Industrialisation and cities

In the mid 18th century, the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, through improvement of technologies, infrastructure and utilisation of raw materials4. It led to the uprising of factories and heavy industry, resulting in massive migration to the cities where the job opportunities were. As a consequence, industrialisation was a major driving force for urbanisation. Additionally, the high demand for factory labor generated demands for more housing, access to education, social reform and retail facilities, causing cities to grow economically and physically over a short period of time5 .

The urban experience was soon dominated by pollution, disease, poverty and crime, and soon thereafter, industries left the city centres and kept developing in suburbs and industrial parks on the periphery of city-borders. There were several benefits of migrating industry from residential areas, such as reducing immediate social and environmental impacts of the cities. However, opposed to the centralised factories, the industry parks lacked public transportation, closeness to their workers homes, less regulation on polluting their immediate surroundings and a lack of availability of a skilled workforce6 .

There are now more than thirty megacities in the world with a population of more than ten million7. In 2019, humans emitted more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. The current average global population increase is estimated at 81 million people per year, and according to researchers, by 2050, the global population is projected to rise to 9.7 billion9, leading to increased demand for resources, resulting in skyrocketing levels of emissions. Together with this development, new technologies emerge, and we enter a new era of industrialisation, which some researchers have referred to as the fourth Industrial Revolution10. How can this new wave of industrialisation and new ideas generate better urban spaces, social- and living conditions in the cities, opposed to the consequences of the Industrial Revolution?

“There was a symbiotic relationship between the growth of modern cities and the growth of modern industry”

Hiromi Hosoya and Markus Schaefer, 202111

4 “The Transformation of Cities and the Urban Experience.” 2016. Foundations of Western Culture. https://foundations.uwgb.org/industrialization-and-the-transformation-of-citiesin-the-urban-experience/. 5 “How Does Industrialization Lead to Urbanization?” 2020. Investopedia. https://www. investopedia.com/ask/answers/041515/how-does-industrialization-lead-urbanization.asp. 6 “Industrial Park.” 2021. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_park. 7 Hiromi Hosoya and Markus Schaefer, ed. 2021. The Industrious City - Urban Industry in the Digital Age. Lars Müller Publishers. p 150 8 Tso, Kathryn. n.d. “How Much Is a Ton of Carbon Dioxide?” Ask MIT Climate. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-ton-carbon-dioxide. 9 Roser, Ritchie, Ortiz-Ospina. 2013. “World Population Growth.” Our World In Data. https:// ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#citation. 10 Klaus Schwab. 2016. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What It Means, How to Respond.” World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrialrevolution-what-itmeans-and-how-to-respond/. 11 Hiromi Hosoya and Markus Schaefer, ed. 2021. The Industrious City - Urban Industry in the Digital Age. Lars Müller Publishers. p 109

Image 1: The Industrial Revolution in 18th-century London12 . Image 2: A worker heads home across a stretch of Trafford industry park in 197713 .

12 Laila269, Industrial Revolution in London - Factories producing smoke and pollution in 18th century, 2019. Flickr 13 Alec Herron. 2015. “Https://Www.Theguardian.Com/Cities/2015/Apr/29/ManchesterTrafford-Park-World-First-Industrial-Estate-History-Cities-50-Buildings.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/29/manchester-trafford-park-world-firstindustrial-estate-history-cities-50-buildings.