MILLION-CITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 280, 25 November 1937, Page 24

MILLION-CITIES.

INCREASING NUMBER.

REASONS FOR THE TREND. A SCIENTIST'S ANALYSIS. (Ry PROFESSOR C. n. FAWCKTT.) (From an nddro*« to tho British Association.) Thei'p bus boon a very groat increase In the numbers of the liuninn nice during the last 200 years. Tho Kumpeau fieoplon have multiplied lit leiimt nix fold • luco 1700; and thero is sonic reason to believe that btHh Chinese and Imliana have at least troblcd their numbers in tho eamo period. Thu world's population is now about two thousand millions; and it probably did not reach live hundred million** at the beginning of the eighteenth wiitury.

At the beginning of tho nineteenth ri'iit.ury m> conurbation in tho world, with very doubtful exception* in China, had reached a population of a million; though London was very near to that figure, with !>.")■»,()()() inhabitants at the cfiiMtM of 1801.

To-day tlicr<> nrc in tlio world about (10 cunurbiitloin of this perImps iv <10/.imi of which luivl , i>ik-1i oe iiuiiiv lie livo million inliiibliants, and •fiiyc'tlirr tlicii- InchuUt ]M?rliiips n twelfth of nil uiuuUitul. 'Plic nnnibtrs, both of thrMp "niilllon-cHies" ami of their iiihfihiliintM, are incrcaxinir; nrul if thc trend contimiPM unchecked for a gencriition or two our jfranddiiltlren may livo in * WorUl which will have a majority of Ita inhabitant* housed in two or throe hundred such conurbations. . . . Machinery on Farms. Fimt nmotig theno general cause* I would put the diminution In the proportion of tho world's workers who must be devoted to satisfying the primary noeds of food, clothing and Rhclter, and to making tho tools wherewith to do thin. At the beginning of the Industrial A«o moro than half of the working population of every country wa* directly uncaflrd In the production of food und of vegetable and animal rnw materials for moat ot their working life.

Their manual power was supplemented by tho labour of domestic nnimnln and, to a small extent in some favoured regions, by clumsy wind or water-mills. Now these industries have received a now equipment of immensely more efficient tools (compare thc combined harvester with the sickle nnd the flail), of better and more productive seeds and animals, of more effective method*, Mich as the rotation of crops, of better fertilisers, and of more efficient workers.

Himllar cliann* have taken place in other primary industries. Such changes as the substitution of thc steam shovel and the excavator for the navvy's pick and spade, of concrete produced almost wholly by machines for the laboriously shaped stones of the quarryman and the mason, of the spindle for the spinningwheel, have enormously reduced .the amount of direct manual labour needed In many industries.

The first effect was to release labour for other purpose*. And the industrial countries Mt out to equip themselves wltn new means of transport, roads and ohmls, ships and railways, and now motor vehicles and roads, with new buildings for industry and commerce and for the growing population. Engineer Responsible. Thin led to and was accbmpiinled by the development of the engineering industries! for engineering in all its branches in essentially the tool-making industry, and as such it may claim to be the fundamental Industry of civilisation. Its development Is the most immediate cause of the many economies of labour.

A second effect was the enormous development of secondary industries, concerned no longer with the satisfaction of urgent primary needs; and a great amelioration of living conditions.

Manufacturing industry is i'*»enti>tlly •n urban occupation, and indu»trialieation hae everywhere' been accompanied by urbanisation. However much its towns may be loosened out by the better use of improved transport, thin urban character of an industrial population seems likely to persist; and so every increase in Che numbers and importance of the secondary industries will contribute still further to the concentration of more and more- of the people in and near to the great conurbations. The motive determining all these migrations Iβ, as always, the human desire for better conditions of life. Hence the trend is towards those areas which, in the circumstances of to-day, offer or are believed to offer the best opportunities. The applications of science to agriculture and other formerly rural occupations have diminished tat need of these vital industries for large Humbert of workers; and so released • large proportion for other occupations. Niniilar changes have concentrated the workers in other industries Into large groups in urban areas. «..'■'•

Growth of Social Desires. Those changes, together with parallel developments in transport, have allowed tho social instincts to find freer play— for man is n gregarious animal, and few of us really like to be isolated for any long time —and the results are seen in the growth, at an ever-increasing rate, of the greater conurbations and a corresponding decline in tho population of many thinly peopled areas. If these social desires which make for crowding

together continue unchanged, and the [lower to satisfy them continues to increase, the concentration of human oeiiißs into urban groups may become

Imost universal. Even the agricultural workers may iwell in towns and travel daily to and

from their place of work over distances us great as those of some suburban journeys of to-day. But the grouping of industries round the great conurbations is more purely, though not entirely, due to economic factors; and bo it is more readily capable of being modified by the action of Governments. The extent to which the growth is a recent fact may be seen if we recall that since 1000 Qreater London (of the census) and Greater New York have each doubled their populations; whilst the Tokyo and Shanghai conurbations, with a later start, have increased about fourfold and tenfold respectively in the same period. Flight From Unfertile Areas.

Tho trend towards urbanisation and concentration seems likely to be strengthened by tho further, probable, increase in the productivity of agriculture; for if the amounts of food, and other agricultural products, needed can bo obtained from small areas the tendency to abandon the poorer marginal lands and concentrate cultivation in the more fertile areas will be greatly strengthened. These developments are occurring coincidentally with the cessation of that rapid increase in numbers which has been a principal fact of human life for the past two centuries. Hence it seems that apart from catastrophic disturbances (such as a great war) present trends of population movements point towards (1) the probable reduction in the population of the, at present, thinly peopled lands, (2) a concentration of a still larger proportion of tho world's inhabitants into a few great populous regions, and (3) a further increase in the &ize and dominance of a few ureas of maximum concentration of population, among which the three

leaders are those described in Western Europe, in Eastern North America, and in China.