on growth in the last three decades or so. This is a trend that has also contributed to a change in the nature of the economies of each country. This change has come at a time of great population growth for these countries as well, and statistics show an increase in the percentage of people in different countries living in urban as opposed to rural regions between 1960 and 1992, as follows:
United States 8.6 percent increase
The fact that the United States shows a smaller increase is due to the fact that the United States is already a fully urbanized country and has been at the third stage of development for some time, the stage known as metropolitan-megalopolitan, with huge megalopolitan areas around Southern California, New York, and other regions. Outward expansion creates large metropolitan areas with suburban adjuncts. This development usually comes about because of a population shift as the upper and middle classes move outward from the city centers, leaving behind the poorer citizens, often living near enclaves of the very rich. The widespread use of the automobile often contributes to this trend and also shows a high level of economic development so that the automobile can be afforded by most citizens. The shift is gradual and takes place in stages. First, the urban centers grow to a certain level, after which economic improvement allows many citizens to move away from city centers not to rural areas but to new suburban developments. This expansion in time may produce the megalopolitan regions such as are seen in Southern California. What happens is that as suburbs expand, they combine with the suburbs of adjacent metropolitan areas to form a megalopolis, or a vast regional city in which many metropolises merge.
Miami has long been held out as an ideal city and as a microcosm of cultural diversity, and the growing problems in the real Miami are considered by many to be a harbinger of things to come in Amer...