Processes That Led to Early Urbanization

The gathering of people into large urban centers marks one of the fundamental transformations in
human history. Starting about 6,000 years ago in various parts of the world, large towns, and
eventually cities, grew out of what were formerly agrarian village societies. This process, often
called the urban revolution, involved much more than just an increase in the size of communities.
It also included marked changes in the way people interacted, in people’s relationship with the
environment, and in the way people structured their societies. The processes and institutions that
emerged at this time have continued to evolve, forming the basic structure of urban society
today.
Archaeologists and historians have suggested diverse factors that could have prompted the
growth of cities and the reorganization of society. These factors include the need for irrigation,
population growth, warfare, specialized production, and large-scale trade. According to one
theory, arid alluvial plains where cities have developed needed irrigation to support significant
populations. The construction and maintenance of irrigation works, as well as the allocation of
water, required a managerial elite. The elite, in turn, formed the core of the complex society.
According to another theory, once arable land was fully occupied, conflicts developed among the
settlers and their neighbors. One group would be subdued, forming a lower class, while the
conquerors formed the core elite centered in the cities. Yet another theory suggests that a
growing frequency of warfare or forced relocation of people to increase the power of rulers may
have consolidated people into cities. This seems to be the case in one the first true cities, Uruk
(Erech), in Mesopotamia. Yet another theory suggests that the development of large-scale
product exchange encouraged manufacturing and markets to localize in cities as a more efficient
means of managing resources and trade. This promoted the rise of a managerial class as well as
specialized producers, both key elements in an urban society.
We know from archaeological findings and written records that each of these factors existed in
early urban societies, but the actual order in which they developed is not clear. The key question
is whether advances in one or more of these areas preceded cities and were instrumental in
leading to urban growth, or whether they followed the formation of cities as a natural outcome of
the newly formed urban society. The potential complexity of the process has led a number of
scholars to suggest that a combination of these and other factors working together brought about
the fundamental changes implied by the urban revolution. These scholars acknowledge the
importance of irrigation, agriculture, and the exchange of goods in forming the necessary
foundation on which a civilization could be lt. However, a multivariate approach looks to
changing social relations as the force that crystallized the urbanization process.

The First Cities: Mesopotamia

The urban revolution appears to have happened first from about 5500 to 3500 BC in
Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, southwestern Iran, and eastern Syria. The historical
developments in Mesopotamia can be used as a case study to examine the processes that
accompanied early urbanism. The Mesopotamian plain was naturally arid, so few people lived
there before irrigation technology developed in 5500 BC. During the next 2,000 years, within a
broad period archaeologists call the Unbraid period, the people advanced slowly, but
nevertheless they laid the foundations for the world’s first urban society. During this period,
many scholars believe, the people now called the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia .
 KADUNA STATE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

FACULTY OF SOCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

QUESTION: The role of urbanization as a factor of change?

COURSE TITLE: Technology and social change.

COURSE CODE: SOC

s/n Names Matric. Number Sign

1. Maxwell Israel Elisha Kasu/08/soc/1014
2. Andrew Evelyn kozah Kasu/08/soc/1020
3. Rabi Umar Soba Kasu/08/soc/1015
4. Suku Lucius Isham Kasu/o8/soc/1009
5. Salama Dauda Fadason Kasu/08/soc/1059
6. Sa’adatu Musa Kasu/08/soc/1005
7. Augustine Nache Daniel Kasu/08/soc/1050
8. Khalid Idris Abubakar Kasu/08/soc/1040
9. Audu Habu Kasu/08/soc/1052
10 Buhari Daniel Kasu/08/soc/1012
11. Umar Gambo M. Kasu/08/soc/1022
12. Hajara M. Musa Kasu/08/soc/1024
13 Hamisu Abubakar Kasu/08/soc/1011

.
14 Sadiya Balarabe Kasu/08/soc/1055

.
15

INTRODUTION
Urbanization is a process which involve increase in the number of people living in the urban
centre deriving interrelated process of economic, demography, political, technological
environmental and social change. Urbanization is one of the key factor of change in our society.
This is as a result of the fast growing rate of technological advancement coupled with other
social factor.
THE ROLE OF URBANIZATION AS A FACTOR OF CHAANGE
The cities of the world, or even within a single country, present a bewildering display of
architecture, layout, size, wealth, sanitation, planning, and transport. Some cities such as
Moscow, London ,new York or Paris reflect national character and project national wealth and
power. Others such as Abidjan, Dakar and Luanda reflect the national character of the erstwhile
colonial power. Some cities glory in the past, preserving roman ruins and Athenian statuary;
others change building styles as if they were fashion: in los Angeles perfectly fine buildings are
knocked down to create gaudy palaces for movie stars, Saudi princes, or African millionaires.
The processes of urbanization has four major stages.
1. Extending from time when people first began to live in town
2. Rapid growth in size and number of cities contingent upon the process of
industrialization.
3. Metropolitanization which involve the centralization and wealth and of society, political,
economic, and cultural institution.
4. De-urbanization through growth of suburb.
Urbanism as a form of social interaction and way of life that is developed in urban
settings have contributed in divers ways in bringing social change to our environs or
society. Urbanization contribute in the diffusion of technology, ideas, innovation,
invention and culture through association with other people that comes from different
society and socio economic background.

• Urbanization has also played a vital role in the socialization of children which
bring acculturation of culture e.g dressing, food, family organization and
interaction.
• Urbanization has brought about change in social structure due to immigration
from rural to urban, this affect the family size, number of children by family
different from rural.

• Urbanization course changes in the area of cost of accommodation, prices of food

stuff, educational demand, telephone bill, hospital bill etc. according to George
Argon, he said as a result of this change, people in urban areas tend to leave
individualistic life style as against rural areas were people leave in a communal
life style.

• Urbanization has brought about family looking outside for some needs e.g. nanny,
daycare centre. It also brings about changes in roles and status.

• Urbanization brings socialization of religion i.e. moving away religion from

knowledge and religion becomes only a sign of identity. (Howard S Becke, 1950)

• Urbanization bring about change in areas of acquiring status from ascribing to

achieved status.
 • Urbanization brings about changes of dominant form of group relation which is
characterize by solidarity and accommodation in rural areas to symbolitic form of
relationships.

• Urbanization brings about changes in the means of social control from informal to
formal means of social control through the use of police, prison, and court as the
major agent of social control.

VARIOUS FORMS OF URBANIZATION

The capitalist city: capitalism is a product of the city. The bourgeois is a city dweller. And only
in the city could “free” labor be assembled in sufficient quantity to allow continuous, rational
organization in search of profit. In the middle ages the European city was a haven of freedom
from the tyranny patrimony of feudalism. The lord of the city gave protection to craftsmen in
return for fee; serfs who fled to the city were also under his protection and became free after a
year and a day; the Jew was not allowed to corrupt the innocent souls of catholic and so was
confined to the city where he practiced usury and prospered, at least on earth. This somewhat
romantic notion of the capitalist city stems from Webbers ideal typical eulogies of capitalist
development. A more historical account, given by Maurice Dobb, shows that the first town to
arise during the decline of feudalism consisted not of capitalist but of guilds of merchants and
petty commodity producer. Weber also exaggerated the extend of opposition and petty
commodity production. This system of production have always co-existed.

The city in the third world: in many countries of the third world relatively dense urban
settlement have existed from antiquity. Egyptians and Ethiopians were living in cities long
before Europe grew to prominence. The third world cities of antiquity never achieve the level of
capitalist nationality achieve by the city of the west. Part of the reason was that the populations
were not disposed of there means of production and subsistence. In order for labor to be formally
free, it had to be alienated, to be unencumbered by personal ties of ownership to land or tools.
The free laborer was one who could be enslave by wages. Relatively dense settlement in pre
colonial cities lead to little division of labor. People gathered together in cities for purposes of
defense. The majority still produced there own food and specialist, craft men or diviners were
partly self-sufficient in food production. Slave labor and long distance trade also contributed to
the wealth and power of some of these cities.

VARIOUS PERSPECTIVE ON URBANIZATION

Functionalist view: human ecology is concerned with the interrelationships between people and
their environment. Human ecologist have long been interested in how the physical environment
shapes peoples live(how rivers can serve as a barrier to residential expansion) and in how people
influence the surrounding environment( how air conditioning has accelerated the growth of
major metropolitan areas in the south west) urban ecology focuses on such relationship as they
emerge in urban areas. Although the urban ecological approach focuses on social change in the
cities, it is nevertheless functionalist in orientation because it emphasizes how different elements
in
In urban areas contribute to stability and change.
Early urban ecologist such as Robert Park{1916 to 1936} and Ernest Burgess [1925]
concentrated on city life but drew on the approaches used by ecologist who study plant and
animals communities.
Conflict view: contemporary sociologist point out that metropolitan growth is not governed by
water ways and rail line, as a purely ecological interpretation might suggest. From a conflict
perspective, communities are human creation that reflect peoples needs, choice and decisions.
But some people have more influence over those decisions than others. Drawing on conflict
theory, an approach that has come to be called the new urban sociology considers the interplay of
local, national and world wide forces and their effect on local space with special emphasis on the
impact of global economy activities[Gottdiener and Hutchison,2000]

New urban sociologists note that ecological approaches have typically avoided examining the
social forces, largely economic in nature, that have guided urban growth. For example, central
business district may be upgraded or abandoned, depending on whether urban policy makers
grant substantial tax exemption to developers. The suburban boom in the post world war 2, was
fueled by high way construction and federal housing.

URBANIZATION AS IT AFFECT CHANGES IN TECHNOLOGY.

The word technology refers to the discoveries and inventions that help people change and
improve their way of life. the development of farming skills was the technological advancement
that led the founding of cities.
Neolithic people learned how to grow crops and invented tools tha improve farming methods.
They also domesticated animals, which they use to do work as a source of food. All this
development helped many Neolithic families to produce more food than they needed.

Because of this surplus food, a number of people switched to jobs other than farming. Some
became skilled at craft and made baskets, cloths, leather goods, tools, other products. Others
became miners and dug for flint, mental and stone.
Urbanization appears now to be a finite process with four stages.
1. an initial stage of centripetal rural migration.
2. A smaller centrifugal movement to the city fringes {suburbia}
3. A larger centrifugal movement to suburbia extending urbanism to metropolitan
dimension [private motor cars and buses]
4. Slow down of urban concentration either in reality, or by statistically quirk, or by the
beginning of the end of the urban rural dichotomy in a loosed grained grid of world
urbanism.
Leone Moses suggest that the truck allows sub urban factories to develop and thus
enables the metropolitan area now to compete with outlying regions by providing not
only relatively cheap land, but also urban nearness as an access to the scale economies
just noted.

All four of these forces presumably are given greater scope to influence growth because
of the well known shift from primary to secondary and particularly to tertiary activities
towards more processing and consequent lesser orientation of production to resource
location .
Cities in developing and industrial societies have been impacted differently by
technology which has led the differences in the social structure noticeable in them. For
purposes of analysis, there are three “constructed types” of cities.

CONCLUSION
Urbanization has a lot of positive and negative effect on changes in the society. These
changes bothers mostly on growth increment; as a result of migration, competition and
innovation, high crime rate, delinquent behavior, unemployment, high cost of living,
political thugery, economic oppression, abuse of individuals right, technological
advancement etc. lastly urbanization as a factor of change has dramatically turned the
world around in the past centuries till date.

REFFERENCES
1. Adedeji A and Rowland, L.[1973] management problems of rapid urbanization in
Nigeria, ile ife: university of ife press.
2. Braimah, A.[1999] “urban planning and development” in Taylor, R.W[ed]urban
development in Nigeria alder hot: avebury.
3. Ijere, M.[1996] leading issues in Nigeria rural development Nsukka.
4. United nation[1993] world Urbanization prospects. The 1992 revision: new yorK.
5. UNCHS[1997] regional development planning and management of urbanization:
experiences from developing countries: Nairobi.
6. UNDP[1992] the urban environment in developing countries. New York:UNDP.
7. Encyclopedia Britannica.
8. Electronic media.