One of the biggest demographic trends of our time is urbanization. It continues unabated. In the 1970s, about 1.5 billion people were living in urban areas and 2.5 billion lived in rural areas. Then, the rate of urbanization was about 38%. In 2022, 57% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The global rural population has stabilized at 3.5 billion while city populations continue growing. Urban areas tend to have better job opportunities, higher wages and improved access to healthcare and education. Urbanization can also have negative consequences such as increase income inequality, congestion, pollution and increased crime rates. In the coming decades urbanization is most likely to be driven by South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa where urbanization rates are below the global average but rising.
Source: World Bank, United Nations, 2023.