The Effects of Rapid Urbanization

Historically, urbanization created job opportunities that attracted people from rural areas into cities. Today, rural areas in the U.S. are being urbanized as cities expand, and global investment in developing countries moves more and more workers into urban areas. But while urbanization once occurred over centuries, it now happens over a matter of years. That rapidity causes countless problems for people and the environment.

Stress on Natural Resources

• The Population-Environment Research Network, a project of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, reports that rapid urbanization causes soil erosion, deforestation, the destruction of watersheds and wetlands, traffic congestion and contamination, and water pollution. Much land is converted for residential purposes, which causes food insecurity. Global warming rates increase with rapid urbanization, too, according to a June 2004 Georgia Institute of Technology press release that cites a NASA-funded study.

Poverty

• When a flood of migrant workers heads to cities to find jobs in the global marketplace, wages remain low. That leads to statistically higher numbers of poor living in urban areas. They are plagued with sanitation issues, largely because of overcrowded living quarters, and infectious diseases spread among them quickly. The poor also receive substandard education, as monies that once went to city schools get spread more thinly and broadly, and they experience more hunger and malnutrition. They also tend to live amid more pollution because "industries tend to cluster in outlying areas where regulations are more lax," says a February 2010 article at "The WIP."

Health Issues

• "The WIP" reports that mobility-related risks among migrant workers include sexual abuse and exploitation, dangerous working conditions and the dissolution of social support networks. Children, the elderly and pregnant women are most susceptible to health problems, and children in overcrowded residences experience excessive noise and little space for recreation or study, which affect psychological and physical health. In addition to experiencing a higher risk of infectious diseases, rapidly urbanized areas become highly susceptible to natural disasters and experience more traffic, pedestrian and industrial accidents.

Pollution

• Polluted air and water create health and environmental problems for city residents and workers. Cities and counties struggle to solve issues such as how to dispose of an overwhelming amount of waste. Toxic fumes from industrial plants stream into air and affect rivers and streams; similarly, pollutants from motorized vehicles -- including hydrocarbons, ozone and lead -- contribute to low air and water quality. Finding uncontaminated drinking water becomes challenging.

Financial Cost

• The financial cost of rapid urbanization to cities and counties remains high. While the development of urban areas has positive aspects -- people do get work and generally gain a higher standard of living than they had in rural areas -- growth that happens too quickly "strains capacity to provide services such as energy, education, health care, transportation, sanitation and physical security," according to the University of Michigan's Global Change Program. Governments have less money to spend on basic maintenance programs, and the costs rise even more when governments must fight emerging (or re-emerging) diseases and pay for destruction caused by natural disasters. Cities and counties literally pay millions of dollars for new water and sewer lines, schools and law enforcement.