ABSTRACT
Urbanization in its early manifestations is more often treated as a factor in the progress of civilization than as an outcome of economic development which made it possible. But historians, looking at the ebb and flow of urban population from the early Dark Ages onwards, saw that it provided a useful way to measure the rise and fall of prosperity in western Europe. With the coming of the industrial revolution the issue grew in size and kind: in size because in a large economically integrated unit 1 urban population for the first time could exceed 10 to 15 per cent of total population to reach at first 30 per cent and then 50 per cent within a historically short period; in kind too, because the links between urban population on one hand and industrialization and economic development on the other were becoming closer and more direct.
