Although some cities grew greatly in size during the renaissance period, the metropolitan city as we known to day has it roots in the industrial revolution. Up to that time the process of urbanization had effected only a small minority of the population. From the beginning of the nineteenth century , however, three major economic factor led to the growth of cities on entirely new scale. Firstly the invention of powerful new machines gave rise to factories of unprecedented size, which created an enormous demand for labour. Secondly, the large-scale construction of road, railways and canals provided cheap and regular transport which made possible the concentration of industries and population into particular area. Thirdly a revolution in agriculture led to the development of an efficient system of mixed farming, new methods of breeding and an increase in the yield of corn, all of which helped to provide the food necessary to sustain a greatly increased urban population.
The process of urban growth is still closely linked to industrial development, but the increase complexity of administration and commerce has also contributed to rapid rate of urbanization. It has been estimated that in 1800 less than 3% of the population of the world, or 27.4 million people, lived in towns of over 5000 inhabitants. By 1950 the proportion of town-dwellers had grown to nearly 30% , or over 716 million. Moreover, during the last half-century, it is the large city which has succeeded in attracting population to a much greater degree than small cities or towns.
The typical modern metropolis has been described as a concentration of at least 500,000 people living within an area in which the travelling time from the outskirts to the centre is about 40 minutes. The metropolis has four major components: a central business complex; a collection of manufacturing and allied industries; a quantity of housing with its attendant services; and an area of open land. The central business complex is made up of diversified retail businesses, financial institutions and offices of the public administration. A generation ago it was usual to find factories competing with business premises for space in the central area, but the present tendency is for manufacturing industries to move the outskirts of the city where land is cheaper. Housing accounts for the largest amount of occupied land in the metropolis, and also presents the greatest problems in the form of slums, or sub-standard dwellings and the segregation of people by income or race. The fourth major of the metropolis-open land maintained for recreational use is currently of great concern to urban planners.
It has been claimed that with development of the modern metropolis the city has undergone a qualitative change. It is no longer merely a larger version of the traditional city, but an entirely new form of settlement. Moreover, it is a form which may contain within itself the seeds of its own decay. What the arguments that have been used by the critics of the modern super-city? Some critics object that a great modern metropolis can exist only if it is parasitic upon the surrounding countryside, thus draining it of its economic and social strength. Another accusation against the metropolis is that it has been instrumental in dissolving the system of social ties that exist in small communities, thus helping to produce “ant heap” form society that lack values and standard of behavior, perhaps there is more substance in the argument that the modern metropolis will eventually be chocked to death by its own growth. It is possible to find indications of this trend in the grow overcrowding of Calcutta or the proliferation of motorways in L.A. certainly an indispensable requirement of the future will be careful planning with the aim of achieving a rational distribution of the urban population, and of their various activities. Another requirement will be the development of cheap and efficient public transport facilities to connect the various part of the metropolis.
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