Since the beginning of colonialism, the world has been forced to be part of a forward journey that does not benefit anyone but the wealthy and the people in command. We can all argue that urbanism started with the rise of capitalism in third world countries through colonialism. It is and has always been about the spread of a capitalistic gain at the cost of another group of people. Community itself has taken a hit due to society’s changes and becoming less personal with one another. The effects of a newer society that creates roles and develops into these classes does not create a grand community, but rather develops many separate communities that are forced to interact. These communities are not feuding, but rather they have separate ideals that can led to argument. Neighborhoods have been damaged due to the fact that the division of labor has produced the notion that some people are lesser than others because they are not in a position to delegate to others. Urbanization can be both good and bad for a community because it can develop the overall stability of a city and a nation but can hurt the urban poor who cannot seize the opportunity provided by the system. This essay will focus on the implication (mental and physical) of urbanization on the minority society because of the depletion of the mental and social aspects of men and women in the community as well as what those effects of division of labor and urbanization can do to those who do not have the power that has been bestowed upon some.
When we think about the depletion of a society, we think about the social aspects of it other than the mental part. Urbanization affects the native or the local population in a way that will deplete their mental health, and that of the generation that follows. First, we have to think about the idea of separation from a familial business and/ or from the past, separation from ancestral land. Moreover, since urbanization is about the replacing individuals that have been in an area for a long period of time, it corresponds very closely to the idea of settler colonialism. “Settler colonialism is a distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty.” (Global Social Theory). In the theory of settler colonialism, a native group is replaced by a population of European colonizers that take over the living, economic aspects of a society. This goes hand in hand because; in the case of settler colonialism, people have settled in an environment making it their home. By this, colonists or Europeans have been able to make a home away from a home. By the term urban, a colonist is able to develop a less urban area and make them as forward as they are used to back in the West. Urbanism in this sense has negative connotations of making efforts towards looking like western countries. Nonetheless, to this date, third world leaders are looking forward to being urbanized or being in the same economic stature as the western countries, because, let’s face it, without urbanism or being an urban nation, we are stuck on a never moving forward country.
Urbanization has become a part of the landscape of building a modern country. Every country looks to better itself and modernize to the point where they can be called comparable to those first world countries. “The metropolis has always been the seat of the money economy…Money economy and the dominance of the intellect are intrinsically connected.” (George Simmel 25). The economy of a nation is incredibly important to its status and is directly linked to the country’s ability to provide its people with urban services, which includes strong policies for improved sanitation, energy management, transport, and waste management. While urbanization has become something that is important in modern first world life, it creates a system of division of labor which has its pros and cons. Division of labor creates a class system in which those who are in charge of deciding which jobs go to whom make sure that they themselves do not have to do as much hard or physical labor as those who do not have much say in the matter. “With the division of labor…is given simultaneously the distribution, and indeed unequal distribution, both quantitative and qualitative, of labor and its products…” (Marx 169). Marx work repeats the message that the creation of a division of labor ultimately creates a divide between the people that inhabit this system. The community is twisted by the division of labor because it both enhances the experience of those who are at the top of the class system created within the overarching community, but also devastates the idea of community for those who are lower in the class system.
A modern example of the urbanization of a country has taken place in India. Both the population and the economy has grown drastically in the past decade. The reasoning behind this growth and contribution to the urbanization to the country has been population growth, migration and the expansion of cities and towns. Policy makers in India have expanded their cities’ growth by furthering projects in those cities. There are nine major cities in India that have developed through urbanization and created a better economy for the country through this tactical system. “The transport and logistics sector of India underlines the importance of interconnecting the different modes of transportation: road, rail, sea, and air. An efficient multi-modal system is relevant in the development and successful growth of the infrastructural systems. (Alliance Experts). What is interesting about India’s growth is that it does follow Burgess’s theory of expansion of cities through concentric circles. “The typical process of the expansion of the city can best be illustrated, perhaps, by a series of concentric circles, which may be numbered to designate both the successive zones of urban extension and the types of areas differentiated in the process of expansion.” (Burgess 93). Each of the nine major cities that India has developed has grown in the way Burgess describes, while also growing in population and developing a stronger economy. This progress has led to a need for the improvement in the cities’ transportation, sanitation, waste management, and other responsibilities of the government and policy makers involved. India has even developed an institution called NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) which is an organization system that targets cooperation in making policies that improve spatial development in the major cities. India’s urbanization process has transformed the country and bettered it for most of its people through extensive planning and development despite the ever-increasing population that would cripple other countries due to lack of resources and economic stability.
Urbanization has become an important part of developing a nation into what it needs to be to keep up with a world that is showing increased growth in so many different ways. In this growth however, the community suffers because as community grows the personable nature of people reduces. People have become socially less dependable on one another and this is not only a factor of population growth, but also through social media and its ever-growing expansion. The community also develops through social media because it has developed the worlds’ subcultures and created a vast sea of options for anyone to be a part of. There is a give and take through the system of urbanization and division of labor that can hurt some communities, but flourish others.
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