Origin and history of urbanize

"characteristic of city life, pertaining to cities or towns," 1610s (but rare before 1830s), from Latin urbanus "of or pertaining to a city or city life; in Rome," also "in city fashion, polished, refined, cultivated, courteous," but also sometimes "witty, facetious, bold, impudent;" as a noun, "city dweller," from urbs (genitive urbis) "city, walled town," a word of unknown origin.

The adjective urban gradually emerged in this sense as urbane became restricted to manners and styles of expression, but originally urban also could mean "civil, courteous in manners."

Urban sprawl is recorded by 1958. Urban blight is attested by 1919. Urban renewal, euphemistic for "slum clearance," is attested from 1954, as a new U.S. program to improve low-income housing. In late 20c. American English, urban acquired a suggestion of "African-American."

Urban legend is attested by 1980.

also urbanisation, "process of making urban in character," 1888, noun of action from urbanize.

word-forming element of Greek origin used to make verbs, Middle English -isen, from Old French -iser/-izer, from Late Latin -izare, from Greek -izein, a verb-forming element denoting the doing of the noun or adjective to which it is attached.

The variation of -ize and -ise began in Old French and Middle English, perhaps aided by a few words (such as surprise, see below) where the ending is French or Latin, not Greek. With the classical revival, English partially reverted to the correct Greek -z- spelling from late 16c. But the 1694 edition of the authoritative French Academy dictionary standardized the spellings as -s-, which influenced English.

In Britain, despite the opposition to it (at least formerly) of OED, Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Times of London, and Fowler, -ise remains dominant. Fowler thinks this is to avoid the difficulty of remembering the short list of common words not from Greek which must be spelled with an -s- (such as advertise, devise, surprise). American English has always favored -ize. The spelling variation involves about 200 English verbs.