World Population Becomes More Urban Than Rural

biohack writes "A major demographic shift took place on Wednesday, May 23, 2007: For the first time in human history, the earth's population is more urban than rural. According to scientists from North Carolina State University and the University of Georgia, on that day, a predicted global urban population of 3,303,992,253 exceeded that of 3,303,866,404 rural people. In the US, the tipping point from a majority rural to a majority urban population came early in the late 1910s."

Comments

Re:Dangerous?

[glwtta]

Yeah, great plan - visualize the worst-case scenario, then start living it preemptively. "They can't take away the benefits of society if I give them up myself!"

How about I go do the donkey cart and beans thing when the "fragile infrastructure" actually crumbles on me?

Re:Another way to look at it.

[jayratch]

For the first time in history urban areas are over 70% minorities.

I believe this is impossible, by definition.

No, by no means is it impossible.

If group A comprises 30% of the population, while groups B, C, D, E, F and G comprise 15, 15, 14, 13, 12, and 11% respectively, then while the majority of the population are part of minority groups, they are still minority groups, as each group comprises less than half of the population.

However to assume in this case that the remaining group (let's just call them "white males" for argument sake) then constitutes the majority would be a logical fallacy, though a commonly accepted one. In a political sense this does in fact constitute a simple majority when comparing the discrete groups, but often people think of these things in a sense of "most people". "Most people" in this case actually associate themselves with some defined "minority group" hence disturbing the distinction.

To further complicate things, consider that these concepts of majority and minority are defined and displayed in different scales, and will inherently represent differently in any demographic modification. Enter certain areas of business or society and "white male" is actually a majority. Enter another one and "white male" is an aberration. IE, Donald Trump is, in his field, a member of a relative majority, while Marshall Mathers represents, in his field, a minority.

Race relations are complicated? As a member of a (racial) group that has been generally discredited in this area, I can make no claims to expertise or Clue (TM). I can only speak about simple things like math.