NATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL

CLASS lX

SUBJECT EVS

CHAPTER URBANIZATION

Long answer questions:--

1. What are the causes of urbanization? Describe push and pull factors.
Ans— Urban centres grow around the cities while rural society centres around villages. Urban
economy grows centering on the growth of industries whereas the rural economy is totally
dependent on agriculture. The rural sectors are traditional social structure while the urban
centres are modern, industrially developed, technological equipped and cosmopolitan.
Literacy rate is higher in cities than in villages. Urban centres offer a large number of different
jobs compared to rural sectors. Cities provide more luxury, better living in villages and hence
people in the villages migrate to urban centres for better access to different opportunities.

Push factors—
• Unemployment— employment opportunities are hardly there in villages which forces
youth to move to cities creating imbalance in the villages and leaving the villages
vacant.
• Natural calamities-- some people migrate out of their place of origin due to the
occurrence of natural disaster like drought, flood.
• Crop failure— rural land is limited, sometimes it becomes low, crop production
become slow, farm debts are high. As a result, rural incomes are low.
• Poor education facilities—Schools in villages do not have benches and chairs, lack
computers and huge shortage of teachers leading to huge dropout rate.
• Poor health facilities—villages neither have health awareness nor health facilities. So
many villagers have to flock to cities for even basic treatments.

Pull factors—

• Potential for employment and better service provision—urban areas offer dramatically
increased job opportunities. People move into cities to seek economic opportunities. There
are more job opportunities and the great variety of jobs are found in the cities.
• Social mobility—cities are known to be places where money and wealth are centralised. Cities
are the places where fortunes are made and social mobility is possible.
• Better basic services—there are better basic services as well as other specialist services that
are found in rural areas. In cities we have wide roads, flyovers and underpasses while many
villages still do not have proper roads.
• Health—elderly people in villages are often forced to move to cities where there are doctors
and hospitals that can cater for their health needs.
• Variety of entertainment—a greater variety of entertainment like restaurant, movie, theatres
and parks are found in cities.
• Better education-- a better quality of education mainly colleges and universities are found in
the urban areas.
2. What are the effects of urbanization?
Ans-- the effects of urbanization are—
• Growth of slums—the formation of slums in the cities is closely related to
urbanization. Slums are growing at an accelerated rate along with poverty,
unemployment, exploitation, inequalities, degradation in the quality of urban life.
• Growth of informal sector--the informal sector is the part of an economy that is
neither taxed nor monitored by the government. The informal sector plays a vital role
in economic development of all the countries particularly the developing countries.
• Pressure on civic amenities—urbanisation has given rise to overcrowding and
inadequate civic amenities. The slum dwellers are forced to live in cheap, self made
houses and are devoid of the civic services like Water supply and sanitation, roads and
drains, street lights, disposal of solid waste etc.
• Degradation of human resources-- migration of people whether young or old,
educated or skilled workers often create a significant drain on human resources in the
areas they come from.
• Growing sense of despair—many of those who migrate in urban areas benefit from
the opportunities there, others with low skill may be left behind and find themselves
struggling with the day-to-day challenges of city life. The urban poor frequently
remain marginalised and may fare no better than rural dwellers.