The Role Of Urbanization In Victorian London

Urbanization is a force of change that has had, and continues to have wide-reaching implications. The social shifts linked to urbanization—rural flight, industrialization, and modernization—have all significantly changed the way we live our lives. By the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing; with rapid industrialization, rapid urbanization also began to occur. By 1854, Victorian London, riding on the winds of the Industrial Revolution, grew into the biggest city the world had ever seen. Cities, essentially, are large congregations of people in a certain area. In rural areas, the sparse population density allows for the environment to provide nourishment and remove waste. However, urban areas have higher population densities, and the land area that cities occupy cannot support the number of people living within cities. Providing such a large number of people in such a small area with the basic necessities, among other things, was a daunting task to complete. In this way, the rapid development and growth of Victorian London, even with its problems, was quite an
City officials drafted grand plans for sewer and road infrastructure, of which are the bloodlines of a city (in helping remove waste and transport goods throughout the populace, respectively), and city officials tried their hardest to improve quality of life for its citizens. From a certain perspective, Victorian London could also be viewed of as an organism, one that needs to take in nourishment (food, goods), release waste (excrement), and grow (urban sprawl). The organic patterns of people moving to London also seems similar to how an organism grows—irregular, and at times of abundance, quickly. London was organically becoming a global center of trade, its growth driven by urbanization and