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I. THE GROWTH OF CITIES
3. This is the century of the 'urban revolution' in the 35 years since 1950, the number of people living in cities almost tripled, increasing by ,.25 billion. In the more developed regions, the urban population nearly doubled, from 447 million to 838 million. In the less developed world, it quadrupled, growing from 286 million to 1.14 billion. (See Table 9 1.)
4. Over only 60 years. the developing world's urban population increased tenfold, from around 100 million in 1920 to close to 1 billion in 1980. At the same time, its rural population more than doubled.
- In 1940, only one per,on in eight lived in an urban centre. while about one in 100 lived in a city with a million or more inhabitants (a 'million city').
- By 1960, more than one in five persons lived in an urban centre, and one in 16 in a 'million city'
- By 1980, nearly one in three persons was an urban dweller and one in 10 a 'million city' resident.[1]
5. The population of many of sub-Saharan Africa's larger cities increased more than sevenfold between 1950 and 1980 Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Nouakchott, Lusaka, Lagos, and Kinshasa among them.[2] (See Table 9–2.) During these same 30 years, populations in many Asian and Latin American cities (such as Seoul, Baghdad, Dhaa. Amman. Bombay. Jakarta. Mexico City. Manila, Sao Paulo, Bogota, and Managua) tripled or quadrupled. in such cities, net immigration has usually been a greater contributor than natural increase to the population growth of recent decades.
6. In many developing countries. cities have thus grown far beyond anything imagined only a few decades ago and at speeds without historic precedent. (See Box 9–1.) But some experts doubt that developing nations will urbanize as rapidly in the future as in the last 30-40 years, or that megacities will grow as large as UN projections suggest. Their arqument is that many of the most powerful stimuli to rapid urbanization in the past have less influence today, and that changing government policies could reduce the comparative attractiveness of cities, especially the largest cities, and slow rate of urbanization.
7. The urban population growth rate in developing countries as a whole has been slowing down from 5.2 per cent per r annum in the late 195Os to 3.4 per cent in the 1980s.[3] It is expected to decline even further in the coming decades. Nevertheless, if current trends hold, Third World cities could add a further three-quarters of a billion people by the year 2000. Over the same time, the cities of the industrial world would grow by a further 111 million.[4]
8. These projections put the urban challenge firmly in the developing countries. In the pace of just 15 years (or about
- ↑ UN. The Growth in the World's Urban and Rural Population 1920-1980, Population Studies No. 44 (New York: 1969): UN. Urban, Rural and 4 City Populations 1950-2000 (as assessed in 1978), Population Studies No. 68 (New York: 1980).
- ↑ The expansion of 'city' or 'metropolitan area' boundaries accounts for some of the population growth in Table 9-2. The UN projections are based on extrapolating past trends. This method often provides a poor guide to future trends, especially long-term ones. But the data base with which to make better projections is not available.
- ↑ UNCHS (Habitat) position paper for October 1986 DAC meeting on Urban Development, OECD document DAC (86)47, 27 August 1986.
- ↑ Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, 'Urban and Rural Population Projections, 1984' (unofficial assessment), UN, New York, 1986.
