urbanization.

The development or expansion of towns and cities, or an increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• rapid urbanization
• pattern of urbanization

On the page

Rapid urbanization increased the demands on housing and transport.

The pattern of urbanization differed across regions with similar overall population growth.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: social explanation, distributional analysis, population description, concept distinction. Disciplines: social science, economics, public policy. Commonness: moderately common.