Defining Urbanization and Urban Settlement
In general, urban refers to town and cities and rural refers to countryside.
Demographic interpretation: urbanization is the process signifying an increase in the proportion of a population living in the towns and cities, designated as urban areas, within a country or region.
Natural increase (when birthrate is higher than death rate) and net migration (immigration-emigration) are the demographic causes of the growth of urbanization.
Socio-economic interpretation of urbanization: – urbanization often accompanies industrialization, large-scale manufacturing and dominance of tertiary sector jobs. Cities perform important commercial functions, and serve as locations for new forms of production, distribution and exchange. The social structure is also very different from those of rural societies.
Behavioral approach to urbanization: urbanization is marked by a typical set of human behavior and attitudes towards society. Urbanization can typically be associated with the concept of Gesellschaft (Ferdinand Tönnies theories of urban life), where the social relationship is founded on rationality, efficiency and contractual obligations and individual behavior is exerted through impersonal, institutionalized codes generating typical urban culture.