ABSTRACT
Urbanization is one of the most distinctive features of our modem societies. Not only has the world become an urban industrialized society, it continues to become more and more urbanized. The process began in Europe and North America in the last century and is now spreading rapidly to the rest of the world as an apparently inexorable force. At present approximately 45 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, 26 and projections are that by 2025 the proportion will have risen to over 60 percent. It is not expected to stop rising until some 70-80 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas.
