The city and urbanisation

Where would you like to live, in a city, or in the countryside? More than half of the world's population lives in cities today, and that proportion is only increasing. We call this change urbanisation. Even though the city isn't always the most pleasant place to live, urbanisation keeps going - more and more people, all over the world, choose to move into the cities. Why are we doing that?

What is it that is so attractive about cities? If you ask people who have moved in from the countryside to the city, you might get answers like: There were no jobs where I lived There were no jobs of the kind that I wanted. I wanted to find love, or I felt like an outsider, alone, and wanted to meet more people who are like me. I wanted to study, something that wasn't on offer back home. I wanted more culture, night life, theaters, cinemas, restaurants...

All of these are about matching people together with other people, or with things they want. The more people that live in a place, the more likely it is that you can match people together with things that they like. It's not only people being matched - it's companies too. Imagine that you run a company, developing new pharmaceuticals, you need to hire researchers and specialists, with specific knowledge and skills. Is it more likely that you'll find them in a town where a few thousand people live, or in a city with a few million?

The city makes it easier to match people and companies with the things they need and desire. The city has other benefits too. Take this indoor swimming pool for instance. It cost a lot of money to build, and is quite expensive to run. But since there are a lot of people living in the city, sharing the cost, they can still afford it.

Same thing with the tram, the city hall, the museum, and the fire station. When a lot of people share a resource, it costs less - per person. And, the more densely we live, the fewer roads, street lamps, and bus stops are needed, per person. The city is a way of sharing resources. Then there is one more thing that the city helps us with: By being close to more people, there are more people we can learn from.

By meeting, seeing, hearing: interacting with others, we learn more and get more ideas. There are more inventions and innovations in cities, and a lot of people notice that they develop more professionally when living in a city. There you have them: The three main benefits of cities, that keep the world's cities growing and growing: Matching, Sharing, And learning. But, why doesn't everyone live in the city, if it's so amazingly good? There are plenty of reasons not to want to live in a city.

Because, the more people who move in, the more congested it becomes... More traffic, noise, and pollution. More difficult to be left alone, and to enjoy the silence and nature. And it's harder to find somewhere to live... because when more people want to be in the same place, the price of land goes up, and houses get more expensive.

So, there are at least two hard questions for the future here: One: How are we going to keep making use of all the benefits that the city gives, but still manage the drawbacks: the congestion, pollution, noise and stress? And two: How are people in rural areas going to make it, when even more people move away from there? With a smaller population, it's harder to match, share, and learn. Maybe it's going to be your job to answer one of these questions.