Thru history cities have born, developed and extended over long period of time. But development and extending was always related with region location and its agricultural wealth because city can be as big as surrounding areas are capable to feed. Today many things have changed. Turing the last (maybe even in half) century cities have grown faster and bigger than in last three centuries.
This rapid and frequently unorganized growth has lead, especially in developing countries, to overurbanizatsion and all negative effects of rapid growth are experienced very strongly, as a lack of jobs, education and healthcare. Those negative aspects are also experienced in developed counties but not so strongly because from the beginning there has been better planning and partition of resources.
Other distinctive feature for developing countries is primate city. All amenities are draw together in one center and with that people abandon agricultural areas to get their shear of wellbeing but the circumstance that there are too many people, imperfect planning and not enough resources leads to failing of living environment. While there is too many people in one area, lead to that all resources are only targeted to this area and other areas of country are suffering in poverty.
If in developing countries the living areas are extremely densely crowded and stretch out in height then in developed countries is the problem reversal – since the suburbanization became popular cities have started to sprawl. Huge areas filled with single family house blocks. Sprawl is still popular while it’s offering privacy. The paradox is that now when these areas have extended over enormous areas, local population has started to fight against oversuburbanizatsion. But at the same time people and local inhabitants still look for privacy and prefer to live in single family building.
Mass sprawling has lead (for example in US) to environmental problems. City from its nature has been invariably taker (taking from an area that surrounds it). Now sprawling city converts nearest areas into living areas and at the same time destroying good farming areas. And increasing need for cars has lead to growing air pollution, which in turn has helped spread respiratory system illnesses.
One problem is these both areas (developed and developing countries) that inside urban area there is always uneven development. Areas wellbeing does not only depend on an amount of investments but also from the wealth of its inhabitants. So when there is more money circulating there is more possibilities to invest in local social services. Wealthy inhabitants can afford luxury.
Community interests are usually recognized by local government. Historically the power belonged to one specific group of people who possessed areas wealth and all the investments and planning followed their interests (to earn more money). In time the power to govern went from blue-blood to middle-class.
Today it seems that somehow local authorities have lost their way or will to make grand modifications. Maybe it’s because political regimes must do the best they can to supply necessary services while dealing with their dwindling resources. And while urban and suburban areas are fragmented to small pieces there in no well-set cooperation between city districts. So in some ways urban and suburban development and extension depends on local inhabitant participation in planning who in resent years have shown their interest to give their part.