ABSTRACT
Urbanized societies, in which a majority of the people live crowded together in towns and cities, represent a new and fundamental step in man's social evolution. Clearly the world as a whole is not fully urbanized, but it soon will be. This change in human life is so recent that event he most urbanized countries still exhibit the rural origins of their institutions. Its full implications for man's organic and social evolution can only be surmised. The intensive urbanization of most of the advanced countries began within the past 100 years; in the underdeveloped countries it got under way more recently. This change is associated with urbanization but not identical with it. Because of the characteristics pattern of urbanization, the current rates of urbanization in underdeveloped countries could be expected to exceed those now existing in countries far advanced in the cycle. As long as the human population expands, cities will expand too, regardless of whether urbanization increases or declines.
