Urban Growth

Urban growth is the rate of growth of an urban population.

The definition of an urban area changes from country to country. In
general, there are no standards, and each country develops its own set
of criteria for distinguishing cities or urban areas. A city is generally
defined as a political unit, i.e., a place organized and governed by an
administrative body. A way of defining a city or an urban area is by the
number of residents. The United Nations defines settlements of over
20,000 as urban, and those with more than 100,000 as cities. The
United States defines an urbanized area as a city and surrounding area,
with a minimum population of 50,000. A metropolitan area includes
both urban areas and rural areas that are socially and economically
integrated with a particular city. Cities with over 5 million inhabitants
are known as megacities. There were 41 mega cities in the year 2000.
This number is expected to grow as the population increases in the
next few decades. It is predicted that by the year 2015, 50 megacities
will exist, and 23 of these are expected to have over 10 million people.
 Problems Associated with Rapid Urban Growth:

The urbanization process refers to much more than simple population

growth; it involves changes in the economic, social and political
structures of a region. Rapid urban growth is responsible for many
environmental and social changes in the urban environment and its
effects are strongly related to global change issues. The rapid growth
of cities strains their capacity to provide services such as energy,
education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation and physical security.
Because governments have less revenue to spend on the basic upkeep
of cities and the provision of services, cities have become areas of
massive sprawl, serious environmental problems, and widespread
poverty.
Consequences of Urban Growth:
1. Increases traffic and Squatter Settlements
2. Pollutes air, water and other threats to natural environment
3. Worsens the existing degraded built environment
4. Destroys agricultural land, parks, and open spaces
5. Costs cities and counties millions of dollars for new housing, water and
sewer lines, new schools, and increased police and fire protection
6. Creates crowded schools ,universities etc.

Solutions to decrease Urban Growth:

1. Enacting growth boundaries, parks and open space protection
2. Planning and promoting public participation in housing and
transportation.
3. Revitalizing already developed areas through measures such as
attracting new businesses, reducing crime and improving schools;

5. Preventing new development in floodplains, coastal areas and other

disaster- prone areas.
Trends in Urban Growth
Introduction: The trends in urban growth can be visualized through
population estimates. New classifications were made to differentiate
between the cities i.e.
i) 2500 to 5000 persons may be termed as Eopolis or Infantile
Municipality Town
ii) 5000 to 10000 persons may be termed as Polis or Juvenile Town
iii) 10000 to 25000 persons may be termed as Mature
Trade/Industrial Town
iv) 25000 to 50000 persons may be termed as Metropolis or Medium
Size City
v) 50000 to 100000 persons may be termed as Megalopolis
Intermediate City
vi) 100000 to 250000 persons may be termed as Trade / Industry /
Service Sector City
vii) 250000 to 500000 persons may be termed as Primate City
viii) 500000 to 1000000 persons may be termed as Tyranopolis or a
Metropolitan City
ix) 1000000 or more persons may be termed as Senile City or Mega
City
 Objective of Sound Planning
According to Harold MacLean Lewis; Whatever the
plan may be, but it should have reasonable
foresight to be adapted to new conditions with little
disturbance and destruction in making
improvements. The work of planning should be
assigned to people who have a vision, technical
training and experience. A reasonable plan once
decide, should be implemented with its essential
features without any demand and opposition and
that is sound planning. However the objectives of
sound planning are to have flexibility in plans to
adopt change.
The efforts & investments of people shall not be
destroyed so as resources shall not go waste & that
is the objective of sound planning. The logic behind
regulation of informal sector is the failure of formal
sector in provision of services and infrastructure. So
if a poor person made his house without standards
he must be regulated not bulldozed. The main
objective is to develop capital cities as a place of
their importance at national and international level
to get praise from generations to come. The
planners of Islamabad wanted to have a capital in
cool climate because people work efficiently in cool
climate. Now due to decision maker’s choice of cool
climate billion of rupees of a poor country were
spent on it.