in developing countries as a whole was 38%, including 22% in the least developed. For Africa, this figure was 34%, for Asia - 35%. But in Latin America, urban dwellers now make up the majority of the population: 74%, including Venezuela - 93%, in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Colombia and Peru - from 70% to 80% and etc. Only in a few least developed countries (Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) and in the small island countries of the Caribbean are less than half of the city dwellers - from 35% to 47%.

Indicators of a high level of urbanization are formally characteristic of the relatively few, most developed countries in Asia and Africa. However, in fact, these and some other Asian countries have different features of long-standing, even ancient urbanization (China, India, the countries of the Middle and Near East, South-East Asia and etc.). A high proportion of city dwellers, except for the countries of cities (Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao), are close to them in terms of the nature of the settlement of some Arab states, especially oil-producing ones: Kuwait (97%), Qatar (91%), the United Arab Emirates (84%), Jordan ( 72%). A very large proportion of city dwellers is also characteristic of the most developed countries in the far west of Asia: Israel (91%), Lebanon (87%), Turkey (69%).

In industrialized countries, urbanization "in breadth" has long exhausted itself. In the 21st century, most of them enter almost entirely urbanized. In Europe, city dwellers make up an average of 74% of the population, including in Western Europe - 81%, in some countries - even more: in Belgium - 97%, the Netherlands and Great Britain - 90%, in Germany - 87%, although in some places it is noticeable less: in Austria, for example - 56%, in Switzerland - 61%. High urbanization in Northern Europe: on average, as well as in Denmark and Norway - 73%. It is noticeably less in Southern and Eastern Europe, but, of course, with other indicators of urbanization, it is higher than in developing countries. In the US and Canada, the share of the urban population reaches 80%.

The proportion of economically developed countries is now characterized by urbanization “deeper”: intensive suburbanization, the formation and spread of urban agglomerations and megacities. The concentration of the transportation industry worsened the economic conditions of life in the big cities. In many areas, the population is now growing faster in small towns, on the outskirts than in the centers of agglomerations. Often the largest cities, especially cities with millionaires, lose their population due to its migration to the suburbs, satellite cities, in some places to the countryside, where it brings an urban lifestyle. The urban population of industrialized countries is now practically not growing.

The twenty-first century is the century of urbanization, when there is a rapid change not only of the person himself, but also a change in the system of values, norms of behavior, and intelligence. This phenomenon covers the social and demographic structure of the population, its way of life, culture. It is not difficult to understand what urbanization is, it is important to know what consequences it brings.

Urbanization - what is it?

Urbanization is the increase in urban settlements and the spread of an urban lifestyle to the entire part of the settlements. Urbanization is a multilateral process based on the historically established forms of social and territorial division of labor. Urbanization means the growth of big cities, increasing the urban population in the country. This concentration is closely related to false urbanization.

In different countries, the increase in settlements takes place with different dynamics, so all countries of the world are conventionally divided into three groups:

• high level of urbanization - 73%;
• medium - more than 32%;
• low - less than 32%.

According to this division, Canada is classified in the fourth ten in terms of urbanization, here its level is more than 80%. In Russia, the level is 73%, although the increase in settlements is not always associated with positive aspects. In our country, this level arose due to significant contradictions:

• inability of host cities to adequately address the issue of migration;
• difficult economic situation;
• instability in the political sphere;
• inequalities in the development of regions, when residents from villages tend to megacities.

False urbanization

False urbanization is rapid population growth without sufficient job growth, resulting in crowds of unemployed people, and lack of housing leading to unsettled, unsanitary urban outskirts. This phenomenon often affects the countries of Africa and Latin America, where, along with a high concentration of the population, the standard of living is everywhere low. The increased social tension increases the growth of crime.

Causes of urbanization

Global urbanization has led to the fact that the rural population from nearby villages and small towns is increasingly turning to large cities for domestic or cultural issues. There are the following reasons for urbanization at the present time:

1. Development of industrial production in large cities.
2. An excess of labor force.
3. More favorable living conditions in big cities compared to rural ones.
4. Formation of wide suburban areas.

Pros and cons of urbanization

The quality of urban life is directly related to how reasonable the level of increase in settlements is, the positive and negative aspects of urbanization. If this level rises sharply, the quality of urban life drops significantly, jobs disappear in the city. Therefore, an important place here is occupied by the infrastructure of the city and the level of trade, the level of income of urban residents, their security. Also, another factor in urban life is environmental safety, its level.

To understand what urbanization is, it is necessary to look at its positive and negative sides. For example, Russia is currently undergoing a difficult transition period, when irreversible processes are taking place in the countryside. Only with a certain public policy, balanced settlement of people in cities, it is possible to preserve national traditions and culture.

Pros of urbanization

Most of the population lives in large cities and the reason for this was the positive aspects of urbanization:

• Increasing labor productivity;
• Creating places for scientific research and rest;
• Qualified medical care;
• Sanitary and hygienic conditions.

Cons of urbanization

To date, settlements have begun to grow dramatically. This process is accompanied by the growth of large cities, environmental pollution, and deterioration of living conditions in the regions. The atmosphere of large cities contains a higher concentration of toxic substances compared to rural areas. All this caused the negative aspects of urbanization and led to:

• imbalance in the distribution of the population in the territory;
• absorption by large cities of the most fertile and productive parts of the planet;
• environmental violation;
• noise pollution;
• transport problems;
• building compaction;
• a decrease in the birth rate;
• the rise in unemployment.

Urbanization and its consequences

Due to the fact that most of the villagers moved to big cities, Agriculture ceased to satisfy all the needs of the population. And in order to increase the productivity of soil production began the use of artificial fertilizers. Such an irrational approach led to the fact that the soil was oversaturated with heavy metal compounds. In the twentieth century, the population lost stability in the process of growth. The impact of urbanization has led to large-scale development of energy, industry and agriculture.

Environmental impacts of urbanization

Urbanization is considered the main factor in environmental pollution, residents of big cities call them smogopolises, they pollute the atmosphere by 75%. Scientists have studied the chemical impact of urbanization on nature and found that the plume of polluting effects from large cities can be traced at a distance of fifty kilometers. The lack of necessary funds is a serious obstacle to improving the urban environment, the transition to low-waste technologies, the construction of processing plants.

The car is the biggest source of air pollution. The main harm comes from carbon monoxide, in addition to this, people feel the negative impact of carbohydrates, nitrogen oxides, photochemical oxidants. An urbanized person is daily exposed to oxygen deficiency, irritation of the mucous membranes, deep respiratory tract, resulting in pulmonary edema, colds, bronchitis, lung cancer, coronary disease, congenital malformations.

Impact of urbanization on the biosphere

The growth of urban settlements has a negative impact on the biosphere, from year to year this impact is increasing. Traffic fumes Vehicle, emissions from industrial enterprises, heat and power plants - all these are consequences of urbanization, due to which nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, ozone, saturated hydrocarbons, benzapyrene, and dust enter the atmosphere. In the major cities of the world, they have already stopped paying attention to smog. Not many people fully understand what urbanization is and what danger it poses. If the streets of cities were greened, negative impact decreased in the biosphere.

As technospherization grows, the natural foundations of the biosphere, which is responsible for the reproduction and spread of life on Earth, are removed. At the same time, as humanity gradually moves to technogenesis, the biospheric biological substance is significantly transformed, which negatively affects the organisms formed from it. Artificially created technosphere-biological components can evolve independently and cannot be eliminated from the natural environment.

Impact of urbanization on public health

By creating an urban system, people create an artificial environment around them that increases the comfort of life. But it takes people away from the natural environment and disrupts natural ecosystems. Negative influence Urbanization on human health is manifested by the fact that physical activity decreases, nutrition becomes irrational, low-quality products lead to obesity and diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases develop. The urban environment negatively affects the physical and psychosomatic health of people.

Most urbanized countries

In ancient times, the most urbanized city was Jericho, where approximately two thousand people lived nine thousand years ago. Today, this number can be attributed to a large village or a small town. If we reduce the number of people living in the ten most populated cities of the planet to one whole, then the sum will be almost two hundred and sixty million people, which is 4% of the total population of the planet.

Despite the presence of common features of urbanization as a global process, it has its own characteristics in different countries and regions, which, first of all, is reflected in different levels and rates of urbanization. According to the level of urbanization, all countries of the world can be divided into C large groups. But the main differences can be observed between more and less developed countries. In the early 1990s, the average level of urbanization in developed countries was 72%, while in developing countries it was 33%.

Conditional levels of urbanization:

Low level of urbanization - less than 20%;

The average level of urbanization - from 20% to 50%;

High level of urbanization - from 50% to 72%;

Very high level of urbanization - more than 72%.

Weakly urbanized countries - West and East Africa, Madagascar and some Asian countries.

Medium urbanized countries - Bolivia, Africa, Asia.

Highly urbanized countries - Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, South America, CIS countries.

The pace of urbanization largely depends on its level. In most economically developed countries that have reached a high level of urbanization, the proportion of the urban population has recently grown relatively slowly, and the number of inhabitants in capitals and other largest cities, as a rule, even decreases. Many of the citizens now prefer to live not in the centers of large cities, but in the suburban area and the countryside. But urbanization continues to develop in depth, acquiring new forms. In developing countries, where the level of urbanization is much lower, it continues to grow in breadth, and the urban population is growing rapidly. Now they account for more than 4/5 of the total annual increase in the number of urban residents, and the absolute number of city dwellers has already far exceeded their number in economically developed countries. This phenomenon, known in science as an urban explosion, has become one of the most important factors in the entire socio-economic development of developing countries. However, the population growth of cities in these regions is far ahead of their real development. It occurs largely due to the constant "pushing" of the surplus rural population into the cities, especially large ones. At the same time, the poor usually settle on the outskirts of large cities, where belts of poverty arise.

Complete, as is sometimes said, "slum urbanization" has taken on very large proportions. That is why a number of international documents speak of an urbanization crisis in developing countries. But it continues to be largely spontaneous and disordered.

Economically developed countries are now characterized by urbanization "deeper": intensive suburbanization, the formation and spread of urban agglomerations and megacities.

In economically developed countries, on the contrary, great efforts are being made to regulate the process of urbanization and manage it. Architects, demographers, geographers, economists, sociologists, and representatives of many other sciences are involved in this work, which is often carried out by trial and error, along with government agencies.

Almost all the problems of world population, as never before, are closely intertwined in the process of world urbanization. They appear in the most concentrated form in cities. The population and production are also concentrated there, very often to the extreme limits. Urbanization is a complex and diverse process that affects all aspects of world life. Let us note only some features of world urbanization on the threshold of the third millennium. Urbanization still continues at a rapid pace in various forms in countries of different levels of development. In the unequal conditions of each country, urbanization occurs both in breadth and depth, at one speed or another.

The rate of annual growth of city dwellers is almost twice as high as the growth of the world's population as a whole. In 1950, 28% of the world's population lived in cities, in 1997 - 45%. Cities of different rank, significance and size in which suburbs, agglomerations, even larger urbanized zones are rapidly expanding, practically cover the main part of humanity with their influence. The major role in this is played by big cities, especially the cities with millionaires. The last in 1950, there were 116, in 1996 - there were 230. The urban lifestyle of the population, urban culture are increasingly spreading in rural areas in most countries of the world. In developing countries, urbanization is mainly "in breadth" as a result of a massive influx of migrants from rural areas and small towns to big cities. According to the UN, in 1995 the proportion of the urban population in developing countries as a whole was 38%, including 22% in the least developed countries. For Africa, this figure was 34%, for Asia - 35%. But in Latin America, city dwellers now make up the majority of the population - 74%, including in Venezuela - 93%, in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Colombia and Peru - from 70% to 80% etc. Only in some of the least developed countries (Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) and in the small island countries of the Caribbean, less than half of the city dwellers - from 35% to 47%.

A very large proportion of city dwellers is also characteristic of the most developed countries in the far west of Asia: Israel (91%), Lebanon (87%), Turkey (69%).

In industrialized countries, urbanization "in breadth" has long exhausted itself. In the 21st century, most of them enter almost entirely urbanized. In Europe, city dwellers make up an average of 74% of the population, including 81% in Western Europe, and even more in some countries: in Belgium - 97%, the Netherlands and Great Britain - 90%, in Germany - 87%, although in some countries the city dwellers much less: in Austria, for example, - 56%, in Switzerland - 61%. High urbanization in Northern Europe: 73% on average, as well as in Denmark and Norway - 70%. It is noticeably smaller in Southern and Eastern Europe, but, of course, with other indicators of urbanization, it is higher than in developing countries. In the US and Canada, the share of the urban population reaches 80%.

The concentration of the transportation industry worsened the economic conditions of life in the big cities. In many areas, the population is now growing faster in small towns, on the outskirts than in the centers of agglomerations. Often the largest cities, especially cities with millionaires, lose their population due to its migration to the suburbs, satellite cities, in some places to the countryside, where it brings an urban lifestyle. The urban population of industrialized countries is now practically not growing.