The Rural Flight
(Urban Migration- Part 1 of 4)
Welcome to the new topic month! We are excited to dig into the Urban Migration topic since it is something that is happening almost everywhere in the world and it is starting to become very important in shaping our world today.
Urban Migration happens when people are moving from rural areas of the country to urban centers. Starting in around the year 2010, the number of people that lives in urban centers has outnumbered the number of people living in rural areas (See Figure 1. Urban vs. Rural Population, 1950-2050).
Figure 1. Urban vs. Rural Population, 1950-2050
Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision-Population, https://population.un.org/wup/
In the 21st century, it is estimated that globally there are 740 million internal and 232 million international migrants and of those a good proportion are flowing from rural areas to urban areas. This means, our urban areas are becoming larger, more densely populated, and having to support a lot more people.
Urban migration is important because it affects how we should develop our cities to prepare for the large immigration to urban centers. The trend also points to things that need improving in order to make rural communities more appealing. More importantly, we need to look into the reasons for the migration and what the impacts of this growing migration trend will have on the environment and in our communities. Can we turn the migration into something positive? Should we try to keep people in the rural areas more? Keep tabs on this developing series, and our intro podcast, next Sunday on 8/11.
Thank you for tuning in!
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