Comparison Of Urbanisation Processes In First World And Third World
Urbanization is with no doubt an inevitable and major process after the industrial revolution in 18th century. Through the past centuries applying to both first and third world countries, not only have we witnessed expansions of countries, the gradual involvement of modern technology, but how portions of populations of rural areas have migrated to urbanized areas. Yet it is always surprising to realize the varied characteristics in the urbanization process between the first world and third world. In this essay, analysis will be made based on comparison and contrast between well-developed and developing nations regarding their urbanization process from two major aspects, namely social segregation and slum areas.
The first aspect of urbanization process difference between first worlds and third worlds that will be discussed is social segregation. When talking about countries that are well-developed, social segregation may be mainly dependent on the income of an individual or family, which is influenced by the free market to a great extend. Free market is a monetary system in regard to supply and demand with moderate involvement of government control. The proportion of the crowd with relatively high income, or a higher social status tends to live further away from the central business district (CBD) as it is clearly demonstrated in Figure 1, for better living quality. To be more specific, living spaces for wealthier tribes are ordinarily located at peripheral layers of the country due to better living quality considering factors like environment (i.e. closer to natural environment), air quality, conveniency of access to higher ranking school campuses, etc. Whilst in comparison to the segment of the crowd with lower income or belong to a relatively low social status, they tend to prefer living in locations nearer from the urban area, owing to limited access to public transit in suburbs. On top of that, their preference of household may be due to a closer distance from their home to workplaces. Not only does it lead to a greater level of facility for them to travel around, but most crucially, to diminish their transportation fees. It was stated that 57 percent of the low-income families lived in city centers while merely 30 percent lived in fringe areas.
Referring to less developed countries (LDC), ones skin color would play the most essential role into the separation of social classes. Take Africans as an example, sharing a similar concept with gender discrimination, a person’s skin tone is a physical trait that people would pay immediate attention to in order to make judgments. Furthermore, the variant of skin color have furnished contribution to socioeconomics status greatly among African American throughout the history.
Another variance between first worlds and third worlds regarding the process of urbanization would be the features of their slum areas. Slum area is a poorly structured, ramshackle and densely populated urban residential area that is known as a breeding space for social issues such as crime and drug addiction. In addition, it was stated in the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2009) that slums have a lack of basic healthcare and drinking water, and hence it is an unsafe and not healthy to live in. Despite the inferior qualities of such, there still exist slum areas in multiple more developed countries (MDC). Yet, there are significant differences between those in MDC and LDC, which will be analyzed below.
Slum areas in first world countries are often located near the CBD. One of the major cause of this phenomenon pointed out by the United Nation Human Settlements Programme (2003) is due to the fact that residents of the public squalor that are located closer to CBD would be able to exploit from the high concentrations of employment opportunities, especially regarding to jobs that are unskilled and casual. On the other hand, because of their small sizes, it would be difficult for them to support their own social infrastructure such as education institutions and clinic. Yet it is convenient for residents to get access to public services from neighborhoods from their location.
In terms of blighted areas of the third world countries, having the opposite situation with first world countries, such regions are commonly located in a further distance from the CBD. Despite their inaccessibility to and high cost to work, market, city centers and school campuses, the periphery has its possible asset of less competitive use and control of land due to their greater sizes. In most occasions, the housing quality is significantly better in adjoining rural areas. Besides, large slums contain possession of internal public transport systems, which provides a high level of expediency for their residents to travel from place to place.
Another significant feature of slum areas would be their sizes. Slums located in MDCs are often larger in sizes meanwhile those in LDCs tend to be smaller. This can be measured by population sizes. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most undeveloped nations of Africa, and the percentage of population living in slums is nearly twice the figure of South Africa, one of the most well developed countries of Africa.
By and large, significant differences of the urbanization process between the first worlds and third worlds are mainly based on social segregation and features of their slum areas. Social segregation in rather well developed countries are mostly hinged on one’s earning, which leads to preferences of housing locations among the well off portion of the group in the view of superior housing standards, as dwellings positioned at the periphery areas are often more costly and unaffordable for collection with lower income. What is more, slum areas in prosperous nations are tend to be located near the CBD and smaller in sizes, meanwhile the situation is the exact opposite in the comparatively unexploited territories.
