URBANIZATION : HOW CITIES GROW

An Academic Presentation to BdevS, Center for Development StudiesKathmamndu University

2014

Rajendra P Sharmarpsharma@mailcity.com

URBANIZATION & CITIES

• Urbanization refers to the proportion of people in living in cities.

• It also refers to the process in which rural populations move to urban areas.

• Urbanization refers to all of the cities in a country, considered as an urban system.

• The urban system is the network of individual cities within a region or country.

Urban and Rural Population, Less Developed Countries1950 to 2025

Sources of Urbanization

• The urban system of a country grows mainly by:

1. Natural population increase (births – deaths)

2. Migration from rural areas (especially in countries with large rural populations)

3. Immigration from other countries (especially in Europe and North America)

4. Reclassification of urban boundaries to encompass formerly rural areas

Urbanization in MDCs and LDCs

• MDCs– Slow pre-industrial growth– Rapid industrial growth

– Slows again once most previously rural populations are in cities

– Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, the population is 75% to 80% urban.

– Canada is 80% urbanized.

• LDCs– Rapid urbanization without

proportional industrialization (population growth, land tenure)

– By 2020 majority of LDC population will live in urban areas of 1 million+

– By 2020 most megacities of 10 million+ will be in LDCs

Urbanization

• The urbanization curve is typically logistic or S-shaped

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MDC urbanization

LDC urbanization

Urban Growth is Speeding Up

Time required to reach 2 million population:

Rome, Italy 2000 years

Vienna, Austria 400 years

Vancouver, B.C. 115 years

Shenzhen, China 20 years

Share of World Population Growth Urban and Rural Areas LDCs and MDCs 1950 to 2025

• Over the next quarter century, increases in urbanization will be almost entirely attributable to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

Cities with 10 million or more people2015

Share of World Population Growth Urban and Rural Areas LDCs and MDCs 1950 to 2025

• Over the next quarter century, increases in urbanization will be almost entirely attributable to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

Urbanization & the population

Thomas Malthus and Malthusianism

“I SAID that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.”

Thomas Malthus. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population

Available at http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/

1766-1834

Urbanization & the population

Time

Pop.

Subsiste

nce

Urbanization & the population

Thomas Malthus and Malthusianism

• Solution to unchecked population growth: inculcate ‘middle-class’ values in the ‘lower-classes’

– Advocated universal sufferage, state-run education

• But his analysis of population growth has been used to naturalize the idea of ‘overpopulation’ as a purely mathematical problem ---> buries struggles for power (politics) in apparently objective language of math.

1766-1834

Urbanization & the population question

Source: Marshall, J. 2005