Abdul Raffay Awais
LIVING in a time when over half of the world’s population lives in cities, 30% up from the mid twentieth century, the idea of urbanization is ever-increasing. While writing for the conservation institute, Josy O’Donnell has defined urbanization as the compressing of populace into dense urban areas. According to Golfer Okorie, a graduate programmes advisor at Vancouver Island University, urbanization brings along many problems with it. To highlight a few: higher crime rates, more congested traffic and increased crime rates.
After reading this, the question that arises is, why is urbanization occurring if it brings along many disadvantages? Does it bring along advantages as well? Urbanization reasons economic growth because it correlates with industrialization. The expansion of industries in a region results in organizations launching there to satisfy the needs of a growing population, bringing in new jobs and adding value to the economy. This results in improved education.
As stated by Director Schleicher of education and skills at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and development in Paris, an ‘urban advantage’ is observed in the grades of the Programme for International Student Assessments – a worldwide study that assesses academic schemes by evaluating students’ performance in mathematics, science and reading tests in 2009.
It showed that urban students performed better by about 20 PISA points than rural students. Despite there being many explanations behind this, the most probable is the higher awareness of urban students. Reasons for this higher ‘awareness’ are numerous: better technology, computer aided learning programs and more qualified teachers. Correspondingly, there are improved sporting and extracurricular facilities available in the schools in the city.
Urban schools outright just have more advanced academics compared to rural areas because of the better buying power urban families have. There are, though, benefits to living in rural areas too. The most encouraging factor for rural residents is the cleanliness of the environment. This is because keeping distant from busy roads minimizes the harm to your lungs from pollutants. According to James Gallagher, a health and science reporter for BBC, dementia is only one of the health problems that increase due to fine air pollutant particles.
Other examples are strokes, heart disease and lung cancer. Additionally, technology is prospering, the need for close distances is decreasing. Shopping can be done online and food can be delivered to your doorstep. Nowadays even education can be provided online, reducing travel even more out of the lives of rural area residents. The need for commuting is getting limited and this is benefitting countryside residents the most. In conclusion, urbanization does have its advantages: better education, higher paying jobs and an improved economy.
However, in Pakistan, the acceleration of the rate of urbanization is what exploits its disadvantages – it is estimated that by 2026 50% of the population will reside in cities- such as a higher cost of living, amplification in air pollution and an increased population density. This demonstrates that although the advantages of urbanization are numerous, to employ them, however, we must also meet the requisites to fulfil the needs of a growing urban populace.
