Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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the same time, industrialization's political ideology also includes nationalism, and its
economic doctrine is a variation of the laissez-faire market system.
Industrialization is not merely the shift from animated to unanimated sources of
energy and the substitution of agricultural production with market and factory production; it
also implies abundance of production which caters both to the existing populace's demands
and to the creation of new markets. An industrial society presupposes the primacy of
progressiveness of tradition. In a traditional society, religion defined and enforced social
discipline. The imperatives of the industrial city, however, relegate religion to a secondary
status, if considered at all, of moral temperance. Modern city life results in
cosmopolitanism in which economic activities provide citizens with alternatives to religious
attendance. The environment of the city is fluid and open: rationalism triumphs over
traditionalism and movement up and down the social ladder is governed by aptitude, not
social status. 3
David Clark defines urban development as "the process of emergence of a world
dominated by cities and by urban values." According to Clark, urban development
involves two different processes, urban growth and urbanization. Urban growth is a
spatial and demographic process which refers to the "increased importance of towns and
cities as concentration of population within a particular economy or society." Urban
growth results when a society moves from being largely hamlet and village based to one
dominated by cities and towns. More importantly, urbanization also "is an aspatial and
social process which refers to the change of behavior and social relationships which occur
in society as a result of people living in towns and cities. Essentially, it refers to the
complex changes of life style which follow from the impact of cities on society." 4
Urbanization is an economic and social process that occurs in the society as a whole,
not just urban settlements. 5 To Reissman, urbanization is one component of a broader
phenomena which includes the parallel emergence of three other features: nationalism,
industrialism, and the consolidation of a middle class. As defined by the concentration of
population in cities and the increasing number of urban agglomerations, urbanization can be
said to be overwhelmingly spreading in most of today's countries. But in terms of its
components, different societies have shown different paths of modernization. 6