Locations of Cities and Urbanization Trends

The transition from predominantly rural lifestyles to urban ones is described, featuring the locations of cities throughout the urbanization history and accompanying trends of urbanization. The locations of cities are discussed relative to climate, waterways, vegetation cover, and seismically prone regions. The urbanization trends, including urban growth and shrinkage, are discussed, including their geographic locations, rates, and their relationships with trends in floor area per capita. The potential implications of city locations and urbanization trends for the environment are highlighted here before going into a more detailed analysis of those in the following chapters, focusing on climate ( Chapter 4 ), biogeochemistry ( Chapter 5 ), and water ( Chapter 6 ).