By: Austin Harris and Reid Belew

What Is Urbanization?

Urbanization is the ongoing phenomenon of people moving from rural settings to urban centers. The term is not restricted to simply the movement itself, it also refers to the field of study that researches it. Encapsulated within urbanization is a more specific area of focus — urban growth — which is how urban centers are growing and developing in light of urbanization.

In early human history, forming groups amongst ourselves proved to be the most beneficial living arrangement after the invention and discovery of agriculture. Before the normalization of agriculture, humans were primarily nomadic. When we discovered and invented agriculture, humans didn’t have to travel and continue hunting and gathering. Permanent establishments were built, and humans stayed together — more hands on the farm meant more food, and more food meant a greater chance to live.

Many settlements would be established along a river or in areas of high amounts of natural resources, which was useful for farming. As these closely-distanced, smaller settlements grew and combined, they slowly became one large settlement.

Thus, the first iterations of the modern city were born. The ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk, founded in 4500 BCE, in considered by some to be the first city. Uruk was built on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq. At its height, scholars estimate Uruk had between 50–80,000 people.

As history has marched onward, so too has the increase in population. After the onset of agriculture, industrialization further pulled people off the farm and into the factory. As the world became more industrialized, it also became more centered in urban areas. In 2007, the world passed a significant milestone: over 50% of the world’s population lived in urban areas for the first time. At the time of writing, 55% of the world lives in urban areas, and most projections anticipate over 2/3rds of the world doing the same by 2050. To see these projections, visit Our World In Data here.

This rapid, exponential increase of people in these areas brings with it significant challenges. Naturally, there will be increases in air, water, soil, and noise pollution, traffic, population density, hospital and medical care acuity, and much more. Each of these individual increases brings with it many layers of ramifications that must be handled proactively.

Take for example traffic congestion. Very likely, increases in traffic and vehicles on the road will result in more time spent on commutes, which takes away the free time of citizens, lowering quality of life, however incremental and seemingly insignificant that amount of time is. More time spent commuting will result in increased carbon emissions, furthering the effects of climate change. Emergency vehicles will more commonly face difficulties traveling to and from emergency sites. More traffic accidents will occur, which means an increased demand for those emergency services. Roadways will deteriorate much faster, which could result in small tax increases for a city’s citizens, having an effect on real wages. Considering the individual, these issues don’t resonate as pressing or urgent. However, at city-scale, these individual instances combine to create large problems.

Cities are complex, intertwined machines, and as one aspect of a city changes and morphs, all of the pieces change as well. The development and utilization of smart cities aims to mitigate, understand, and manage changes stemming from urbanization.

Causes

The causes of urbanization are multifaceted and difficult to parse into easily identifiable points. In general:

i) As countries, states, and counties develop economically, that economic activity is focused in city centers where ideas and money can travel quickly via close proximity to others. The free-flowing nature of money ideas in city centers creates an exponential magnetism of resources to those city centers away from rural areas.

ii) Those in rural areas see resources focused on cities and believe cities offer higher standards of living and better opportunities for social and economic well-being.

iii) The above two events are exacerbated by the ongoing increase in birth rates and lifespan across the globe.

Challenges of Urbanization

Per National Geographic, urbanization creates significant problems for cities:

• Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty, with local governments unable to provide services for all people.
• Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with a significant impact on human health.
• Automobile exhaust produces elevated lead levels in urban air.
• Large volumes of uncollected waste create multiple health hazards.
• Urban development can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such as flash flooding.
• Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss of urban tree cover.
• Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances, vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources.

How Smart Cities Address Urbanization

A core component of achieving sustainable urbanization is the governing body. If the governing body does not take action and respond to urbanization, the negative effects will quickly become apparent. There are many paths governmental agencies may take to create economic and socially equitable urbanization. However, the traditional measures used to reduce these negative effects, such as promoting economic development and job creation, are outdated and unable to be the totality of a response to urbanization.

Smart cities are a modern and dynamic response to urbanization that focuses on the city holistically. Paramount to smart cities is the procurement and analysis of data to understand how the city works at the most granular levels.

Smart cities employ a wide range of methods to collect and analyze data in order to adapt. This approach applies in all domains including the economy, transportation, infrastructure and urban development — the list goes on and on. Sensors, cameras, and other IoT devices generate millions of events per minute that smart cities can collect, creating an eco-system of devices that represent the heartbeat of the city. This data is used to improve urban planning and enable real-time monitoring capabilities. There are many solutions that address specific challenges created by urbanization such as:

• Intelligent Mobility — Aims to reduce congestion and travel time.
• Integrated Community Safety — Provides an integrated security through cameras and other means of communication with the public.
• Smart Grids — Minimizes outages.
• Smart Infrastructure — Monitors health of infrastructure and improve maintenance.

Smart Cities In Action

Above is an example of how smart cities work and operate. This is an example of object tracking, a technique that utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to track objects between video frames. In the above example, the distances between objects are being measured to provide insights into near-miss incidents.

Learning how vehicles interact on a granular level provides insights previously unavailable. The applications of object tracking are numerous. Traffic patterns, near-miss incidents, and traffic/pedestrian interactions all stand to benefit from furthered object tracking capabilities.

Conclusion

While no one solution solves the challenges created by urbanization, new technologies and policies created by governing bodies can quickly adapt to rising demand. Decisions should be made based on data. Through these technologies, cities can make informed decisions on how to utilize its resources and improve urban development and ultimately, the lives of its citizens.

The Center for Urban Informatics and Progress is a smart city research center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. CUIP is committed to applied smart city research that betters the lives of citizens every day. For more on the work we’re doing and our mission, visit www.utc.edu/cuip.