URBAN: •The number of residents is increasingly more in an urban area. •The density of human-established structures is high in the case of an urban area. •Cities and towns constitute urban areas. •It is interesting to note that natural resources and artificial resources develop rapidly in urban areas or in other words it can be said that the areas characterized by natural growth of resources flourish into urban areas. Urban areas are subjected to a process called urbanization. Vegetation and fauna available in the areas are made full use of and hence the growth into flourished urban areas is made possible. Urban areas are not totally dependent on natural resources. In fact, they would make full use of the natural resources if available. If natural resources are not available, then they rely on human findings and inventions in the areas of science and technology for development. •Urban areas on the contrary are troubled by pollution and traffic related problems. •Urban families are more mobile and, consequently, fewer close kin are readily available to provide support. •Urban dwellers know less about their neighbors and others in their environment and may teach their children to be more reserved and cautious in expressing their feelings. Higher levels of parental monitoring are associated with better child and adolescent outcomes in urban, but not rural, families. This suggests that parents alter their parenting strategies to fit the environmental circumstances. •Urban families receive, give, and expect more help from friends than do rural families; they also expect less help from relatives. •An urban area is an area with an increased density of human-created structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. •Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations. Unlike an urban area, a metropolitan area includes not only the urban area, but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socio-economically connected to the urban core city, typically by employment ties through commuting, with the urban core city being the primary labor market. •In fact, urbanized areas agglomerate and grow as the core population/economic activity center within a larger metropolitan area or envelope. •Urban areas are equipped with all the modern amenities. The odern-day facilities like the Internet, telephone, television and satellite communication facilities are widely available in the urban areas. A majority of the households of the urban areas are blessed with this technological advancement. •The newly developing shopping complexes, theatres, food malls and restaurants are a commonplace in urban cities. Huge constructions, large housing complexes, skyscrapers are found in most of the urban metropolitan cities. Elevators, escalators, storeyed parking areas and towering constructions add to the magnificence of the urban cities. Due to a greater availability of all the modern facilities along with an increase in the number of educational facilities and career opportunities, people of the urban areas lead an economically more stable and a luxurious life. •The increasing attraction of the people towards the urban parts of the world has resulted in crowding of urban areas. The increasing population, majority of which prefers settling in urban cities, has led to an imbalance in the density of human population. Excessive industrialization has invited environmental problems like pollution. However, the rise in economic growth that has resulted in self-sufficiency in the common masses has resulted in a self-centered nature of society. While technological advancement has brought the world closer, human beings have gone far apart from each other. Buildings that touch the skies have built walls between people. The rise in prosperity has been eclipsed by the decline in peace. •Education levels are higher in urban areas, with no gender differences. •Quality of employment is higher in urban areas, especially for women. •People living in urban areas are more optimistic about their future. urban settlements are proper, planned settlements built up according to a process called urbanization. •Unlike rural areas, urban settlements are defined by their advanced civic amenities, opportunities for education, facilities for transport, business and social interaction and overall better standard of living. •Socio-cultural statistics are usually based on an urban population. •The urban population receives the benefits of man’s advancements in the areas of science and technology and is not nature-dependent for its day to day functions.
Businesses stay open late into the evenings in urban areas. •Urban areas are also classified according to land use and density of population. But this can vary from developed countries to developing countries. •ln urban areas, the diversity of different activities demands a diversely-orientated labour force. This tends to increase the number of people commuting. Therefore, commuting patterns are often used for defining an urban space. RURAL: •the number of residents is less in a rural area. •The density of human-established structures is low in the case of a rural area. Villages and hamlets constitute rural areas. •The big advantage of a rural area is that it is not characterized by environmental perils such as pollution and traffic. •Rural areas on the contrary depend heavily on developed agencies and developed urban areas for improvement in various fields such as amenities, education, medical assistance and water supply. They depend upon government schemes also to make advancement in these fields. •It is important to note that rural areas are totally dependent on natural sources only. The quality of rural education systems is often substandard, especially in low-wealth counties. In addition, few rural adults are likely to have a college degree. Both limit the ability of rural workers to secure good jobs, or to attract and create quality jobs in rural places. •Urban minorities experience much lower poverty rates than rural minorities. •Rural family rates of unemployment, underemployment, and mortality are higher than for urban families. • The reasons for rural poverty are often quite different from those in urban areas.
These reasons, ranging from local economies, to the isolation and sparse populations of rural areas, lower educational levels, and other factors, make rural poverty unique — and require different solutions. •Rural areas often lack economic diversity; frequently relying on a limited number of industries. This limits job advancement and makes rural jobs more vulnerable to market forces and industrial restructuring. •Rural communities generally lack adequate child-care facilities, public transportation, and information technology.
This deficiency creates barriers for industries that are located in rural counties and for the workers who live there. •Discrimination on the basis of race, social class, or gender persists in some rural areas, blocking opportunities for social and economic advancement for all people in rural areas. •Lower rates of insurance coverage in rural areas are particularly problematic because the reported health status of rural residents appears to be worse than that of urban residents. •As a result of differing infrastructures, economies, and community values and beliefs, rural and urban parents approach their role as parents differently. Rural communities are generally comprised of culturally homogeneous populations and close kinship ties which lower parents’ perception that they need to stress the social development of their children. •Rural parents place significantly more emphasis on intellectual (grades in school) and emotional (expression of feelings) development than urban parents. Rural children have fewer opportunities to interact with other children, so they spend more time interacting with their parents. •Social environmental differences influence parenting as well.
Rural environments are relatively “safe” because of the close- knit relationships in the community. Therefore, rural parents may encourage their children to be affectionate, to express feelings, and to be considerate of others. •Families living in rural areas are more likely to exchange resources (particularly money) exclusively with kin than are families living in urban areas. •Rural families with younger household heads are more likely to give support to kin than both rural families with older household heads and urban families in general. Rural areas are not crowded with concrete constructions all over. Houses are rather widely spaced with ample room for fields and gardens. People in rural areas live in close proximity of nature. Apart from people, there is room for pets and grazing animals that help maintain equilibrium in nature. •Due to a relatively lesser number of people inhabiting the rural areas, the rural parts are not overcrowded by people. These areas are blessed to have least amounts of pollution. Due to afforestation and ample space for plantations, rural areas have managed to maintain an environmental balance.
Pollution is less also on accounts of very less number of industries in rural areas. •The stress that results from a fast life in the urban areas is not a part of the peaceful and relatively slow paced life of the rural regions. The life may not be as lavishly led as that in the urban areas. •Most often, rural areas are less developed and face more infrastructural and administrative shortcomings in comparison with more urban regions. •Rural areas have witnessed a general shift to a service-based economy. Work–life balance is more favourable in rural areas and in richer countries. •Access to work, school, family, friends and services is more difficult in rural areas, especially for women. •Rural areas are perceived as offering a better quality of life and, in particular, a better quality of family life. •rural areas may develop randomly on the basis of natural vegetation and fauna available in a region. •Many times, rural areas are focused upon by governments and development agencies and turned into urban areas. •rural settlements are based more on natural resources and events. While, sunset in rural areas means the day is virtually over. •The flip side of this is that rural areas do not have pollution or traffic problems that beset regular urban areas. Many governments, though focusing on the development of rural areas, have also tried to ‘protect’ these areas as preservation of their country’s basic culture and traditions. •In rural areas, the share of agricultural activities is relatively high. in urban areas the majority of economic activities are organized around non-agricultural production.
