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Definition: urbanism from The Macquarie Dictionary
1.

the study of cities, especially in relation to the social, economic, political, and cultural systems which develop within them and how these are influenced by the nexus between communities and the built environment and the hinterland.

urbanist noun


urbanism

From The Dictionary of Human Geography
Three common definitions for this highly contested term can be distinguished: The typical way of life of people who live in a city or town . In this first sense, the concept is usually traced back to Louis Wirth (1938), a chicago school sociologist who witnessed and described urbanization in Chicago in the early twentieth century as a process of change to the moral order and the decline of community . The division of labour and sociocultural and socio-economic diversification lead to both fragmentation of individuals’ lives in cities and to the normal expectation of living in the proximity of ‘unknown others’. Using the criteria of size, density and heterogeneity, Wirth claimed the specificity of ‘urbanism as a way of life’. Often, this quality of urbanism is confused with the notion of urbanity, which ascribes characteristics such as sophistication, refinement and courtesy to individuals or communities. The study of life in cities and towns . In this second sense, urbanism combines a…
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Full text Article Urbanization

From International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
Urbanization level in the world (1000...
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P. Knox, volume 12, pp 112–118, © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Glossary Global Cities Cities that are key financial and service hubs that have a concentration of advanced producer service activities. Global…
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Full text Article Urbanization

From Global Social Issues: An Encyclopedia
Urbanization
In 2008, for the first time in history, the majority of the world's population lived in cities. The transition from predominantly rural to urban settlement patterns is the result of a long period of urbanization that began in Europe and North America in the late eighteenth century following the…
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Full text Article URBANIZATION

From International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family
Urbanization , in conventional terms, refers to the process through which society is transformed from one that is predominantly rural, in economy, culture and life style, to one that is predominantly urban. It is also a process of territorial reorganization in that it shifts the locations, as well…
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Full text Article urbanization

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
Urbanization refers properly to a growth in the proportion of a country's population living in urban centres of a particular size. Although cities have always been socially, politically and economically important, the urbanization of industrial Western societies in the nineteenth century was very…
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Full text Article urbanization

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
While often defined as the increasing proportion of people living in cities , urbanization is best defined as the process by which cities - described as, following Louis Wirth in “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938, American Journal of Sociology ), relatively heterogeneous, dense, and sizable…
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Full text Article Urbanization

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
Urbanization is the process of populations becoming increasingly concentrated in cities rather than in rural areas. In the United States, as in much of the rest of the Western world, urbanization began in the nineteenth century as the nation's economy became increasingly reliant on manufacturing…
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Full text Article URBANIZATION

From Historical Dictionary of Australia
Aside from city states like Singapore and Monaco, Australia is the most urbanized nation on earth, with about 85 percent of the population living in coastal areas, and most of these comprising urban areas with populations greater than 100,000. Together, these areas comprise only about 1 percent of…
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Full text Article urbanization

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
the statistical measure of the proportion of a country's population living in cities or settlements of a size defined variously by political, cultural or administrative criteria. The rate of urbanization describes changes in the proportion of urban to rural dwellers over time (the reverse process is…
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Full text Article Urbanization

From The Social Science Jargon-Buster
Core definition The migration of people from overseas or from rural areas to urban areas, which increases both an urban area's density and extent. Longer explanation Did you know that in 1800 only 3% of the world's population lived in urban areas? That figure is now about 50% with more than 450…
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Full text Article urbanization

From Environmental History and Global Change: A Dictionary of Environmental History
The degree of urban development in a region, state or continent, often measured as the proportion of people living in towns and cities. Although the first cities go back to ancient Mesopotamia for most periods and most parts of the world urban populations have been a relatively small, though…
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