Urbanisation
The movement of population from rural to urban areas and the resulting increasing proportion of a population that resides in urban rather than rural places
Introduction
-More than half of the world pop (3.3b) live in an urban environment
=UNDESA(2010) an unstoppable process. By 2050 70% of the population will live in an urban area. Africa and Asia the urban population will double by 2030
-Growth of megacities like Shanghai, New Delhi, New York and Paris
=The UN estimates 4/5 of the worlds GDP is generated in urban areas and in the majority of countries the bulk of rural income come from relatives who work in urban areas
Introduction Example
-The most populated cities in the world are: Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Shanghai, New York, Kolkata, Mumbai, Beijing, LA and Jakarta.
-Only three are in the developed world. There were 7 cities in the world which had a population of more than 5mil people in 1950s. By 2025 this will rise to 93mil.
=180,000 people a day in Mumbai
Urbanisation and Development
- Development of large towns and cities has occurred because of paid industrialisation
- People move to where the work. So move to rural are to employment centres. Seen as a sign of development.
- But 1b people living in slums
Slums
“a group of individuals living under the same roof that lack one or more of the following conditions: access to safe water; access to sanitation; secure tenure; durability of housing; and sufficient living area” - UN Habitat Report (2003)
5 Characteristics of a Slum (UN)
- Inadequate access to safe water
- Inadequate access to sanitation and infrastructure
- The poor structural quality of housing
- Overcrowding
- Insecure residential status
Urbanisation and Slums
- Movement of large numbers of people to urban areas in LDCs results in the growth of slums (shanty towns/ favelas)
- Squatted areas, people have no ownership, no right to build, and no services beyond those they can provide for themselves
- Lack of access to running water, sanitation, health care, education
- Lack of basic security, built to be removed especially as cities grow and land becomes more valuable in surrounding areas
- Caused by work is often in the cities, miles from home and difficult to reach by public transport. Led to a process where peoples habitat has changed, population growth has brought improved living standards for many but it is an uneven process with the w/c taking the longest to see improvements
- But this process is very different for developing countries
Modernisation Theory
- Rostow: The move towards urbanisation is both the path towards and evidence of modernisation.
- Hoselitz: Urbanisation as the fourth ‘motor’ of development.
- Cities are seen to promote economic growth by providing an ample workforce available for factories and businesses.
- Cities represent a cultural change from the traditions of rural life and are promoters of the crucial modern values such as individualism, meritocracy and entrepreneurialism. Key drivers of modernisation
Neo-Liberalism
- Urban areas are the product of ‘market forces’
- New urban areas demand new responses from the surrounding rural areas for increased production, this spurs on innovation and entrepreneurship (agriculture)
- Towns and cities develop as a response to growing populations, and if left to the market will develop successfully
Evaluation of M and NL
-Not effective. Too romantic. Cities in the developing world have affluent suburbs, apartment blocks and gated communities but the majority live in shanty towns in poverty where the living standards are lower than in the rural areas they are originally from
-Rapid Growth: the US and Europe were gradual. Quick in LDCs and exceeding the availability of employment which had led to unemployment, social problems, a struggle to survive and absolute poverty.
-Infrastructure cannot cope and standards are low with high infant mortality and maternal death rates, malnutrition and low life expectancy
=Kenya: 60% of the population lives on 5% of the land and there is 1 toilet for every 500 people
-Dual Sector Economies: Shantytown lead to dual sector economy filled with drug rings and illegal
-Environmental Problems: Prominence of cheap cars as no public transport, 1/3 of natural resources have been used =2000 tress in a minute in Amazon, Mexico City had 3 million automobiles and produces 120,000 tons of pollution a day
Dependency Theory
-Development of cities in the 3rd world differ from cities in the developed world due to the impact of colonialism
-Webster: New towns under colonialism=brand new territories or new areas grafted onto the existing towns of indigenous people
-Urbanisation does is sustain underdevelopment
-Mod bases their knowledge on Europe’s experience, but this was a result of industrialisation. In the developing world, people have moved to the cities to get a job, leaving behind land for subsistence but miss out and become unemployed.
-Political and Economic power: powers focus too much on the cities and forget the rest of the country. An underclass is formed in the slums because they have nowhere else to go and no means to get anywhere./Urban areas were only invented because of colonial powers needing places to live that were inhabitable.
=Mumbai they were the colonial administrators living quarters. Where the cities were still set up by the colonies they were still seen as the best places to go. Everyone moved there.
-Cohen/Kennedy: ‘cities are island surrounded by a sea of poverty’.
-If all opportunities are concentrated in the city then the country is not developing. Cities ensure poor countries stay undeveloped, by monopolising the surplus capital that might be gained by exports, or aid. The spare money is spent in urban areas, not on the rest of the country.
-Urbanisation is not a solution to development.
Dependency Evaluation
- Developing countries, as they develop, are witnessing a burgeoning professional, technical and managerial class.
- Well-paid, secure workers want retail outlets and department stores to buy consumer goods of conspicuous consumption.
- Encourage the divisive development of features like gated communities and exclusive restaurants and leisure facilities.
- Thus the centre of most cities in the developing world looks remarkably like city centres in the developed world. Often remarkably close are the slums and shanty towns of the impoverished urban dwellers.
