What does urbanize mean?
Urbanize means to make a place urban or to become urban. The word describes the development of rural or semi-rural areas through expanding populations, new housing, roads, businesses, services, and other features associated with cities. It is used especially in geography, urban planning, architecture, and the social sciences, but it can also occur in general discussion of local development. The related noun urbanization names the broader process. Urbanize can describe deliberate planning, as when a municipality develops previously undeveloped land, or a historical transformation caused by industrialization, migration, and economic change. Although the word is usually neutral, its context may suggest rapid, disruptive, or irreversible change. Its usefulness lies in naming a process that changes not only a physical landscape but also the ways people live, work, travel, and organize their communities.
verbTo make an area or place urban, especially by changing its population, land use, or infrastructure to city-like patterns; also, to become urban or city-like.
- To make a place or area urban through changes in settlement, infrastructure, land use, or population.
- To become urban, especially as a settlement grows and takes on the characteristics of a city.
"Rapid development has urbanized much of the surrounding countryside."
"New roads and housing developments gradually urbanized the rural valley."
"As factories expanded, many nearby villages urbanized and merged with the surrounding city."
Urbanize captures one of history’s greatest human shifts: the transformation of countryside and small communities into city-based, urban landscapes.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of urbanize
The English verb urbanize was formed by adding the suffix -ize to urban. Urban comes through Old French from Latin urbanus, meaning “of or belonging to a city,” ultimately derived from urbs, the Latin word for city. The same Latin root also appears in related English words such as urbane, suburban, and interurban.
Related word forms
How urbanize is actually used
Urbanize is neutral but commonly appears in formal writing about planning, development, geography, and social change. It can describe either a deliberate transformation of a place or the broader process by which a settlement becomes city-like. British English generally uses the spelling urbanise.
Easily confused with urbanize
Urbanize is a verb describing the process of becoming or making something urban, while urban is an adjective meaning relating to or characteristic of a city.
Urbanise is the British spelling of the same verb, while urbanize is the standard American spelling.