I20 



SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



Within most of these population regions there are marked trends of 

 internal migration. The most widely known of these is the so-called 

 ' drift to the towns ' which is associated with the steadily increasing growth, 

 both absolutely and relatively to the total, of the urban population in all 

 countries affected by modern Western Civilisation. This townward 

 migration shows no signs of slackening, rather the opposite. In the last 

 intercensal decade, 1 921 -31, the proportional increase in the London 

 conurbation was more than double the rate for Great Britain, and that 

 area absorbed half of the total increase of population of the country. Some 

 other great conurbations grew even more rapidly, though none had a 

 greater absolute increase. 



This urban growth is mainly concentrated on the larger urban centres. 

 At the beginning of the nineteenth century no conurbation in the world, 



Table IIL 



with very doubtful exceptions in China, had reached a population of a 

 million ; though London was very near to that figure, with 954,000 

 inhabitants at the census of 1801. To-day there are in the world about 

 sixty conurbations of this magnitude, perhaps a dozen of which have each 

 as many as five million inhabitants, and together these include perhaps 

 a twelfth of all mankind. The numbers, both of these ' million-cities ' 

 and of their inhabitants, are increasing ; and if the trend continues 

 unchecked for a generation or two' our grandchildren may live in a world 

 which will have a majority of its inhabitants housed in two or three 

 hundred such conurbations. 



The townward migration is associated with an absolute decrease of 

 population in many rural areas, of which I need specify only a few instances. 

 In Great Britain the decade 192 1-3 1 saw an absolute decrease in every 

 county of the highlands, and also a relative decrease in nearly all the 

 counties bordering on the highlands. These areas of decrease included all 

 Scotland, eleven of the twelve counties of Wales, and ten English counties. 

 France records a corresponding decrease in the mountain departments of 

 the Alps, the Massif Central, the Pyrenees and Corsica ; as does Italy for 

 all her mountain zones. In some of these areas the evidence of abandoned 

 cultivation terraces is visible even to the casual observer. The same 

 process of retreat from such ' regions of difficulty ' is going on in all the 

 mountain and highland areas of Central Europe and Scandinavia. There 



