ABSTRACT
The postwar rate of population growth has varied considerably. In Europe the fastest increase has been in the Netherlands, between 1950 and 1975 its population grew by 3.5 million. The greatest increases in the proportion of the urban population between 1950 and 1975 were in Denmark and the Netherlands, there were also major increases in France and West Germany. Only Britain, which had virtually completed its urbanisation by the beginning of the century, had no growth and in fact a slight decline in the urban proportion. All six countries are within the small group of rich, capitalist nations, without the extremes of poverty and lack of housing which characterise many other countries, although there are extremes of relative poverty. Changes have come about in a piecemeal way with a movement towards less detailed central supervision and attempts at more effectively co-ordinated local action.
