Forces of Urban Centralization and Decentralization

Abstract

Urban concentralization may signify either the settlement of a large percentage of a nation's population in metropolitan areas or the concentration of the dwellers of any city into a compact mass with high population density per acre. The term is used in this article in both senses. The urban functions that once contributed to urban centralization, namely, (1) centralized governmental power, (2) defense, (3) religion, (4) amusement, (5) trade, (6) industry, (7) transportation, (8) finance and banking, and (9) utilities, are now promoting urban decentralization in the form of the exodus of the residential population from central areas to the periphery of cities. A historical review of urban development shows that the original small nations in the Mediterranean basin were finally merged into the Roman Empire, with the apex of ancient urban civilization at Rome itself. The disintegration of the Roman Empire caused urban decentralization in the sense of the breaking-up of large cities. The small feudal states of the early Middle Ages could support only villages or small towns in Europe. The rise of modern urban communities began with the growth of commerce and the discoveries of the Portuguese and Spanish navigators. England became the first great commercial manufacturing nation and became highly urbanized by the middle of the nineteenth century. The United States and Germany made rapid progress in industrialization and urbanization from 1851 to 1891. The competition between rival industrial-urban nations was one of the chief causes of World War I. After 1920, Russia, Italy, and Japan endeavored to develop self-sufficing industrial-military systems, thereby increasing the population of their great cities but also heightening the tension leading to World War II. The prospects for continued urban centralization in all these powers are not favorable, for the victory of one group of nations will tend to inhibit the growth of urbanism in the defeated states.