BULLETIN A publication of the Population Reference Bureau

Population

Vol. 55, No. 3

September 2000

Nearly all future population growth will occur in urban areas.

Reducing urban poverty is crucial for managing urban population change.

Internet and transportation networks link world cities and enhance urban economic growth.

An Urbanizing Worldby Martin P. Brockerhoff

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1

BULLETIN A publication of the Population Reference Bureau

Population

Vol. 55, No. 3

September 2000

An Urbanizing WorldIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Urban Population Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Box 1. What is Urban? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Figure 1. Percent of Population Living in Urban Areas in Major World

Regions, 1950, 1975, 2000, and 2025 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Figure 2. Urban and Rural Population, Less Developed Countries,

1950 to 2025 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Figure 3. Population Growth Rates in Urban and Rural Areas, Less and

More Developed Countries, 1975 to 2000 and 2000 to 2025 . . . . . . . . . . . 8Figure 4. Share of World Population Growth in Urban and Rural Areas,

1950 to 2025 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Figure 5. Number of Cities With 1 Million or More Residents,

1975, 1995, and 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Trends in Less Developed Regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Box 2. Megacities: Decline, Growth, and Changing Locations. . . . . . . . . . . . 10Figure 6. Percent of Population in Large Cities, Other Urban, and Rural

Areas, 1975, 1995, and 2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Figure 7. The World’s 100 Largest Cities in 2000,

and Selected Other Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Figure 8. Population of Selected Large Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa,

1965, 1990, and 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Figure 9. Projected Urban and Rural Populations, Selected Asian

Countries, 2000 and 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Trends in More Developed Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Urban Demographics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Table 1. Sex Ratio of Urban and Rural Populations, Selected Countries,

1990 to 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Table 2. Percent of Population Under Age 5 and Age 65 or Older in Urban

and Rural Areas, Selected Countries, 1992 to 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Table 3. Average Household Size in Urban and Rural Areas, Selected

Countries, 1990 to 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Urban Challenges of Less Developed Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Box 3. Urban Poverty Projects: Global and Local Initiatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Box 4. The UN Conferences on Human Settlements: 1976 and 1996. . . . . . 24Table 4. Urban Households With Piped Water, Less Developed Countries

by Region, 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Box 5. The Healthy Cities Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Continued on page 2

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About the Author

Martin P. Brockerhoff is an associate of the Policy Research Division of the Population Council.He has worked in 22 countries as a demographer with USAID’s Office of Population and theU.S. Census Bureau, and as a research consultant on urban issues for international develop-ment organizations including the World Health Organization, the United Nations PopulationFund, and the United Nations Development Programme. Brockerhoff’s current research interestsinclude the demography of the urban poor and migration-health interrelationships. He has pub-lished extensively on issues of urbanization in leading population and social science journals.

The author thanks the Hewlett, Mellon, and Rockefeller foundations for their support of hisurban population research at the Population Council. He also thanks Tony Champion, SidneyGoldstein, and other reviewers for their helpful comments during the preparation of this report,and Hilary Brougher and Mary Kent for their editorial assistance.

© 2000 by the Population Reference Bureau

Table 5. Percent of Women Ages 15 to 39 in Urban and Rural Areas, Selected Countries, 1990s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Urban Challenges of More Developed Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Figure 10. Immigrants Admitted to the United States and New York City

by Area of Origin, 1990 to 1994. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

The Urban Future in Less Developed Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Managing Population Change in U.S. Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Box 6. Restoring America’s Cities: Lessons of Urban Planning . . . . . . . . . . . 38

The Sustainability of an Urbanizing World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Suggested Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3

Managing urban populationchange will be one of theworld’s most important chal-

lenges in the next few decades. In lessdeveloped countries, where 80 per-cent of the world’s population re-sides, central issues will be how tocope with an unprecedented increasein the number of people living in ur-ban areas and the growing concentra-tion of these urbanites in large citieswith millions of residents. In more de-veloped countries such as the UnitedStates, the urban future will involvedealing with complex changes in thecomposition of urban populationswhile also containing urban sprawlbeyond suburbs into what remains ofthe countryside.

In Asia, Africa, and Latin America,the unprecedented populationgrowth that characterized much ofthe 20th century has evolved into un-paralleled urban growth. The UnitedNations (UN) projects that worldpopulation will expand from 6.1 bil-lion to 7.8 billion between 2000 and2025—90 percent of this growth willoccur in urban areas of less devel-oped countries.1 By 2020, a majorityof the population of less developedcountries will live in urban areas.

The population of less developedcountries will become increasinglyconcentrated in large cities of 1 mil-lion or more residents. There were anestimated 292 such “million-plus” citiesin less developed countries in 2000.Megacities, with 10 million or moreresidents, are also becoming more nu-

merous and will play an important rolein the world’s urban future. Many ofthe largest cities are likely to absorbenormous population increments. Lagos, Nigeria, for example, is expect-ed to add nearly 10 million people be-tween 2000 and 2015, while Dhaka,Bangladesh, will add 9 million.

The tremendous populationgrowth in the urban areas of less de-

An Urbanizing Worldby Martin P. Brockerhoff

Crowded city streets in South Korea offer a preview of the tremen-dous urban growth ahead. Unprecedented population growth and industrialization in the 20th century sparked an urban demographic revolution that continues in the 21st century.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

4

veloped countries can be viewed as awelcome or as an alarming trend. His-torically, cities have been the enginesof economic development and thecenters of industry and commerce.They have spurred innovations in sci-ence and technology and in systemsof law and government. Cities have fa-cilitated the diffusion of informationthrough interaction among diversecultures. The density of urban popu-lations has offered significant cost advantages for governments in the de-livery of essential goods and services,and for the private sector, in the pro-duction and consumption of suchitems.2

Cities have also played a crucialrole in reducing fertility, thereby slow-ing world population growth. In the19th century, urban residents of Eu-rope and North America were amongthe first people to widely practice fam-ily planning, and they helped spreadthe idea of fertility regulation to thecountryside. Today, fertility levels areinvariably lower in urban than in ruralareas of less developed countries.3 Thegrowing concentration of residents in urban areas, where the costs of childrearing are higher, family plan-ning services are more available, andsocial norms are more conducive tosmall families than in rural areas, mayhasten global fertility decline.

The unprecedented magnitude ofurban growth has engendered debateabout whether less developed coun-tries and their large cities can accom-modate the current volume of urbangrowth. This dispute echoes disagree-ments voiced a generation ago re-garding limits to the number ofpeople the world can support. Someobservers claim that good urban man-agement and governance can over-come population constraints. Theynote that some big cities in less devel-oped countries are competing suc-cessfully on economic terms withtheir counterparts in more developedcountries by offering vast supplies ofrelatively inexpensive labor. Moreover,there is no evidence of a thresholdpopulation size beyond which citiesgenerate more negative than positive

effects for their countries. And the in-formation revolution enables strug-gling cities to improve by adopting“best practices” of successful cities.4

Yet experts in other circles arehighly concerned about the urban fu-ture. Experts in the health sciences,for instance, warn that uncontrolledin-migration and increased density ispushing morbidity and mortality high-er in cities than in surrounding ruralareas, as was the case in some U.S.cities in 1900.5 Some environmental-ists point out that the unplanned de-velopment of big cities is depletingnonrenewable natural resources andcontributing to global climate change.Further, many cities in less developedcountries are built on ecologicallyfragile foundations, or are vulnerableto such natural disasters as earth-quakes, floods, and destructive storms.Unbridled population growth in thesecities increases the risk of catastrophicloss of life.

Some political scientists maintainthat rampant urban growth is increas-ing urban poverty and inequality,which in turn could spark a weaken-ing of the state, civil unrest, urban-based revolutions, and radicalreligious fundamentalism.6 Econo-mists see a shortage of decent in-come-earning opportunities in cities,while urban planners see a lack of liv-able spatial forms.

In more developed countries suchas the United States, there looms a dif-ferent urban future: Challenges arearising less from population growththan from changes in the compositionand distribution of urban populations.

Urban planners in more developedcountries confront problems that dateback several decades. Residential seg-regation remains prominent amongthese issues. The departure of manyaffluent residents from central citiesto suburbs, a trend experienced inseveral countries since the 1970s, hasbeen countered by strategies of urbanrevitalization, the gentrification of in-ner-city neighborhoods by young pro-fessionals, and the return of middle-aged “empty nesters” to cities.7 Theserevitalization processes generally help

Cities haveplayed a crucialrole in reducing

fertility—andslowing world

populationgrowth.

5

cities generate sales and tax revenues,but they also tend to widen the dis-parity in housing costs between neigh-borhoods and further concentratelow-income minority groups in slumsand ghettos. The notion that there isa permanent urban underclass,trapped in the inner-city by inade-quate educational and income-earn-ing opportunities, is as relevant todayas when it was first raised in the1960s.8

New urban challenges are emerg-ing in more developed countries. Asthese countries experience populationaging, their cities will house an in-creasing proportion of elderly personswith special needs. Immigration is di-versifying the ethnic profile of urbanpopulations in the United States andmany other more developed coun-tries, creating exciting opportunitiesfor cultural interaction. But immigra-tion also spurs ethnic clustering, intolerance toward minorities, and increased demands for basic services.

Also in the United States, the con-tinued movement of “baby boomers”away from central cities, beyond sub-urbs and into “exurbs” that offer access to nature as well as close prox-imity to city amenities, portends thevirtual disappearance of traditionallyrural areas in many large regions.Meanwhile, a critical shortage of af-fordable housing in many cities isforcing some middle-income residentsto move into dilapidated housing andothers to homelessness.

This Population Bulletin examinestrends of urban population change in less developed and more devel-oped regions. Among more devel-oped countries, particular attention is given to the United States. The report describes the demographicsources of urban growth in less devel-oped countries, traits that distinguishurban from rural populations in thesecountries, and some of the criticalchallenges posed by the urban demo-graphic revolution. Policies to man-age cities and urban growth arediscussed, incorporating concepts ofthe city that have recently emerged inurban population studies.

Urban PopulationTrendsUrban population change is mostcommonly described by two meas-ures: (1) the level of urbanization,and (2) the rate of urban growth. Thelevel of urbanization represents theshare of a country’s total populationthat lives in urban areas (see Box 1,page 6).

The world’s urbanization level in-creased steadily throughout the 20thcentury. After 1950, the first year forwhich the UN provides urban data forall countries, the percentage urbanrose from 30 percent of world popu-lation to an estimated 47 percent inthe year 2000. The urban share is pro-jected to reach 58 percent by 2025.

The population of the more devel-oped world was already 55 percent ur-banized in 1950, reached 76 percentin 2000, and is expected to be 82 per-cent in 2025 (see Figure 1, page 7).Because more developed countriesare already highly urbanized, their ur-ban share is not projected to increasesubstantially.

In contrast, the level of urbaniza-tion in the less developed countrieswas just 18 percent in 1950, but itneared 40 percent in 2000, and is pro-jected to be 54 percent in 2025. Theless developed world is urbanizing asquickly now as was the United Statesand other more developed countriesduring the first half of the 20th centu-ry. This rapid urbanization is occur-ring because there is a large pool ofpotential migrants to the cities livingin the countryside, and because ratesof natural increase (an area’s birthrate minus its death rate) are not sub-stantially lower in urban than in ruralareas. The urban population in lessdeveloped areas is expected to nearlydouble in size between 2000 and 2025from just less than 2 billion to morethan 3.5 billion. It is projected to sur-pass the rural population by 2020.The rural population in less devel-oped countries is projected to stopgrowing after 2020, at about 3.1 bil-lion, while the urban population willcontinue to grow, causing further in-

6

Tracking population

change can becomplicated by

changes in urbanboundaries or

definitions.

Box 1What is Urban?Because the definition of an urban population varies widely from countryto country, urban statistics should be in-terpreted with caution. Of the 228countries for which the United Nations(UN) compiles data, roughly half useadministrative considerations—such asresiding in the capital of the country orof a province—to designate people asurban dwellers. Among the other coun-tries, 51 distinguish urban and ruralpopulations based on the size or densityof locales, 39 rely on functional charac-teristics such as the main economic ac-tivity of an area, 22 have no definitionof “urban,” and eight countries defineall (Singapore, for example) or none(several countries in Polynesia) of theirpopulations as living in urban areas.

The UN accepts each country’s defi-nition when it calculates urban popula-tion estimates and projections. Thispractice recognizes that governmentsknow best what features distinguish ur-ban from rural places in their owncountries. But, this approach hinderscomparison of urban population dataacross countries because no standarddefinition exists. Burundi, in centralAfrica, for example, is densely popu-lated, yet it defines as urban only thecapital city, Bujumbura, where 8 percentof the national population resided in1996. In the neighboring DemocraticRepublic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)“urban” areas include all areas with2,000 residents or more and havingmainly nonagricultural functions. Un-der this broader interpretation, 29 per-cent of the Congo’s residents were livingin urban areas. If these two countrieshad similar definitions of urban—if Bu-rundi classified residents of large townsas urban, and the Congo excluded thepopulations living in the dozens of smallvillages—the two countries might havesimilar proportions of their populationsresiding in urban areas (that is, similarlevels of urbanization).

Countries sometimes change theirdefinitions of urban places over time,which also makes precise measurementof urban populations problematic. China is a notable example. Since the1980s, China’s urban population figures

have been distorted by the establishmentof hundreds of new cities and thousandsof new urban towns with extensiveboundaries. Such reclassification of ruralplaces as urban implausibly raised the of-ficial level of urbanization in FuijanProvince, for instance, from 21 percentin 1982 to 57 percent in 1990 and to 84percent in 1995. For a more realistic pic-ture of the urban population, China’sState Statistical Bureau applied a second,more limited definition of urban to 1990census data. Under this definition, Fui-jan Province was 21 percent urban in1990, as it was in 1982. Yet the practiceof urban redefinition continues inprovincial China, challenging demogra-phers and statisticians to track urbanpopulation change across time.

The United States has also modifiedits definition of urban over time. Theearliest classification, published in 1874,was based on incorporated places(cities, towns, boroughs, and villages) of8,000 or more residents. This limit waslowered to 4,000 in 1880, and to thepresent minimum size of 2,500 in 1906.In 1970, unincorporated places and set-tlements of less than 2,500 people in“urbanized zones” on the fringes of ex-tended cities were officially included aspart of the urban population. This defi-nition was applied to the 1990 Census.

The Chinese and U.S. examples il-lustrate several important points aboutthe measurement of urbanization. First,tracking change in urban populationscan be complicated because of changesin urban boundaries or in the defini-tions of urban areas. For the manycountries that change their definitionsof urban areas between censuses or oth-er enumeration efforts, the UN andmost government statistical agenciesusually apply the most recent definitionto earlier population counts to get cred-ible trends of urban population change.However, UN and government esti-mates for these countries should not beconsidered as exact.

Second, national definitions of urbanareas often encompass populations inrelatively small settlements. Uganda, forexample, classifies locales with as few as100 residents as urban. Areas this small

7

typically have few of the characteristicsthat one associates with “cities,” such asnonagricultural activities or modern in-frastructure. Thus, it is not appropriateto use the terms “urban” and “city” syn-onymously. Generally, a city is consid-ered a place with a relatively largepopulation that has a certain legal sta-tus, granted by the national or provin-cial government, and that is associatedwith specific administrative or local gov-ernment structures. Third, an urban ag-glomeration (or metropolitan area inU.S. terms) may include cities, urbanareas, suburban fringes, and densely set-tled nonurban territory. These areas of-ten encompass substantial amounts ofrural land. In Japan and the Philip-pines, for example, large numbers ofpeople who live in essentially rural areasare included within the boundaries ofofficially urban areas.

In the United States, population is classified as living either in metro-politan or nonmetropolitan areas forpolitical, legal, and administrative pur-poses. While metropolitan generallyrefers to urban populations, and non-metropolitan applies primarily to ruralpopulations, these overarching cate-gories can include both urban and ru-ral populations. An urban area may belocated outside of a metropolitan area,but a metropolitan area contains atleast one urban area.

ReferencesUnited Nations, World Urbanization Prospects:The 1999 Revision (New York: United Na-tions, 2000); Judith Banister, “China: Inter-nal and Regional Migration Trends,” inFloating Population and Migration in China:The Impact of Economic Reforms, ed. ThomasScharping (Hamburg, Germany: Institut fürAseinkunde, 1997): 72-97; Henry S. Shryock,Jacob S. Siegel, and Associates, The Methodsand Materials of Demography, Condensed edi-tion, ed. Edward G. Stockwell (New York:Academic Press, 1976); U.S. Census Bureau,Geographic Areas Reference Manual Files,Urban Rural Classifications, Chap. 12. Ac-cessed online at: www.census.gov/geo/www/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf, on July 25,2000; and World Bank, World Development Re-port 1999/2000 (New York: Oxford UniversityPress for The World Bank, 1999): 127.

creases in the level of urbanization(see Figure 2, page 8).

Over the next quarter century, in-creases in urbanization will be almostentirely attributable to sub-SaharanAfrica and Asia. Urbanization is pro-jected to increase from 34 percent to49 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, andfrom 35 percent to 50 percent in Asia(excluding Japan). In Latin Americaand the Caribbean, 75 percent of thepopulation already resides in urbancenters so the future pace of urbaniza-tion will be slow.

Figure 1Percent of Population Living in Urban Areas in Major World Regions, 1950, 1975, 2000, and 2025

1950 1975 2000 2025

World More developedcountries

Less developedcountries

Per

cent

of p

opul

atio

n

30�

0

20

40

60

80

100

38

47

5855

7076

82

18

27

40

54

Sub-SaharanAfrica

Latin America &the Caribbean

Asia(except Japan)

Per

cent

of p

opul

atio

n

11

0

20

40

60

80

100

21

34

49

1522

35

50

41

61

7582

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

Europe and other regions of themore developed world are expectedto become slightly more urbanized inthe near future, even though somecountries may see their total popula-tions decline. The UN projects thatthe population of Southern Europewill decline from 144 million to 136million between 2000 and 2025, for

example. The urban population isprojected to rise from 96 million to more than 100 million over the period, while the rural population is projected to fall from 48 million to 34 million. As a result, the level of urbanization in Southern Europewill increase from 66 percent to 75percent.

The rate of urban growth is theother measure commonly used tocompare countries over time andamong each other. The rate of urbangrowth indicates the number of per-sons added to an urban populationduring a year per 100 urban dwellers.The average annual rate of urbangrowth has fallen precipitously inmore developed countries, from 1.99percent between 1950 and 1975, to0.83 percent between 1975 and 2000.The average rate is projected to fall to0.41 percent during the first quarterof the 21st century (see Figure 3). Al-though average urban growth ratesare falling in less developed coun-tries, they remain well above those inmore developed countries.

Urban growth in less developedcountries will account for a large ma-jority of world population growth incoming decades. The rural popula-tion of more developed countries hasbeen declining for decades—from370 million in 1950 to an anticipated215 million in 2025—while the ruralpopulation of less developed coun-tries is expected to add only another170 million before starting to declineslowly around 2020. A small fractionof world population growth will occurin urban areas of more developedcountries, mainly the United States(see Figure 4).

Although urban areas are growingat slower rates in less developed coun-tries now than in the 20th century,the number of people added eachyear continues to rise because therates are applied to an ever-increasingpopulation base. The average annualgrowth rate from 1975 to 2000 was3.5 percent, which, applied to the1975 urban population of 810 millionfor less developed countries, meantan increase of 1.13 billion urbanites

8

Rural

0

1

2

3

4

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2025

Pop

ulat

ion

in b

illio

ns

Urban

Figure 2Urban and Rural Population, Less Developed Countries, 1950 to 2025

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

Figure 3Population Growth Rates in Urban and Rural Areas,Less and More Developed Countries, 1975 to 2000and 2000 to 2025

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

1.90

3.50

1.11 1.22

2.40

0.02

0.500.83

-0.39

0.410.09

-1.13

1975-2000 2000-2025

1975-2000 2000-2025

Less developed countries

More developed countries

Total Urban Rural

Ave

rage

ann

ual r

ate

of g

row

th

Source: Derived from United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision(2000).

9

during the period. Although the an-nual urban growth rate projected forthe next quarter century is much low-er, 2.4 percent, it will be applied to alarger urban population base of 1.94billion, and is projected to expandthe urban population by 1.60 billionpeople between 2000 and 2025. Thenumber of persons added to the ur-ban population in less developedcountries probably better indicatesthe challenges faced by governments,urban planners, nongovernmentalservice providers, and urban residentsthan does the rate of urban growth.

The world’s urban population israpidly concentrating in very largecities. By 2015, the number of citieswith more than 1 million residents isprojected to be about 564, up from195 cities in 1975. Asia, Africa, andother less developed regions haveseen the most dramatic increase inthe number of cities with 1 million ormore residents and in the proportionof the total population concentratedin these “million-plus” cities. In moredeveloped countries, including Japanand the United States, the number ofcities with at least 1 million inhabi-tants increased modestly between1975 and 1995, from 85 to 114, and isexpected to reach 138 by 2015, thelatest year for which individual cityprojections are available (see Figure5). By contrast, between 1975 and1995, the number of million-pluscities in less developed countriessoared from 110 to 250, and is expect-ed to surpass 425 by 2015.

In more developed countries, theproportion of the population living inthese large cities is anticipated to growfrom 23 percent in 1975 to 30 percentin 2015 (see Figure 6, page 11). Evenmore rapid concentration is projectedfor the urban populations of less de-veloped countries: The share living inmillion-plus cities is projected to risefrom less than 10 percent in 1975 tomore than 20 percent by 2015. Thus,the future will bring not just an urban-izing world but, perhaps more signifi-cantly, a world in which people aremore likely to be residents of verylarge cities (see Box 2, page 10).

Trends in LessDeveloped RegionsThe levels of urbanization in less de-veloped countries lag 75 years behindthose of the more developed coun-tries. In Europe, North America, andother more developed regions, urban-ization increased from 26 percent to40 percent between 1900 and 1925.Urbanization levels rose by a similarmargin in less developed countries

0

20

40

60

80

100

1950—1975 1975—2000 2000—2025

48

19

33

34

9

57

90

55

Urban, less developedcountries

Urban, more developedcountries

Rural, allcountries

Per

cent

of w

orld

pop

ulat

ion

grow

th

Figure 4Share of World Population Growth in Urban and Rural Areas, 1950 to 2025

Source: Derived from United Nations, World Urbaniza-tion Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

Less developed countries

More developed countries

1975 1995 2015

11085

250

114

426

138

Num

ber

of c

ities

500

400

300

200

100

0

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The1999 Revision (2000).

Figure 5Number of Cities With 1 Million orMore Residents, 1975, 1995, and2015

10

The United Nations (UN) coined theterm megacities in the 1970s to desig-nate all urban agglomerations with apopulation of 8 million or more. Inthe 1990s, the UN raised the popula-tion threshold to 10 million, followingthe practice of institutions such as theAsian Development Bank. The UN es-timates that there are 19 megacities inthe world at the beginning of the 21stcentury.

Megacities have captured public in-terest because cities this large are un-precedented in history, and because ofthe popular perception that humanwell-being will decline in such denseconcentrations of people. Not longago, it was unimaginable that citiesmight house more than 20 millionpeople, yet these totals are projectedfor Mumbai (formerly Bombay, India),Lagos (Nigeria), and São Paulo(Brazil) by 2015. Indeed, in 1900 onlyLondon had as many as 5 million resi-dents. The unfavorable living condi-tions during the Industrial era in suchEnglish cities as London and Manches-ter and such U.S. cities as Chicago andNew York were vividly described in thenovels of Charles Dickens, TheodoreDreiser, Stephen Crane, and others.The images of urban life plagued bychild labor, crime, class tensions, andprostitution were imbedded in Westerncultural consciousness. The large citiesin poor countries today suffer from

many of the same problems, but on amuch larger scale and accompanied byhigh levels of motor vehicle pollution,illicit drug use, and other modern-daymaladies. Preserving decent standardsof living in these teeming cities is a for-midable task for urban planners andmunicipal authorities.

By some measures, populationgrowth appears to have slowed inmegacities in recent decades. The UNestimates that average annual growthrates plummeted in Mexico City be-tween the 1960s and the 1980s—from5.1 percent to 0.9 percent. Annualpopulation growth rates also slowedconsiderably in the megacities of SãoPaulo (from 5.4 percent to 1.9 per-cent), Calcutta, India (2.3 percent to1.8 percent), and Beijing (2.6 percentto 1.8 percent) over the period. Andin cities in more developed countries,annual growth rates fell from 1.3 per-cent to 0.3 percent in New York andfrom 4.1 percent to 1.7 percent inTokyo between the 1960s and 1980s.

Despite the slower pace of growth,cities in less developed countries areadding more new residents each yearnow than in the 1950s and 1960s be-cause the growth rate is applied to anexpanding population base. The aver-age annual growth rate declined inCairo, over the last 50 years. But Cairoadded 4.6 million to its population be-tween 1975 and 2000, about 1 million

Box 2Megacities: Decline, Growth, and Changing Locations

The number ofpeople added isa more valuableguide for urban

planning thanthe urban

growth rate.

World’s Largest Megacities, 1970 and 2015

Population (in millions)1970 2015

1. Tokyo, Japan 16.5 1. Mumbai (Bombay), India 28.22. New York, United States 16.2 2. Tokyo, Japan 26.43. Shanghai, China 11.2 3. Lagos, Nigeria 23.24. Osaka, Japan 9.4 4. Dhaka, Bangladesh 23.05. Mexico City, Mexico 9.1 5. São Paulo, Brazil 20.46. London, England 8.6 6. Karachi, Pakistan 19.87. Paris, France 8.5 7. Mexico City, Mexico 19.28. Buenos Aires, Argentina 8.4 8. Delhi, India 17.89. Los Angeles, United States 8.4 9. New York, United States 17.4

10. Beijing, China 8.1 10. Jakarta, Indonesia 17.3

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

11

between 1975 and 2000.9 Yet urbaniza-tion in most less developed countriestoday differs from the early 20th-cen-tury trends in Europe and the UnitedStates in at least five key respects: It istaking place at lower levels of econom-ic development; it is more dependenton changes in the international econ-omy; it is based on lower mortalityand higher fertility; it involves manymore people; and governments haveintervened to modify it.10

Urban change in less developed regions is so diverse that it defies gen-eralization. Even so, a look at the com-monalties and dissimilarities amongthese regions provides insight into thechallenges associated with the urbandevelopment and spatial transforma-tion of different regions as they enterthe 21st century.

In much of Asia and Latin America,the new global economy—based onthe rapid flow of information and capi-tal—is blurring urban-rural adminis-trative boundaries. Urban scholarsrefer to this process as “mega-urbaniza-tion.” Prosperous, interconnectedcities emerging in East and SoutheastAsia increasingly resemble cities in

more than were added between 1950and 1975.

Because most megacities in less de-veloped countries underwent a similarperiod of explosive growth in the1950s and 1960s followed by a slow-down in rates (but not numbersadded) in the last quarter century, ur-ban policymakers and administratorsoften find that the number of peopleadded to a population is a more valu-able statistic to guide city planningthan growth rates.

The number of megacities is grow-ing rapidly. There were just eightmegacities in 1985, but the numbermore than doubled to 19 by 2000.The UN projects an additional 15new megacities by 2015—all in lessdeveloped countries. Just six megaci-ties will be in the more developedworld in 2015—the same number asin 1985. These six are: Los Angeles,Moscow, New York, Osaka (Japan),Paris, and Tokyo. In 1970, just four ofthe world’s 10 largest cities were inless developed countries. By 2015,eight of the 10 largest cities will be inless developed counties (see table).

The world’s population has be-come increasingly concentrated inmegacities. In 1975, less than 2 per-cent of the global population residedin cities of 10 million or more resi-dents. The proportion now exceeds 4percent, and is projected to top 5percent by 2015, when megacitieswill house almost 400 million people.Between 1975 and 2000, the growingpopulation concentration in megaci-ties characterized both more and lessdeveloped regions, but future growthwill be concentrated in the cities ofthe less developed world.

ReferencesUnited Nations, World UrbanizationProspects: The 1999 Revision (New York:United Nations, 2000); and The Asian Development Bank, “The Asian Develop-ment Bank on Asia’s Megacities,” Popula-tion and Development Review 23, no. 2 (June1997): 451–59.

0

20

40

60

80

100

1975 1995 2015 1975 1995 2015

More developedcountries

Less developedcountries

23 2730

9 14 21

47 4850

1823

27

30 25 20

7363

52

Other urbanCities of�1 million+

Rural

Per

cent

of p

opul

atio

n

Figure 6Percent of Population in Large Cities, Other Urban,and Rural Areas, 1975, 1995, and 2015

Source: Derived from United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision(2000).

North America’s northeasterncorridor (see Figure 7). High-speed transportation andtelecommunications links are encompassing cities such as Manila-Cebu City in thePhilippines, Seoul-Pusan in Korea, Jakarta-Surabaja in Indonesia, Bangkok-Chiang Mai in Thailand, and cities ofGuangdong Province in South-ern China. As the transportationand communications networksspread, rural and small urban areaslocated between cities of this regionface two prospects: being engulfed by city sprawl or being bypassed.11

Although Latin America and theCaribbean already match the urban-ization level of the United States, withthree-quarters of the population liv-ing in cities and towns, the region’surban landscape resembles that ofmuch-less urbanized Southeast Asia.International economic competitionhas compelled Latin America’s manu-facturing plants to pursue cheaperland and labor in increasingly distantplaces, often beyond metropolitanboundaries. In Mexico City and SãoPaulo, Brazil, for example, industrialplants are as far as 200 kilometersfrom the central cities.12 Urban popu-lations are becoming more geograph-ically dispersed and are encroachingon agricultural land. Despite this ur-ban sprawl, accommodating popula-tion growth in large cities remains apressing concern.

Most cities that contain 2 millionor more residents will likely have toabsorb at least an additional half-mil-lion residents by 2015. Growing eco-nomic interdependence with theUnited States—through NAFTA(North American Free Trade Agree-ment) in Mexico and new enterprisezones of free trade in the Caribbean,for example—portends that smallercities may grow in national impor-tance and become more closelylinked with the largest cities, as is hap-pening in Southeast Asia.13

Urban population change in sub-Saharan Africa provides a stark con-trast to the trends in much of Asia,

the Caribbean, and Latin America. Insub-Saharan Africa, urban change islargely a product of exclusion fromthe global economy. Until recently,most African countries have beendominated by a single city rather thanby a network of cities. Although manyof these cities were small by interna-tional standards, they contained a disproportionate share of their coun-tries’ wealth. Yet, many sub-SaharanAfrican cities have fallen into a seri-ous state of disrepair since the 1970sunder the strain imposed by rapidpopulation growth, scarce foreign in-vestment, and government misman-agement.14 Progressive decay in basicinfrastructure such as piped water,electricity, sewerage, and roads have

Santiago

Bogotá

Mexico City

Washington, D.C.

Caracas

Buenos Aires

Lima

Belo Horizonte

Fortaleza

Porto Alegre

Recife

Rio De Janeiro

Salvador

São Paulo

Montreal

Dallas

New YorkBostonChicago

Houston

Los Angeles

PhiladelphiaSan Francisco

Toronto

Medellín

Guatemala City

GuadalajaraMonterrey

Santo Domingo

San Diego

Detroit

12

Many sub-SaharanAfrican cities

have fallen intodisrepair.

Figure 7The World’s 100 Largest Cities in 2000,and Selected Other Cities

prompted people in large Africancities like Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, tomove to unplanned settlements onthe urban periphery where land ischeapest.15 People escaping politicalconflicts in the rural areas and small-er cities of such countries as Liberiaand Mozambique have contributed tobig-city growth rates exceeding 7 per-cent a year over long periods—a rateat which the population would dou-ble in just 10 years. The projected in-crease of many African cities byseveral million or more people be-tween 1990 and 2015 (see Figure 8,page 14) suggests that problems ofbig cities may worsen in the absenceof sustained economic growth andpolitical stability.

Another source of concern espe-cially to some international develop-ment and relief organizations is theproliferation of “urban villages” insub-Saharan Africa. These are once-rural settlements that have bur-geoned into small cities of 200,000 to400,000 residents, and that typicallylack the most basic requirements fora decent standard of living.

In Central Africa in the 1990s, political conflict generated massiveand rapid population flows that creat-ed another widespread urban form:refugee cities.16 In 1994, for example,ethnic-based violence in Rwandaforced hundreds of thousands of peo-ple from the country within a fewweeks. One refugee camp sprung up

Madras

Pune

St. Petersburg

Mumbai

Casablanca

Athens

Delhi

TehranBaghdad

Moscow

Riyadh

Cape Town

Madrid Ankara

Kinshasa

Cairo

Abidjan

Maputo

Lisbon

London

DhakaHong Kong

Pyongyang

Manila

Seoul

Tokyo

Chengdu

Harbin

ShanghaiXian

Calcutta

Changchun

Singapore

Jakarta

Bangkok

Melbourne

Sydney

Ho Chi Minh City

Naples

Paris

Chittagong

Chongqing

Tianjin

Wuhan

Guangzhou

Alexandria

BerlinDüsseldorf

Cologne

Essen

Frankfurt

Hyderabad

Bangalore

Bandung

Milan

NagoyaOsaka

Lagos

Lahore

Karachi

Katowice

Inch'onPusan

IstanbulBeijing

Shenyang

Rangoon

AhmedabadHanoi

Dakar

Addis Ababa

Nairobi

Dar es Salaam

Luanda

13

Note: African cities in italics are not among the 100 largest in 2000, but are mentioned in the text orfigures. Cities with an asterisk are national capitals.

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

across the border in Tanzania that at-tracted 250,000 inhabitants within afew days and became Tanzania’s sec-ond largest city. These spontaneousurban settlements often are plaguedby food shortages and a high inci-dence of sexual violence. While thenumber of small cities is unknown,the UN anticipates that most urban-ites in Africa in 2015 will still reside incenters with less than 500,000 resi-dents, making urban developmentplanning for small cities a top priority.

The urban challenge facing coun-tries of South Asia—including

Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—is ofunparalleled scale (see Figure 9). In-dia, where one-sixth of the world’spopulation resides, is more than 70percent rural, yet by 2030 the urbanpopulation of India is expected to ap-proximate the combined total popula-tions of the United States, Russia, andJapan, or more than 600 million. Eventhough large countries of South Asiaare less urbanized than most Africancountries, they already contain manyof the world’s largest urban agglomera-tions, including Calcutta, Delhi, andMumbai (formerly Bombay) in India,Karachi in Pakistan, and Dhaka inBangladesh—all with estimated popu-lations of at least 11 million in 2000.The UN projects that these large cities,like Jakarta in Indonesia, each will ab-sorb 5 million or more additional resi-dents in the next 15 years. Cities withhistorically more vibrant economiesand good management, such as Cal-cutta, are more likely to make thistransition successfully than cities with-out these qualities, such as Mumbai.17

South Asian countries also containthousands of small- and medium-sizedtowns and cities, where, in fact, about90 percent of the urban populationwill continue to reside in 2015. As inAfrica, the growth of these small ur-ban centers has been fueled less byeconomic dynamism than by high fer-tility levels and by rural poverty thatpropels rural residents to move tocities. Indeed, South Asia’s urbanpopulation maintains an essentially“rural” character, since most of theseurban centers achieved their designa-tion simply because they incorporatedminor administrative functions,served as market towns, or formed ajunction of road or rail networks. Theurban population of South Asia isprojected to reach nearly 1 billion by2030. Transforming this populationinto one that is as economically advanced as, for example, SouthAmerica, and that is linked to the international economy, will be a major challenge for the countries of South Asia.

In most countries of North Africaand the Near East, urban change

14

0 5 10 15 20 25

1965

1990

2015

Population in millions

0.6

1.8

5.1

0.2

1.4

4.3

0.83.4

9.4

1.2

7.7

23.2

1.6

0.3

4.9

Lagos,Nigeria

Addis Ababa,Ethiopia

Dar es Salaam,Tanzania

Kinshasa,Congo*

Maputo,Mozambique

Luanda,Angola

Abidjan,C�te d’Ivoire

0.3

1.5

4.7

0.3

2.2

5.1

Figure 8Population of Selected Large Cities inSub-Saharan Africa, 1965, 1990, and 2015

*Democratic Republic of Congo

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision(2000).

since the 1970s has been related topolitical turmoil and dependence onexports or imports of oil and labor.From 1970 to 1990, net exporters ofoil, such as Kuwait, Libya, Oman,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UnitedArab Emirates, experienced morerapid urban growth than elsewhere inthe world. In some of these countries,the urban growth rate exceeded 10percent a year, largely because of theinflux of international migrant laborfrom poorer, more populous neigh-boring countries such as Egypt, andfrom Southeast Asian countries suchas the Philippines. A glut in the worldoil market reduced labor demand inmost of these countries in the 1990s,which lowered urban growth rates byroughly one-half. Wars have distortedtrends of urban growth in this regionin the past, and could do so in the fu-ture. The Gulf War in the early 1990s,for example, contributed to an aver-age urban population loss of -4.5 per-cent annually in Kuwait between 1990and 1995. At the same time, thelargest cities in nearby countries—Amman in Jordan and Sana’a inYemen, for example—experienced atemporary upward surge in growth aslabor moved out of Kuwait.

Trends in MoreDeveloped RegionsIn almost all more developed coun-tries, the shifting distribution of pop-ulation within urban agglomerations,rather than between urban and ruralareas, is the most significant source of urban population change. TheUnited States and the countries ofWestern Europe illustrate the phe-nomena of counter-urbanization andreconcentration since the 1970s.Counter-urbanization indicates popu-lation loss in a city’s central core andin surrounding suburban rings. Thecity core generally experiences morerapid decline than the rings. Somecountries have recently experiencedreconcentration after a period ofcounter-urbanization, a process by

which population increases in the citycore and closer-in suburbs, with themost rapid increase in the core.18

Decentralization, or the movementof people and jobs away from centralcities toward suburbs of major metro-politan areas, has been the mostprominent feature of urban popula-tion change in the United States sincethe 1960s. In 1950, almost 70 percentof the population of metropolitanareas lived within the boundaries ofcentral cities. By 1990, this figure haddeclined to less than 40 percent.

The flight of more affluent city res-idents to suburbs has been attributedto numerous social, political, and eco-nomic factors. These factors includeracial tension in cities, superior edu-cational and recreational facilities insuburbs, low government investmentin central-city infrastructure and in-dustry, and the construction of high-ways (which facilitated movementbetween suburban homes and central-city jobs).19 Decentralization has mademany U.S. metropolitan areas moresparsely populated. Between 1970 and1990, for instance, metropolitan areas

15

0

400

800

1200

1600

410

868

752

744

288

725

633

749

9958

157

12487

125

180

104

China India Pakistan Indonesia2000 2030 2000 2030 2000 2030 2000 2030

Pop

ulat

ion

in m

illio

ns

Urban

Rural

1,278

1,496

1,014

1,383

156

280212

284

Figure 9Projected Urban and Rural Populations, SelectedAsian Countries, 2000 and 2030

Note: Figures within bars may not add to totals because of rounding.

Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (2000).

16

incorporated more land area almostfour times faster than they addedpopulation in a phenomenon knownas urban sprawl.

Since the 1980s, however, subur-banization has slowed, or even re-versed, in some areas. A boomingnational economy in the 1980s and1990s improved the demographic for-tune of many central cities. Between1980 and 1996, two-thirds of thecountry’s 539 central cities experi-enced population growth, a notablecontrast to years of declining popula-tion in central cities.

Suburbs continue to grow morerapidly than central cities in mostU.S. metropolitan areas, but theirshare of metropolitan growth de-clined from more than 95 percent inthe 1970s to 77 percent between 1980and 1996. Between 1990 and 1996, 14of the country’s largest 30 cities con-tinued to lose residents, but moreslowly than in the past. Central De-troit, for instance, lost more than 30percent of its population between1970 and 1990, but lost less than 3percent in the next six years as its un-employment rate shrank from 17 per-cent in 1992 to 7 percent in 1998.Although some small central citieshave lost significant population num-bers since 1980—a 27 percent loss inGary, Ind., for example—some largerones grew (by 4.4 percent in NewYork City).20

Suburbs, meanwhile, have general-ly become burdened by urban sprawl.Suburban sprawl is characterized by aproliferation of extended low-densitycommercial and residential settle-ments, increased use of private auto-mobiles, outward expansion of newsubdivisions that leapfrog over ruralor undeveloped land, and segregateduse of land according to activities.

Problems that were once associat-ed with central cities—traffic conges-tion, overcrowded schools, and theloss of recreational opportunities andopen space—have emerged even innewer suburbs, motivating somedwellers to move to “exurbs” or therural fringe. Meanwhile, many “inner-ring” suburbs that were developed in

the 1950s and 1960s, such as Euclidand Garfield Heights in Cleveland,and Southfield and Oak Park in De-troit, are experiencing more severeproblems, including crime, job loss,and disinvestments. Such older sub-urbs are losing population in manycities. Between 1980 and 1996, thepopulation of Highland Park, the firstsuburb north of Detroit, declinedfrom 28,000 to less than 20,000.Mekeesport, a suburb of about 30,000southeast of Pittsburgh, lost 25 per-cent of its residents during thesesame years.21

Since at least the 1970s, manycountries in Western Europe, as inthe United States, have experienceddecentralization from their “urbancores,” a statistical unit comparable tothe U.S. central city.22 Some Europeancountries show a reversal of this pat-tern more recently, but others do not.Between 1971 and 1981, for instance,60 percent of urban core areas lostpopulation to surrounding areas inthe Benelux countries (Belgium,Netherlands, and Luxembourg), asdid 78 percent of urban core areas inGermany and 56 percent in Italy. Butthese percentages declined to 40, 35,and 17, respectively, in these coun-tries between 1981 and 1991.

In the United Kingdom, 89 per-cent of urban core areas lost popu-lation between 1981 and 1991,continuing a decline that began asearly as the 1960s in cities such as Liverpool, London, and Manchester.Indeed, the UN estimates that centralLondon lost about 850,000 residentsduring the 1970s. Some analysts arguethat land use regulation in the UnitedKingdom substantially increased ur-ban land costs and produced a formof “concentrated deconcentration” by generating detached high-density“exurbs.”23

Most inner cities of Western Eu-rope have not experienced the sameextent of concentrated poverty ashave U.S. cities in recent decades.Most European countries, unlike theUnited States, concentrate fiscal re-sources for cities in the hands of na-tional rather than local governments,

Suburbs have become burdened by

urban sprawl.

17

which may be better able to maintaininfrastructure, social service provi-sion, and other essential features inthe core areas, even after wealthierresidents move out to the suburbs.

Inner-city poverty in Europe may increase in the coming years,however. The collapse of the EasternEuropean bloc, the formation of theEuropean Union, labor immigration,and low fertility among Europeansare making Europe’s cities more cul-turally heterogeneous than ever.Some ethnic groups may get left be-hind in the race for jobs and housing,exacerbating competition amonggroups and increasing poverty.

Japan exemplifies the most mod-ern form of urban spatial change inthe world, similar to Western Ger-many and to the urban Northeast cor-ridor of the United States. There hasbeen a long-standing proposal,pushed ahead informally by marketforces, to rearrange how Japan’s capi-tal city functions. This involves linkingTokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya by meansof a high-speed train and advancedtelecommunications. The emergingstructure is a “megalopolis” that en-compasses more than 40 million resi-dents and is managed by highlycentralized governing bodies. Thisprocess is creating a new form of me-tropolis that is very different from theconcentric pattern characterizing theoften haphazard development oflarge cities in other more developedcountries.24

Urban DemographicsPolicymakers and planners need to know how peoples’ demographicbehavior—childbearing, moving, dy-ing—makes urban populations grow.Such knowledge allows them to devel-op and implement policies meant toinfluence fertility, mortality, and mi-gration, with the goal of achieving adesired population size. Understand-ing whether urban populations aregrowing more from births or in-mi-

grants, for instance, helps plannersanticipate the needs of children andadults in urban and rural areas withrespect to education, housing, em-ployment, and other services.

Closely related to these goalsare requirements for information on the demographic characteristics of urban populations, particularlytheir sex, age, and household struc-tures, to provide necessary social services such as schooling, healthcare, and shelter. The demographicstructure of urban populations alsoindicates the demand for jobs nowand in the future.

Demographic Sourcesof GrowthUrban populations grow as a result ofnatural increase (when birth rates ex-ceed death rates), net in-migration(when more people move in thanout), and sometimes because of thereclassification of urban boundaries toencompass formerly rural populationsettlements. The contribution of natu-ral increase, net migration, and reclas-sification of boundaries to urban

Rural women from a Ghanian village walkfour days to take produce to market. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most ruralregion, but urban growth is accelerating.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

18

growth in recent decades can be cal-culated for about one-fourth of theless developed countries.25

Based on the experience of thesecountries, an estimated 60 percent ofurban growth in less developed coun-tries (excluding China) between 1960and 1990 was attributable to naturalincrease and 40 percent to in-migra-tion from rural areas and the expan-sion of urban boundaries. As fertilitylevels decline and economic develop-ment increases, however, migrationapparently assumes a greater role indetermining the pace of urbangrowth. In Africa, for example, wherefertility levels remain high andeconomies are weak, natural increasefueled 75 percent of urban growth,compared with 51 percent in Asia,where most countries have lower fer-tility levels and stronger economies.

In China, which has experiencedrapid economic growth in recentdecades, only 28 percent of urbangrowth in the 1980s resulted fromnatural increase. Socioeconomic fac-tors, including a shortage of housingand high levels of female labor forceparticipation in China’s cities andtowns, have contributed to lower ur-ban than rural fertility. China’s one-child-policy has been more strictlyenforced in urban than in rural areas,which also kept urban birth rates low-er than rural rates. The higher ruralfertility contributes to urban growthby adding to the large volume of po-tential rural migrants in this popu-lous, and still largely rural, country.

The demographic dynamics under-lying urban growth are extremelycomplex, and analyses based on cen-sus data often miss such importantfactors as circular migration, and less direct or long-term effects of migration. Throughout SoutheastAsia and sub-Saharan Africa, and inselected countries elsewhere, millionsof people move back and forth be-tween urban and rural places to takeadvantage of income-earning oppor-tunities—a phenomenon known ascircular migration. These temporarymigrants, who are more commonlymen in Africa and women in many

countries of Asia and Latin America,often fill niches in particular occupa-tions in the manufacturing and serv-ice sectors. They often work inconstruction in southern China, forexample, and domestic service incountries of Latin America.26 Circularmigration is often tied to seasonalpatterns or agricultural cycles.

Temporary migrants can causelarge swings in population size. Insome cities of China, for instance,temporary migrants are estimated to count for between one-fifth andone-third of the total population.27

In Thailand, thousands of peoplemove to Bangkok from the agri-cultural north and northeast areasduring the dry season when there are fewer jobs in these regions, andreturn during the wet season whenwork is more plentiful. In the early1990s, Bangkok’s population ofroughly 8 million was about 10 percent larger during the months of the dry season in north and north-eastern Thailand than during the wet season.28 In many countries, suchtemporary migrants are counted asrural residents if they spend most of the year in rural areas, if they have not lived in an urban area longenough to qualify as urban residents,or for other reasons. Official statisticsthus tend to underestimate the actualcontribution of migration to urbangrowth.

Rural migrants also contribute to urban growth when they have children and add to natural increase.Net in-migration to urban areas canultimately depress urban growth, how-ever, once the national level of urban-ization is relatively high and there arefewer potential migrants to movefrom rural to urban areas than in the opposite direction.29

These difficulties in accuratelymeasuring the effects of fertility levels and migration patterns on urban growth suggest that policies to modify urban or city growth bycontrolling fertility or in-migrationmust be implemented with caution,and in consideration of their long-term consequences.

Temporarymigrants can

cause largeswings in

populationsize.

19

Demographic Characteristics of Urban PopulationsInformation on the demographic characteristics of urban populationsthroughout the less developed worldhas become widely available since1990, thanks to Demographic andHealth Surveys (DHS) sponsored bythe U.S. Agency for International De-velopment. This new information onpopulation sex compositions, age pro-files, household structures, and othercharacteristics provides valuable in-sights into the special needs of urbanpopulations relative to rural popula-tions and the potential consequencesof the urban and rural differences forless developed countries and theircities.

Rural-to-urban migration is a selec-tive process; people with certain char-acteristics are more likely to movethan people with other characteristics.In many less developed countries theselectivity of migration distorts the sexratio—the number of males per 100females—in both destination and ori-gin areas depending on whether rural-to-urban migrants are predominantlymale or female. Sex selectivity of rural-urban migration may change overtime as urban job opportunities forwomen increase or decrease relativeto opportunities for men. Familynorms regarding the migration ofwomen can also change and influencethe sex ratio of migration flows.

If migration were not sex-selective—if men were as likely to migrate aswomen—sex ratios would be aboutthe same in urban and rural areas ofa country. With no significant migra-tion or unusual circumstances (suchas high levels of female infanticide orunderreporting of female householdmembers), the overall sex ratio is usu-ally slightly below 100 because womengenerally outlive men and outnumberthem in older ages.

Sex ratios differ between urbanand rural areas in many parts of theworld (see Table 1). Compared withrural populations, urban populationsin sub-Saharan Africa are heavilyskewed toward men because there are

more job opportunities available tomen in urban areas, while womenperform much of the agricultural la-bor in rural areas. Also, people insome sub-Saharan countries follow acenturies-old cultural dictate thatyoung men should leave the villagewhen they reach a certain age.30 Somedemographers cite the excess ofmales in African cities as the drivingforce behind the HIV/AIDS epidemicin the region.31

In Latin America and theCaribbean, Southeast Asia, and lessdeveloped countries of the former Soviet Union, urban populations in-clude a higher number of womenthan men, and thus a lower sex ratio.In Latin America, this imbalance re-sults from greater urban job opportu-nities in domestic and other servicesfor women than men. In SoutheastAsia, the lower sex ratios result fromthe concentration in urban areas ofexport-oriented manufacturing jobsthat use low-skilled and low-wage fe-male assembly workers. Young femalelaborers in urban areas of Latin Amer-ica and Southeast Asia often sendmoney back to their families in ruralareas. These women also tend to suf-fer from a high prevalence of sexualabuse. In India and Pakistan, sex ra-tios indicate more men than womenin both rural and urban areas. These

Table 1Sex Ratio of Urban and Rural Populations,Selected Countries, 1990 to 1998

Sex ratio (males per 100 females)Region Country/year Urban Rural

North Africa Morocco, 1992 96.7 94.2Sub-Saharan Africa Burkina Faso, 1992-93 104.9 92.3

Kenya, 1998 107.9 93.2Malawi, 1996 106.3 89.2

South Asia India, 1992-93 107.3 103.5Pakistan, 1990-91 105.5 109.6

Southeast Asia Philippines, 1998 94.4 103.3Near East Jordan, 1997 102.3 104.1Central Asia Uzbekistan, 1996 94.5 104.1Caribbean Dominican Rep., 1991 87.2 113.4Central America Guatemala, 1995 91.8 96.3South America Brazil, 1996 91.6 105.1

Source: Macro International, Inc., Demographic and Health Surveys.

20

unusually high ratios reflect culturalpreferences for sons that sometimeslead families to fail to report femalehousehold members, to neglect thehealth of daughters (causing prema-ture deaths), to abort female fetuses,or even to promulgate female infanticide.32

The reasons behind the relativelylow sex ratio in urban areas of the former Soviet republics in CentralAsia are unknown, but the largernumber of women may reflect the unusually high mortality rates formiddle-aged men found in Russia,Ukraine, and other countries of theformer Soviet Union.

In general, urban populationsthroughout the less developed worldhave smaller proportions of the veryyoung and the very old than ruralpopulations. In Ghana, for example,about 15 percent of the urban popu-lation was under age 5 in the 1990s,compared with nearly 19 percent ofthe rural population (see Table 2).The smaller share of the young andelderly in urban populations can belargely attributed to lower urban thanrural fertility.33

These age differences also reflectthe high proportion of young adultsamong rural-urban migrants. Because

most people move to take advantageof economic opportunities, and be-cause younger adults find it easier tomove than older adults, youngerworking-age people usually make up alarge share of migrants. Fertility de-clines and migration usually push upthe working-age share of the urbanpopulation. The number of personsages 15 to 64 is usually 5 percent to10 percent greater in urban than inrural areas of less developed coun-tries, which creates greater demandfor jobs in towns and cities. Theprime working ages are also theprime childbearing ages, and thelarge percentage of young adults inurban areas means a similarly largeneed for reproductive health, familyplanning, and education services. Inthe many countries where fertility levels remain high and mortality hasdeclined, the disproportionate con-centration of urban populations inchildbearing ages helps ensure con-tinued growth regardless of the paceof in-migration.

Although fertility is lower in urbanthan in rural areas, and many mi-grants are separated from their ex-tended families, urban householdsare not significantly smaller than ru-ral households in most developed re-gions (see Table 3). Indeed, urbanpopulations have a higher mean num-ber of household members than dorural populations in some countries.Although urban life is thought to bemore conducive to nuclear familyhouseholds and to the breakdown ofextended family living arrangements,housing shortages—exacerbated insome cities by a large volume of tem-porary migrants—and high land costsnear the central business districts of-ten result in large households.

In many poor countries, such asthose in sub-Saharan Africa, kinshipnetworks enable urban migrants tolive with distant relatives, even thoughdwelling units become extremelycrowded, taxing the supply of waterand other household infrastructuresand eliminating privacy.34 Householdsin less developed regions are likely toremain large in cities where there is

Women in Bangalore, India, attend classes to improve their job choices. Thesex ratio of rural-to-urban migrants can vary depending on whether thereare more jobs for women or men in an urban area.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

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rapid population growth but minimaleconomic growth because populationgrowth will continue to outstrip thehousing supply.

Urban Challengesof Less DevelopedCountriesUrban population change is takingdifferent forms throughout the worldand has different potential conse-quences for less and more developedcountries. But poverty is one of themost critical issues facing urban areasin all countries. Successful manage-ment of urban areas—including managing the public health, the envi-ronment, political stability, and publicsafety for diverse populations—will depend in part on whether urbanpoverty is reduced. While some urbanpoverty originates in rural areas and is transported to towns and cities viarural-urban migration, much of it isgrounded in urban life and is passeddown from generation to generationof urban residents.

Urban PovertyIn the near future it is plausible thatmost of the world’s poor people willlive in urban areas. In the more devel-oped world, poverty is already concen-trated in urban areas, despite highermedian incomes in urban than rurallocales. This situation exists in part be-cause more than 75 percent of thepopulation in more developed coun-tries lives in urban areas.

Assessment of urban poverty in lessdeveloped countries is plagued by con-ceptual and measurement problems.Some scholars consider the distinctionbetween “urban” and “rural” povertyas artificial given the close linkages between rural and urban areas in low-income countries. Seasonal labor mi-gration moves people back and forthbetween city and countryside, while re-mittances from rural migrants workingin urban areas to their families trans-fer income from one locale to the oth-

er (see Box 3, page 22).35 Estimates ofurban poverty levels also depend onwhether poverty is defined by an in-come threshold (as the World Bankdoes), by whether basic human needsare met, or by self-identification(through which people identify them-selves as poor or not poor). The defi-nition of poverty is likely to bedifferent for more and less developedcountries. In more developed coun-tries, for example, virtually all urban

Table 2Percent of Population Under Age 5 and Age 65 orOlder in Urban and Rural Areas, Selected Countries,1992 to 1998

AgesUnder age 5 65 or older

Region Country/year Urban Rural Urban Rural

North Africa Egypt, 1995 11.1 14.1 3.6 3.9Sub-Saharan Africa Ghana, 1998 11.7 16.1 4.1 5.1

Benin, 1996 15.7 19.3 3.3 4.8Namibia, 1992 13.4 17.6 4.0 7.1

South Asia Bangladesh, 1996-97 10.2 13.2 2.8 4.0Nepal, 1996 12.2 16.3 3.8 3.8

Southeast Asia Indonesia, 1997 9.9 11.2 4.3 4.8Near East Yemen, 1997 14.8 16.9 3.2 4.1Central Asia Kazakstan, 1995 7.2 11.9 8.3 5.6Caribbean Haiti, 1994-95 12.0 16.0 3.7 6.2Central America Nicaragua, 1998 12.3 16.3 4.2 3.7South America Bolivia, 1998 12.3 16.1 4.7 7.1

Source: Macro International, Inc., Demographic and Health Surveys.

Table 3Average Household Size in Urban and Rural Areas,Selected Countries, 1990 to 1998

Region Country/year Urban Rural

North Africa Egypt, 1995 4.6 6.0Sub-Saharan Africa Central African Rep., 1994-95 5.8 4.4

Niger, 1998 6.2 5.8Zambia, 1995-96 5.7 5.2

South Asia Bangladesh, 1996-97 5.3 5.3Pakistan, 1990-91 7.2 6.5

Near East Yemen, 1997 7.2 6.9Central Asia Kazakstan, 1995 3.1 4.7Caribbean Dominican Rep., 1991 4.5 4.8Central America Nicaragua, 1998 5.3 5.9South America Peru, 1994 5.3 5.2

Source: Macro International, Inc., Demographic and Health Surveys.

Mean number of household members

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Box 3Urban Poverty Projects: Global and Local InitiativesUntil the 1990s, urban poverty reduction programsof major international development organizationshad limited success. The World Bank launched thelargest development programs in less developedcountries in the past quarter century. The Bank in-creased its annual funding for alleviating urbanpoverty from $10 million in 1972 to more than $2billion in 1988. Sixty percent of the Bank’s urbanlending during this period went to shelter opera-tions or slum upgrading projects. These initiativesare mainly housing projects in which people areprovided with land for building homes and aid forimproving neighborhood infrastructure such as wa-ter and sewerage systems. Both types of projects relyheavily on self-help schemes.

The World Bank’s urban poverty projects in the1970s and 1980s tended to benefit people in themiddle rather than the lower part of the urban in-come distribution, and they had little influence onthe overall urban policies of recipient countries. Inthe 1990s, the Bank’s Urban Management Programattempted to broaden its impact on urban povertyby striving to reach the poorest of the poor in citiesand, at the same time, working toward better urbanadministration, more efficient land markets, a clean-er environment, and other conditions that indirectlyaffect the urban poor.

In the late 1990s, the Bank launched two notableurban poverty projects in collaboration with theUnited Nations Center for Human Settlements(UNCHS) and other UN bodies, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local au-thorities. The two projects are Cities Without Slumsand The Cities Alliance. Cities Without Slums aimsby 2020 to improve the lives of 100 million slumdwellers throughout the less developed world. Theproject upgrades living conditions in slum neighbor-hoods through such means as supporting small-scaleenterprises and targeting health care and education-al opportunities to the poor.

The Cities Alliance project focuses on policychanges that would improve living conditions of the urban poor. The program, for example, assistslocal authorities in outlining viable financing andinvestment plans, supports city-based consensus-building among diverse constituencies, and enablescities to share lessons learned in formulating andimplementing development strategies. The cities,goals, and urban sectors (such as departments ofplanning, health, or education) of these projects are sometimes chosen by local and national authori-ties, other times by international agencies, but proj-ect implementation involves close coordination

among many levels of government and other privateand public organizations.

Local urban poverty-reduction projects led bycommunity-based organizations and small NGOs areproviding valuable lessons for major donor agen-cies. They emphasize, for example, the importanceof empowering low-income households in decision-making. The National Slum Dwellers Federation inMumbai India, (formerly Bombay), and the SouthAfrican Homeless People’s Federation in CapeTown, for example, have savings and credit groupsof low-income people, mainly women, that enablethem to fund their own housing. Group membersdevelop their own house designs—first as drawings,then cardboard models, then life-size models.

Communities are encouraged to find creativeways to cut costs. Members of the Orangi Pilot Pro-ject in a slum of Karachi, Pakistan, and of the BarrioSan Jorge program in Buenos Aires, Argentina, keptdown the construction costs of sewers and drains byorganizing and managing the construction them-selves. The Casa Melhor and Multirão programs inFortaleza, Brazil, organized low-income householdsinto a formal people’s movement that could chan-nel concerns to donor organizations.

Antipoverty programs of international agenciestypically operate under cost constraints, a need toshow immediate benefits, complex bureaucraticstructures, and government inertia or resistance.Given such conditions, an expansion of innovativecommunity-led programs will be necessary to helpthe growing numbers of urban poor in less devel-oped countries in coming years. Funding from gov-ernments and external donors is required to startmany poverty alleviation projects, but communityself-financing through credit, cost recovery, and other schemes has proved to be a viable approach.

ReferencesWorld Bank, The Cities Alliance: A Global Partnership Designedto Achieve the Promise of Well-Managed Cities. Accessed onlineat: www.worldbank.org/html/ fpd/urban/citiesallience/citiesall.htm, on March 13, 2000; J. Anzorena, J. Bolnick, S.Boonyabancha, Y. Cabannes, A. Hardoy, A. Hasan, C. Levy,D. Mitlin, D. Murphy, S. Patel, M. Saborido, D. Satterth-waite, and A. Stein, “Reducing Urban Poverty: SomeLessons from Experience,” Environment and Urbanization10, no. 1 (April 1998): 167-86; Aktar A. Badshah, Our Ur-ban Future: New Paradigms for Equity and Sustainability (Lon-don: Zed Books, 1996); and Gavin A. Jones and Peter M.Ward, “The World Bank’s New Urban Management Pro-gramme—Paradigm Shift or Policy Continuity?” Habitat International 18, no. 3 (1994).

23

residents have access to the most basicamenities, such as safe drinking water,and poverty is defined in more rela-tive terms.

Even by conservative standards, ur-ban poverty in the less developedworld is high and is growing rapidly.The World Bank estimated that in1985 there were 330 million urbanpoor people in the less developedcountries, using an income cut-off ofUS$370 per year. The Bank estimatesthat in 1994 roughly 450 million ur-ban dwellers—or 25 percent of theless developed world’s 1994 urbanpopulation—lacked access even to thesimplest latrines. The United NationsPopulation Fund concluded in 1996that 28 percent of urbanites in lessdeveloped countries were living inpoverty, including 41 percent in sub-Saharan Africa alone.36

Yet these estimates may be too low(see Box 4, page 24). The WorldHealth Organization (WHO) and theUN Center for Human Settlementshave endorsed a 1990 estimate basedon dozens of national and city studiesthat 600 million urban dwellers—or42 percent of the 1990 urban popula-tion—live in “life and health threaten-ing” homes or neighborhoods.37

Urban poverty appears to be in-creasing in less developed countries.In Latin America, for example, urbanareas contained 36 percent of that re-gion’s poor in 1970, but 60 percent in1990, even though the pace of urban-ization was considerably slower dur-ing this period. The World Bank nowconcedes as well that by 2025, the ma-jority of the world’s urban populationwill be living in poverty.38

Because they lack reliable incomedata from many poor countries, de-mographers frequently use proxy in-dicators of income, such as access tobasic amenities including water, shel-ter, and electricity, to measure pover-ty.39 Demographic and Health Surveysconducted in the 1990s reveal enor-mous variation among countries andregions, for instance, in the availabili-ty of piped drinking water in urbandwellings (see Table 4, page 25). Insub-Saharan Africa, urban residents in

Namibia are comparatively well off,but less than 20 percent of urbanhouseholds have piped drinking waterin many other countries of the region,underscoring the widespread urbanpoverty. In some countries of Southand Southeast Asia most urban house-holds do not have immediate access todrinking water. By contrast, at least 50percent of urban households havepiped water in many countries of theNear East/North Africa, the formerSoviet republics in Central Asia, andmost countries of Latin America andthe Caribbean.

Public and ReproductiveHealthIn most less developed countries, lev-els of mortality and disease are lowerin urban than in rural areas. General-ly, life expectancies began to increasein urban centers after World War IIwith the introduction of modernhealth services and sanitation systemsin cities. In rural areas, better healthand longer life are more recent devel-opments and stem from mass immu-nization programs, improved accessto preventive and curative healthtreatment, and other interventions ofgovernments and international organ-izations since the 1970s.

The urban health advantage, however, masks enormous disparitiesbetween the urban poor and theirmore affluent neighbors. A study in Bangladesh in 1990, for example,found that in three low-income ur-ban areas between 95 and 152 in-fants per 1,000 live births diedbefore the age of 1; in a middle-classarea, 32 of 1,000 births died. Infantmortality in the urban slums, in fact,was higher than in rural Bangladesh.In Porto Alegre, Brazil, the infantmortality rate in the early 1990s var-ied from more than 60 deaths per1,000 live births in the city’s poorestdistricts to less than 5 in the wealthi-est. Research in Quito, Ecuador, un-covered infant mortality rates of 129within families of manual workers insquatter settlements and 5 in upper-class districts.40

Innovative community-ledprograms will benecessary to helpthe urban poor.

24

Diseases of poverty, such as malnu-trition, may be increasing in urban areas. A 1999 study of the 16 coun-tries on the WHO Global Database onChild Growth and Malnutrition foundthat the number of underweight chil-dren was increasing at a faster rate inurban areas than in rural areas.41

Yet it is not just the poor who experience health deprivations in ur-ban areas. The WHO emphasizes thatall urban dwellers in less developedcountries, unlike rural residents, areexposed to the “double burden of dis-

ease.” The first burden is traditionalscourges associated with living in apoor country, such as malnutrition,measles, and malaria. The second bur-den is afflictions resulting from newlymodernizing societies, such as obesity,cancer, and road accidents.42 More re-cently, a third dimension has beenadded: the deterioration of mentalhealth and increased rates of psychi-atric disorders and deviant behaviorthat are associated with degraded liv-ing conditions, overcrowding, andrapid social and cultural change in ur-

The United Nations (UN) hasconvened two global conferenceson human settlements: Habitat Iin Vancouver, Canada, in 1976,and Habitat II in Istanbul, Turkey,in 1996. The conferences repre-sent the evolution of thoughtamong governments and interna-tional development agencies re-garding the less developed world’ssettlement problems. The focusshifted from rural areas in the1970s to urban places in the1990s. Indeed, Habitat II was officially dubbed “The City Sum-mit” by its organizer, the UN Center for Human Settlements.The conferences also illustrate the reorientation of strategy insolving local settlement problems,from a government-led approachto the current perspective of partnerships among the publicand private sectors and local communities.

The 1976 Vancouver Declara-tion on Human Settlements notedthat “it is of paramount impor-tance that national and interna-tional efforts give priority toimproving the rural habitat.” Thisemphasis stemmed from “ruralbackwardness which compels alarge majority of mankind to liveat the lowest standards of living,”and “rural dispersion exemplifiedby small scattered settlements andisolated homesteads which inhibit

the provision of infrastructure and services.”

Twenty years later, when a largemajority of people no longer livedin rural areas, an overriding themeof Habitat II was “sustainable hu-man settlements development inan urbanizing world.” Reachingpeople in isolated homesteads wasno longer the top priority. The Istanbul Declaration on HumanSettlements noted a “tendency to-wards excessive population con-centration” in cities and urgedgovernments to “minimize rural-to-urban migration.” The introduc-tion to the Habitat II Agenda byBoutros Boutros-Ghali, then UNSecretary-General, put govern-ments’ consensus of spatial con-cerns clearly: “The mass exodus tocities has led to sharpened urbanpoverty, scarcity of housing and ba-sic services, unemployment andunderemployment, ethnic tensionsand violence, substance abuse,crime and social disintegration.”

The 1976 declaration statedthat “adequate shelter and serv-ices are a basic human right whichplaces an obligation on Govern-ments to ensure their attainmentby all people, beginning with di-rect assistance to the least advan-taged.” The 1996 declaration,while reaffirming “a right to ade-quate housing,” also recognizedthe “more than one billion people

living in absolute poverty.” The re-liance on government is now con-sidered a flawed approach to meetbasic needs, particularly in citieswhere the costs of amenities aremuch higher than in rural areas.Rather, the 1996 conference com-mitted to expanding “the supplyof affordable housing by enablingmarkets to perform efficiently.”This involves increased govern-ment cooperation with and mobi-lization of resources from theprivate sector, labor unions, non-governmental organizations, andother civil society organizations,including community associations.

The hope is that the inclusiveapproach to urban managementadvocated at Habitat II, ratherthan the traditional top-down ap-proach dominated by govern-ment, will allow cities in thefuture to be “places where humanbeings lead fulfilling lives in digni-ty, good health, safety, happinessand hope.”

ReferencesUnited Nations, Habitat Agenda and Is-tanbul Declaration: Second United NationsConference on Human Settlements, Istan-bul, Turkey, 3-14 June 1996 (New York:United Nations, 1996); and UnitedNations, Report of Habitat: United Na-tions Conference on Human Settlements.Vancouver, 31 May–11 June, 1976 (NewYork: United Nations, 1976).

Box 4The UN Conferences on Human Settlements: 1976 and 1996

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ban areas. Depression is projected tobecome the leading disease burden inless developed countries by 2020,when more than one-half of the re-gion will be urban.43

Cities of less developed countriesare also prime locations of newlyemerging killers, notably HIV/AIDS.In sub-Saharan Africa, where about 80percent of all AIDS deaths have oc-curred, HIV infection is much higherin cities than smaller areas, in someplaces by a factor of four.44 Sexualnorms are often more permissive inurban centers than in the country-side, which can facilitate transmissionof the disease. The preponderance ofsingle men in temporary urban mi-gration in some areas, such as sub-Sa-haran Africa, also leads to widespreadprostitution and multiple sex part-ners, which are the greatest risk fac-tors in the spread of HIV/AIDS.45 InAsia, HIV/AIDS began to spread inthe early 1990s, when the largestcountries—China, India, Indonesia,and Pakistan—were just beginning to urbanize rapidly. Urbanizationcould accelerate the HIV/AIDS epi-demic in these countries unless thepractice of safe sex becomes morewidespread.

Given these conditions and trends,the traditional survival advantage ofurban compared with rural residentsin less developed countries may beginto diminish. Urban areas also hadhigher death rates than rural areasduring the boom period of urbangrowth of many countries in Europeand North America: 1875 to 1900. Inthe United States in 1900, for in-stance, for every 1,000 children born,177 died before age 5 in rural areas,compared with 215 in urban areas ingeneral, and 237 in New York City inparticular.46 In Prussia in 1875, the infant mortality rate was 190 in ruralareas and 240 in urban areas. Highlevels of population density also led tohigh levels of tuberculosis in urban areas of Europe and the United Statesin the late 19th century.47 The urbanhealth services and sanitary infrastruc-ture were not able to keep up with thedemand generated by in-migration.

Table 4 Urban Households With Piped Water, Less DevelopedCountries by Region, 1990s

Country, year Percent withof survey piped water

Sub-Saharan AfricaNamibia, 1992 82 Senegal, 1997 64 Kenya, 1998 58 Côte d’Ivoire, 1998-99 51 Zambia, 1995-96 47 Eritrea, 1995 41 Ghana, 1998 41 Tanzania, 1996 32 Niger, 1998 27 Burkina Faso, 1993 26Rwanda, 1992 26 Mozambique, 1997 23 Cameroon, 1998 20 Benin, 1996 19 Madagascar, 1997 18 Nigeria, 1990 17 Uganda, 1995 13 Malawi, 1996 12 Togo, 1998 12 Guinea, 1999 10 Central African Republic, 1994-95 5

Near East/North AfricaJordan, 1997 97 Egypt, 1995 92 Morocco, 1995 86 Yemen, 1997 66

AsiaKazakstan, 1995 91 Kyrgz Republic, 1997 87 Uzbekistan, 1996 87 Pakistan, 1990-91 48Philippines, 1998 47 Nepal, 1996 46 Bangladesh, 1996-97 32 Indonesia, 1997 29

Latin America/CaribbeanBrazil, 1996 81 Paraguay, 1998 75 Peru, 1996 72 Nicaragua, 1998 70 Dominican Republic, 1996 50 Bolivia, 1998 47 Haiti, 1998 29

Note: The percentages refer to households with drinking waterpiped into the residence.

Source: Macro International, Inc., Demographic andHealth Surveys.

26

Urban reproductive health will be-come a more important policy issue inthe future. Based on UN projectionsof urbanization and population agestructure, there will be more womenin their peak childbearing years of 15to 39 in urban than rural places be-tween 2015 and 2020, in part becauseof migration of young women fromrural areas. In urban areas, the pro-portion of women who are ages 15 to39 typically exceeds 40 percent, high-er than in rural areas (see Table 5).

Urban women generally want fewerchildren than rural women, but theywill need access to family planningservices to be able to limit the numberof children they have.

To avoid mortality increases in urban areas, alleviate current urbanhealth problems, and meet the projected need for greater reproduc-tive health care, the governments of less developed countries maychoose to invest more heavily in urban health programs in general.

In 1985, the World Health Orga-nization (WHO) launched the“Healthy Cities” project in 11 Eu-ropean cities as part of its move-ment to achieve “Health for All”by the year 2000. By 1998, theproject had extended to morethan 550 cities throughout Europe, and more than 1,000cities worldwide were applyingprinciples of the movement. Bynetworking via the Internet, con-ferences, publications, and visits,successful approaches of one cityare shared with hundreds of oth-ers. Healthy City projects have led to healthy cities, and lessonslearned from the initiative prom-ise to sustain and improve urbanhealth in cities throughout theworld.

Healthy City projects seek toput health at the forefront of theagenda of decisionmakers, tobuild a strong lobby for publichealth at the local level, and todevelop a local, participatory ap-proach for dealing with healthand environmental problems. A“healthy city” is defined in termsof process and outcome ratherthan a specific level of health. Ahealthy city is one that is con-scious of health and is striving toimprove it, which means that anycity could be part of the healthycities movement.

Health problems of cities vary,consequently different approaches

have been applied. Guided by re-search, authorities in Copen-hagen, Denmark, transformedtheir city’s health policy from onetargeting specific medical objec-tives, such as altering behaviors ofsmoking, drinking, and unhealthydiets, to a policy that addressed in-dividuals’ social problems, such asfeelings of loneliness, neglect, anduselessness. Practices in othermore developed countries includeinsulating residential high-risebuildings in Sheffield, England; alleviating pollution in Krakowand Bialystok in Poland; and regu-lating downtown traffic to makecities in Italy more “child-friendly.”

In 1995, a Healthy City projectbegan in Fayoum, a group ofpacked villages containing 2 mil-lion inhabitants approximately 90kilometers from Cairo, Egypt. Thepolicy approach was initiated at aworkshop where local electedleaders articulated their percep-tions of health problems in thearea. Research was then conduct-ed, collecting existing data relat-ed to the city, interviewinghospital and health center staffand leaders of women’s groupsthrough questionnaires and focusgroups, and analyzing hospitalrecords. Based on the results,project personnel identified sever-al priority issues. A 1995-1996plan of action was drawn up thatfocused on two issues: healthy

schools and on-site sanitation. A1996-1997 plan of action empha-sized four issues: health educa-tion, water and waste water,environmental sanitation, and in-come generation. Working groupswere created in the community toaddress each of these issues.

Fayoum is one of hundreds ofhealthy city initiatives recentlypursued in less developed coun-tries. Public health and policy spe-cialists have learned that thesuccess of these efforts in the fu-ture will require good governanceat the local level. Among the keysto success are involving communi-ty stakeholders in identifying andaddressing their city’s healthproblems, collaboration amongdifferent sectors of local govern-ment, and getting local leaders totake responsibility for raisingfunds to implement programs.

ReferencesWorld Health Organization, About theWHO Healthy Cities Project. Accessedonline at: www.rulimburg.nl/~who-city/hcp-info.htm, on April 12, 2000;Trudy Harpham, Ilona Blue, Edmun-do Werna, and Greg Goldstein, “FromHealthy City Projects to HealthyCities” Environment and Urbanization11, no. 1 (April 1999): 27-52; and Marina Kenzer, “Healthy Cities: AGuide to the Literature,” Environmentand Urbanization 11, no. 1 (April1999): 201–20.

Box 5The Healthy Cities Movement

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Such investment would involve in-creasing the national budget for the health sector, allocating publichealth resources for urban centers according to their population growth,and maintaining adequate urban water and sewerage systems.

Such a broad response to urbanhealth conditions, however, may beconstrained by insufficient economicresources and by a widespread per-ception that urban areas are gettingmore than their fair share of govern-ment resources. Strategies to pro-mote “health equity” by reducinghealth inequalities within cities or between cities and other areas havegained favor among internationalhealth organizations.48 Reform of theurban health sector’s organization,management, and funding, involvingsuch measures as health insurance,privatization, decentralization, anduser fees, has improved health equityin many countries (see Box 5).

Natural Disasters and Environmental HazardsThe concentration of people in citiescan exact a heavy death toll from nat-ural disasters, as illustrated by Hurri-cane Mitch, which destroyed much of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and otherCentral American cities in 1998, andby major earthquakes near Taipei,Taiwan, and Istanbul, Turkey, in1999. Many cities of less developedcountries are especially vulnerable to flooding and storm damage because they were established incoastal areas, along routes most suitable for trading.

Invariably, natural disasters incities kill or injure members of low-income groups disproportionately because the poor often live in unsafehousing on land susceptible to flood-ing or landslides. The loss of homes,possessions, and often livelihood be-cause of a natural disaster often leadsto further impoverishment.

Motor vehicles are a less sensa-tional yet more significant environ-mental threat to urban residents.Vehicle fleet size in less developed

countries has been growing expo-nentially.49 By 2020, traffic accidentsin urban areas are projected to bethe third largest cause of death and disability in the world, ahead of war and infectious diseases, includ-ing HIV/AIDS.50 The main victims of crashes are pedestrians, not motorists.

Motor vehicles also contribute to air pollution in cities, which is amajor cause of respiratory diseases.Levels of air pollution, particularly inthe big cities of East and SoutheastAsia, are so high as to have a markedimpact on human health and pro-ductivity. A UN study concluded that13 of the 15 cities with the worst airpollution in the world are in Asia.Levels of smoke and dust emittedfrom leaded gasoline and coal burn-ing in Beijing and Shanghai in Chinaare often five times the levels in mostEuropean and North American ur-ban areas.

Children often suffer the greatesthealth risk from environmental pol-lution. Lead levels in Shanghai andBangkok are already high enough toimpair the mental development ofchildren.51 The World Bank estimatesthat lead exposure causes up to halfa million cases of hypertension a yearin Bangkok, and that more than 800infants die annually in Cairo becausetheir mothers had been exposed tolead.52 A ban on the sale of leadedgasoline in Beijing and some otherChinese cities at the beginning of1998 may gradually improve environ-

Table 5Percent of Women Ages 15 to 39 in Urban and RuralAreas, Selected Countries, 1990s

Percent of women ages 15 to 39 RatioCountry, year Urban Rural Urban : rural

Bangladesh, 1996-97 48 41 1:18Haiti, 1994-95 46 34 1:36Indonesia, 1997 47 41 1:16Kenya, 1998 53 35 1:53Nicaragua, 1996 42 36 1:17Yemen, 1997 41 35 1:17

Source: Macro International, Inc., Demographic and Health Surveys.

28

mental health in urban China overthe next generation.

Urbanization’s effect on the global environment is also notewor-thy. Large, modernizing cities are often referred to as “heat centers”and blamed for contributing to thedestruction of the world’s ozone lay-er. While motor vehicles are the pri-mary cause of pollution in cities,increased demand for energy to runair conditioning and electrical appli-ances is contributing to pollution inmany cities. Producing the energy re-quired to run modern urban systemsoften involves burning fossil fuels,which releases such greenhouse gasesas carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide,and nitrogen oxides. These emissionslead to global warming, which cancause climate change, rising sea-lev-els, changes in vegetation, and severeweather events. Oxides of sulfur andnitrogen emitted to the atmospherefrom cities have led to acid rain that have killed lakes and forestsin North America and Northern Europe.

Solutions to these environmentaldangers—as well as to problems that confront many cities, such as in-dustrial pollution and seweragewaste—are well known but requirepolitical will to enact. Disaster fromhuman activities can be avoided, and damage from natural disaster reduced, by enforcing regulations on industrial plant safety and wastedisposal, and ensuring that publicagencies take appropriate disasterpreparedness measures. Flooding,which especially devastates low-income communities because they often are situated in vulnerable areas,could be avoided through better watershed management upstreamand improved storm drains. Motor vehicle crashes could be limitedthrough changes in road design and enforcement of vehicle safetystandards and traffic regulations. Fatalities could be reduced throughroad safety awareness, first aid train-ing, and emergency medical services. And changes in urban infrastructurethat encourage more compact cities

and efficient public transportationsystems could reduce dependence on motor transport and hence pollution levels.

Political ChangeThe relationship between urban pop-ulation change, poverty, and politicalupheaval is an issue of growing de-bate. In the 1990s, many political sci-entists grew concerned that rapidurbanization and city growth in lessdeveloped countries, coupled with in-creased urban poverty, often led tocivil violence in cities that threatenednational political stability.53 This pes-simistic view of urbanization derivesfrom a long-standing body of socialconflict theory dating to Karl Marx’salienated and revolutionary urbanproletariat. Some analysts predict thaturban poverty will become the mostsignificant and politically explosiveproblem in the 21st century. Withoutpolicies that redress social inequali-ties, claim some demographers, urbanareas will experience escalating crimeand violence punctuated by sporadicriots and increased terrorism.54

The 1979 Islamic Revolution inIran is frequently cited as an exampleof how urbanization can generate po-litical turbulence. In the decades pre-ceding this revolution, populationgrowth rates in Iran were severaltimes higher in urban than rural ar-eas, mainly because of rural-urbanmigration. Young migrants becamemore educated yet remained poor,creating a large population of frus-trated urban youth, who mobilized tooverthrow the Shah in a dramatic rev-olution. A similar scenario has beenenvisioned for African countries.55

The historical record, derivedfrom a less urbanized past, shows fewdirect causal links between urbanpopulation growth, urban poverty,and political change. Some social sci-entists argue that, from the dawn ofcivilization, peasant revolts in thecountryside have been the most im-portant insurrectionary componentsof almost all successful political revo-lutions.56 Viewed across the rural-

A ‘healthy city’is defined in

terms of processand outcome

rather than aspecific level of

health.

urban divide, political insurgency fre-quently results from a collection offactors, including class conflict; cleav-ages of ethnicity, race, or religion;and environmental scarcity. Observersof the economic downturns in LatinAmerica in the 1980s point out thatincreased urban poverty did not spurrevolt. Rather, people were motivatedto take on multiple jobs, work longerhours, spend more time seeking in-formal employment, and increase par-ticipation in the labor force.57

Yet, policymakers cannot rule outthe potential security threat posed byunprecedented levels of urbanizationand rates of urban growth in areaswith few resources and slow economicgrowth. Even the potential for vio-lence in the world’s burgeoning citiesmerits attention by governments inthe future because any civil distur-bance could quickly threaten largenumbers of people.

Urban Challengesof More DevelopedCountries As in the less developed world, the po-tential consequences of urban popula-tion change in more developedcountries will almost certainly relate totrends in urban poverty. The close re-lationship between urban populationchange and urban poverty is indicatedby evidence from the United States.

Urban Poverty in theUnited StatesIn the United States in 1998, 12.3 per-cent of the population in metropoli-tan areas was living in poverty,compared with 14.4 percent of the ru-ral population. Yet because America’spopulation was more than 75 percenturban, these percentages translatedinto 27.0 million poor urban dwellersand 7.5 million poor rural residents.58

Urbanization levels alone, however,cannot account for the large numbersof impoverished people in urban

areas. The share of the U.S. popula-tion living in urban areas increasedfrom 74 percent to 77 percent be-tween 1970 and 1990, but the per-centage of poor people living inmetropolitan areas increased muchmore rapidly, from 56 percent to 72percent.59 One reason for the in-creased poverty may be changes inthe composition of urban popula-tions, especially those in central cities.

Urban poverty in the United Statesis mainly a characteristic of centralcities. In the 1990s, a person living inthe central city of a U.S. metropolitanarea was twice as likely to be poor as aperson residing in a suburb. In 1998,one-third of the country’s 539 centralcities had 20 percent or more of theirresidents living in poverty. The eco-nomic boom of the 1980s and 1990shelped reduce unemployment in cen-tral cities from 8.5 percent to 5.1 per-cent between 1992 and 1998, but jobgrowth occurred faster in suburbsthan in central cities. In 1998, 17 per-cent of central cities had unemploy-ment rates at least 50 percent higherthan the national average.60 Povertyhas become more concentrated incentral cites over the past fewdecades. In the 100 largest U.S. cities,the percentage of poor people livingin neighborhoods with a poverty rate

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This favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is vulnerable to flooding and land-slides. Many of the poorest residents in less developed countries live inmakeshift housing subject to environmental hazards, such as flooding andindustrial pollution.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

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of 20 percent or more rose from 55percent in 1970 to 69 percent in1990.61

Paradoxically, inner-city povertyhas resulted, in part, from economicgrowth. America’s strong economy inthe 1990s pushed rents up faster thanwages for millions of central-city resi-dents, who often lacked the skills andmeans of transport to get to jobs be-ing created in the suburbs.

A critical shortage of affordablehousing has emerged in metropolitanareas, and in central cities in particu-lar. In 1998, for example, in all metro-politan areas, the housing wage—thatis, what people need to earn in orderto limit their housing costs to 30 per-cent of their incomes, or a fair marketrent (FMR)—was higher than the fed-eral minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.In the District of Columbia, the hous-ing wage was more than three timesthe minimum wage, while residents ofBoston needed to earn 3.4 times theminimum wage to afford a two-bed-room unit at FMR.62

Unaffordable housing in metropol-itan areas has contributed to increas-ing homelessness in American cities.A 1996 survey of the homeless by theCensus Bureau found that 71 percentof these persons lived in central cities,and an additional 21 percent residedin fringe suburbs. A 1998 survey of 30major cities found that requests forpublic shelter had increased in 21cities by an average of 11 percent dur-ing the year. Most cities had stoppedaccepting requests for assisted hous-ing because waiting lists had growntoo long. Requests for emergencyfood assistance in those 30 cities roseby an average of 14 percent.63

Inner-city poverty is closely linkedwith inadequate educational opportu-nities for children. The poor perform-ance of central-city school systemsremains a major barrier to attractingmiddle-income households—andtherefore higher tax revenues—backto cities. In 80 percent of large, cen-tral-city schools, at least 70 percent ofstudents were poor. In 1996, 60 per-cent of children in city schools failedto achieve basic levels of competency

in reading and mathematics. Almostone-half of high school students inthese schools failed to graduate withinfour years.64

Another consequence of poverty incities is a lack of public safety. Admit-tedly, crime reduction is one areawhere most big cities have showntheir greatest improvement in the1990s. In cities with 1 million or moreresidents, the murder rate fell bymore than 40 percent between 1991and 1997, from 35 to 20 murders per100,000 population. Between 1997and 1998, these “million-plus” citiesrecorded a further 11 percent declinein the murder rate.65

Nonetheless, crime in the UnitedStates remains an overwhelmingly ur-ban phenomenon. In 1997, 96 percentof reported violent crimes, such asmurder, rape, robbery, and aggravatedassault, and 95 percent of reportedproperty crimes were committed in ur-ban areas. Metropolitan-area residentswere 2.6 times as likely to be victims ofcrime as rural residents. Some metro-politan areas are still particularly dan-gerous. The rate of violent crime inAtlanta exceeded 30 incidents per1,000 people, as compared with thenational rate of 6 cases per 1,000. Mur-der rates in New Orleans and Washing-ton, D.C., were 50 per 100,000 people,whereas the national murder rate was7 per 100,000. Urban crime is oftenlinked to drug use and drug traffick-ing. In Philadelphia, 78 percent of arrestees in 1997 tested positive formarijuana, cocaine, heroine, or another illicit drug.66

Changing Ethnic CompositionAmerican cities have long been cele-brated as “melting pots” of diversityamong ethnic and racial groups. Theyare the entry port of most immigrants,who have a significant impact on pop-ulation size, wages, social services,school enrollment, housing, and otherfeatures of cities. Indeed, the arrival oflegal and illegal immigrants helpedstabilize the population size of many ofAmerica’s central cities in the 1990s.

31

Of the nearly 6 million immigrants en-tering the United States between 1990and 1998, more than 47 percent set-tled in central cities and an additional46 percent moved to nearby suburbs,according to Census Bureau data.

Just 10 of America’s metropolitanareas attracted two-thirds of all immi-grants between 1990 and 1998.67

These 10 “gateway” cities are home to 58 percent of the country’s Hispan-ic population. The immigrant profileof U.S. cities varies considerably, how-ever, and it can shift over time. One-third of the legal immigrants to NewYork City between 1990 and 1994,came from the Caribbean, comparedwith one-eighth of all U.S. immigrants(see Figure 10, page 32).

The clustering of immigrants in“ethnic enclaves,” such as Miami’s Lit-tle Havana and Little Haiti, China-towns in New York and San Francisco,and Little Saigon in Los Angeles, iswell known. Monterey Park, justnortheast of Los Angeles, has becomethe first city on the U.S. mainlandwith an Asian majority. At the end ofthe 1990s, nearly 60 percent of LosAngeles’ more than 60,000 residentswere Asian; many Asian residentswere recent immigrants.68

Today’s U.S. immigrants, like theirpredecessors, tend to move to thesuburbs and to smaller cities overtime. A 1999 study concluded that atleast half of Cubans, Filipinos, AsianIndians, and Koreans in homes withforeign-born household heads wereliving in the suburbs, rather than inthe inner-city neighborhoods theyhelped to stabilize in the 1980s.69

The ethnic diversity of America’scities presents many challenges formunicipal authorities. Most promi-nent, perhaps, is the need to equipnew entrants with the basic English-language skills usually needed foreconomic success. Among the morethan 700,000 students in the Los An-geles School District, more than 100languages are spoken. Establishingfluency in English comes at a highcost to the school system because itrequires additional teachers, class-rooms, and courses.

Newcomers face especially highhealth threats when they move to low-income urban neighborhoods, in partbecause the public health system doesnot reach them. The infant mortalityrate in New York City in 1998 was 6.8infant deaths per 1,000 live births,better than the national average rateof 7.2. In the neighborhood of Bed-ford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, however,where many new immigrants are set-tling, the rate was 14 per 1,000.70

New ethnic groups in Americancities have historically suffered theracial hostility of majority or longer-term residents. Today, as immigrantpopulations in cities become largerand more diverse, they sometimesface violent conflict and bigotry fromother immigrant groups as well asfrom long-term residents. The LosAngeles riots of 1990 and 1991, forexample, were prompted by AfricanAmericans’ frustration with L.A.’slargely white police department andjustice system, but two-thirds of thevictims were Korean Americans, primarily immigrants. About the same time, riots in Crown Heights,Brooklyn, pitted Hasidic Jews againstAfrican American immigrants, mainlyfrom the Caribbean.71

Both incidents indicate that mi-norities often harbor deeper anger ordistrust for other minorities than to-ward whites. A national survey in1998, for example, found that almosthalf of Latinos agreed that AsianAmericans are “unscrupulous, craftyand devious in business.” More thantwo out of three Asian Americans be-lieved that Latinos “have bigger fami-lies than they are able to support,”while Latinos were three times as like-ly as whites to believes that blacks“aren’t capable of getting ahead evenif given the opportunity.”72

Interracial or interethnic animosityis particularly relevant for big cities.The close proximity of large differen-tiated groups in highly competitiveeconomic markets places a high de-mand on governments to provide law enforcement and other servicesthat deter aggression. Urban sociolo-gists warn that as successive waves of

The arrival of immigrantshelped stabilizemany U.S. central-city populations.

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immigrants move to smaller urban areas and as middle-class African Americans leave central cities for the suburbs, many impoverishedAfrican Americans are being left behind in segregated, central-cityneighborhoods.73

Aging of Urban AreasThe proportion of the population age65 years or older is projected to in-crease rapidly in more developedcountries, from 14 percent in 2000 to21 percent by 2025. Population agingcarries special significance for citiesof these countries. Most cities have ahigher percentage of elderly peoplethan the national average, and innercities generally have higher propor-tions than surrounding metropolitanareas. In addition, more elderly peo-ple in cities live alone compared withthe elderly in rural areas.74

While many older people preferindependent living, living alone canlead to isolation and, subsequently, toloneliness and inadequate attentionto physical health. Thus, many elderlypeople who live alone need exactlywhat the city can offer: health and so-

cial services, opportunities to interactwith other people, public transporta-tion systems, and other urban ameni-ties. The decentralization of authorityto local tiers of government in mostcountries means that cities, ratherthan national institutions, will have anincreasing role in meeting the needsof their elderly populations.

Population aging in cities meansthat services and housing have to beadjusted to elderly persons’ require-ments. Cities have adopted differentapproaches to this challenge of aging,but five common principles for policydevelopment have emerged. Theseare: (1) enabling the elderly to live in-dependently for as long as possible;(2) providing residential rather thaninstitutional environments for thosewho require special care; (3) creatinglocal conditions to help the elderlylive as active a life as possible; (4) in-volving the private sector in deliver-ing housing and services for theelderly; and (5) stimulating self-helpon the part of the elderly and infor-mal care by their neighbors.

Innovative policies used in somecountries to pursue these principlesmay help guide cities in other coun-tries. Some cities in Denmark, for instance, relaxed their zoning regula-tions to allow the building of addi-tional community centers, enablingelderly people to stay in the areasthey know and to maintain their exist-ing social networks. Canada has de-signed “New Horizon Grants” toencourage self-help initiatives by pro-viding funds to community organiza-tions that are run by the elderly.“Project 67+” has enabled elderly resi-dents of Oslo, Norway, to provide pol-icy recommendations on such issuesas improving the accessibility of localtransport. New technologies—such aspersonal alarms and interactive videosystems connected to a source of assis-tance—promise more security for theurban elderly.75

Improving transport for the elderlywill be a central challenge of urbanplanning. Since every journey usuallybegins and ends on foot, improvingwalking routes is a first task. Simple

Figure 10Immigrants Admitted to the United States andNew York City by Area of Origin, 1990 to 1994

Other5.7%

Europe21.8%

Mexico and Central America

3.3%

Other3.3%

Asia41.8%

Caribbean33.2%

United States New York City

SouthAmerica12.3%

SouthAmerica

6.3%

Mexicoand

CentralAmerica16.6%

Asia26.1%

Caribbean11.8%

Europe17.8%

Note: About 40 percent of New York’s Caribbean immigrants were from non-Hispanic countries.

Source: New York City Department of Planning, The Newest New Yorkers, 1990-1994 (De-cember 1996).

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changes to urban transport—betterdesign of hand rails, reserved seating,and accessible information beforeand during trips—could also make it easier for the elderly to be inde-pendent and mobile.

The growing population of elderlywill also need assistance meeting therelatively high costs of urban housing,especially for people who must moveto assisted-living situations. Expertsanticipate that traditional sources ofassistance—by elderly persons them-selves, family, government, or volun-tary organizations—may not be ableto meet the increased demand for fi-nancing. Innovative household fi-nancing for the urban elderly will berequired, such as greater coverage un-der insurance schemes, tax exemp-tions, and mandated pensioncontributions for housing.

The Urban Futurein Less DevelopedCountriesThere are generally two schools ofthought regarding the future manage-ment of urban population change inless developed countries. These per-spectives revolve around a centralquestion: Are urban areas growingtoo rapidly? Those concerned mostwith rapid urban growth per se,rather than with urban populationproblems such as poverty or poorhealth, tend to advocate one of twotypes of policy approaches. The firststrategy uses explicit population poli-cies to slow the pace of urban growth.The second approach relies onmacroeconomic adjustments to elimi-nate the “urban bias” of governmentpolicies that indirectly spurs migra-tion to the largest cities.

Those who believe that the pace ofurban growth is less important thanother urban population problemsgenerally recommend three policyprescriptions that are guided by coun-tries’ levels of development. First, allcountries are being urged by interna-

tional organizations to improve urbanmanagement and governance so theycan accommodate future increases totheir urban populations. Second,wealthier less developed countries arepursuing tactics to create “competi-tive cities” that foster economic link-ages with big cities of more developedcountries as well as with other cities inless developed countries. And third,cities in the least developed countries,where economic prospects are espe-cially dim, are being advised that theycan nonetheless adopt “best prac-tices” of cities in countries with com-parable conditions to attack specificurban maladies.

Slowing Urban GrowthMany countries have tried to slow the pace of urban growth through explicit policies. Most urban growthin less developed countries in recentdecades has been attributed to natu-ral increase. Nonetheless, the popula-tion policies to reduce urban growthin most less developed countries havefocused almost solely on restrictingin-migration and, indirectly, alteringthe geographic distribution of popu-lations. Such migration-oriented policies have included eligibility re-quirements that limit people’s abilityto move (in China and Ethiopia, for example), rural developmentschemes to encourage people to stayin rural areas (Malaysia and Viet-nam), and land colonization schemesmeant to attract settlers to newly de-veloped areas (as in Brazil and In-donesia). With rare exceptions, suchas South Africa under apartheid,these migration-oriented policies havefailed to curb the pace of urbangrowth. In contrast, policies that ac-commodate migrants from the coun-tryside and assimilate them to themore modern social norms and be-haviors of urban areas have more ef-fectively curbed urban growth byreducing migrant fertility.76

Some countries have attempted toreduce migration to large cities bystrengthening the economies of townsand medium-sized cities and buildingan urban system with strong networks

Improving transport for the elderly willbe a centralchallenge of urban planning.

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between such “secondary cities” andbetween towns and rural areas. Thispolicy approach assumes that urbanand rural development must go handin hand, and that secondary cities canoccupy an intermediate niche thatlinks villages with big cities and there-by redistributes economic growth andbenefits throughout a country.77 The1982 Urban Distribution Policy inChina, for instance, prescribed strictcontrol of large coastal cities, the de-velopment of medium-sized inlandcities, and encouragement of thegrowth of small cities and towns. State-allocated resources were redi-rected to smaller places. These poli-cies helped limit the growth of bigcities for awhile, but were under-mined by increased emphasis on market-oriented economic coordina-tion in the 1980s and 1990s, whichhas accentuated the importance ofChina’s coastal regions.78 Nonetheless,secondary city development can becredited with modest success in slow-ing the growth of very large cities in Mexico, South Korea, Thailand,and elsewhere.

Economic reforms have alsohelped manage the pace of urbangrowth by promoting equitable eco-nomic policies between urban and rural areas. Under pressure from in-

ternational financial institutions, forexample, some countries have raisedthe price of food for urban con-sumers since the 1980s by eliminatingsubsidies, for example. An unexpect-ed outcome of this, in many less de-veloped countries, has been slowerurban growth than was anticipated 20years ago.79

If urban population control is anexplicit objective, a more promisingstrategy from a demographic stand-point is to provide women in urbanareas and potential migrants in ruralareas with the means to regulate theirfertility and have the number of chil-dren they desire. This practice hasbeen implemented effectively, for in-stance, by PROFAMILIA, the nationalfamily planning agency of Colombia.Between 1970 and 1995, the averagenumber of births per woman fellfrom six children to less than threechildren in Colombia. Bogotá’s popu-lation of 8.6 million residents in 2000is several million below projectionsmade as recently as 1980.

Addressing Urban ProblemsMany scholars accept that rapid ur-ban growth in the less developedworld is inevitable in the future, butdo not accept the predictions of itsdire consequences. This more opti-mistic perspective maintains that anyurban area with good managementcapabilities can absorb large popula-tion increments without diminishinghuman welfare or the quality of theenvironment.80 The key to success is acommitment to adopt policies that,among other things, maintain infra-structure, increase productivity of thelabor force, and alleviate poverty. Afrequently cited example of urbanmanagerial success is Curitiba, inBrazil, which through innovations toencourage use of buses rather thancars, land use regulations that con-serve green space, and other meas-ures, has avoided the degradationexperienced in most other cities ofcomparable size in less developedcountries.81

Telecommunications advances have facilitated the creation of urban net-works of cities around the world. Brokers on the Nairobi stock exchange, forexample, will have increasing access to businesses outside Kenya.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

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In addition to appropriate man-agement, good governance is particu-larly important to the well-being of urban residents. Rural areas are lessvulnerable to “bad” governance, be-cause they are generally further re-moved and rely on fewer publicservices. Good governance practicesfor cities have only recently been articulated and fully implemented inthe less developed world. Such prac-tices include engaging nongovern-mental actors—communities, civicgroups, private contractors—in meet-ing basic needs; decentralizing deci-sionmaking authority and control ofmunicipal resources from govern-ments to local groups; and makingcity governments more responsive tolocal needs, more accountable fortheir actions, and more transparentwith respect to financing.

Achieving effective governance willbe particularly daunting in extendedmetropolitan regions. These large ur-ban systems are difficult to manage ina cooperative fashion and will requirethe establishment of new regionalgovernance institutions and technolo-gies, including improved manage-ment information systems to track theincreasingly rapid and complex flowof people, information, finance, andcommodities.82

All of the world’s cities will facegrowing international competition inthe 21st century. Some analysts main-tain that cities of less developedcountries, particularly those in coun-tries with prospering economies aswell as large labor pools and domes-tic consumer markets, will be “win-ners” in the urbanizing world if theycan enhance their competitiveness.83

Their success will improve the well-being of city dwellers, and then spurregional or national economicgrowth. The Pearl River Delta regionof southern China is an example.This region’s string of cities and ur-banized zones has experienced thefastest economic growth in the worldsince around 1980, relying on heavyinflows of foreign direct investmentand temporary migrant labor fromthe countryside. Rapid urban growth

has allowed massive global export oflow-cost consumer items.

Other cities in less developed re-gions may become more competitive,alternatively, by establishing networkswith cities in other countries, as is oc-curring in Southeast Asia. A city canform an economic node linked toother cities by large chains of air-ports, highways, and communica-tions. A networked city would nolonger be dependent on its own cen-tral core, but on the global networkof cities.84

Finally, the growth of Internettechnology and the personal comput-er industry in the 1990s is enablingthe poorest cities, at low cost, to share“best practices” in dealing with theirspecific population problems. Dakar,Senegal, provides one example of“best practices” for urban transport insub-Saharan Africa that can now easi-ly be shared with other countries.Dakar, which contains over 20 per-cent of Senegal’s residents, purchasedobsolete railroad cars from Franceand quickly converted them for useon a suburban railroad that trans-ports about 22,000 commuters dailyinto the city.

One strategy to reduce urban poverty is to provide loans for small businesses, such as this manufacturer of leather bags in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Photo removed forcopyright reasons.

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Another best practices model isfrom the favelas, or slums, of Rio deJaneiro, where girls 14 years of age orolder are trained in hair dressingthrough a government-funded pro-gram. This program has enabled nu-merous young Brazilians to get jobs inbeauty salons or to establish their ownbusinesses, generate income for theirfamilies, enhance their self-esteem,and become productive urban citi-zens. This model urban-livelihoodstrategy also reduces the incentives forimpoverished young women to be-come commercial sex workers. Thepractices of hundreds of cities in cop-ing with problems of their populationscan now be instantaneously accessedelsewhere, to guide other cities.85

Managing Population Changein U.S. CitiesAmerica’s urban population trendsand spatial forms in the future will beshaped by international flows of capi-tal, information, labor, and technolo-gy, as well as by private decisions ofindividuals and families. The task ofmanaging urban changes, however,will fall on four agents: national gov-ernment, municipal authorities, theprivate sector, and community groups(including nonprofit organizations).

Unlike most governments in West-ern Europe, the U.S. government hashistorically had a minimal role inmanaging cities and urbanized re-gions. Rather, policy planning hasbeen decentralized to the municipallevel, leaving cities to bear the fiscalburden of providing most infrastruc-ture and services.

In 1999, however, the U.S. govern-ment proposed a 21st-century agendafor cities and suburbs to achieve threebroad goals. First, no central citiesshould be left behind while the U.S.economy prospers from global inte-gration. Second, urban sprawl to andbeyond the suburbs must be con-tained to ensure a better quality of

life in these areas. Third, for the firsttime in its history, the United Statesmust develop a mutually beneficial re-lationship between its central citiesand suburbs, based on regionally co-ordinated strategies of development.

86

The national government’s policyagenda to save central cities rests onfour integrated components: (1) encouraging business to use the un-tapped labor market of underem-ployed and unemployed city dwellers;(2) investing in skills training; (3) expanding affordable rental housingand homeownership; and (4) makinginner-city communities more livable.To increase employment and occupa-tional skills among inner-city resi-dents, the government must rely onleverage from public and private part-nerships—that is, use public fundsand guarantees to encourage greaterprivate-sector investment in promot-ing urban business. One current poli-cy, for example, calls for an initialgovernment investment to upgradeskills in African American communi-ties and increase literacy in immi-grant neighborhoods, therebyencouraging private investment insuch areas before businesses lookoverseas for opportunities. “Brown-fields”—former industrial sites requir-ing clean-up before they can beredeveloped as community assets—are seen as a key job-generating opportunity for inner cities.

Affordable housing is crucial be-cause rent is the top cost burden inthe transition from welfare to work in inner cities. Increased federalmortgage insurance, for example, can encourage homeownership whilemaking inner-city communities morelivable, stable, and safe.

Urban sprawl is making urban areas less livable and adversely affect-ing central cities. A sprawled urbanarea is one in which land is devel-oped—by roads, buildings, and otherinfrastructure—at a faster pace thanpopulation growth. One example isKansas City, where the population in-creased by 5 percent between 1990and 1996, while developed land in-creased by 70 percent. The spatial

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form of sprawl is horizontal expan-sion, as typified by Atlanta, which grewfrom 65 miles north to south in 1990to 110 miles in 1998.87

For suburbanites, sprawl increasescommuting time, raises the cost of liv-ing, and reduces the standard of liv-ing. A 1999 report concluded thatmembers of an average suburbanhousehold drive 3,300 more miles peryear than their central-city counter-parts. Suburban residents of Denverused 12 times as much gasoline asthose in Manhattan. Sprawled suburbshave road costs up to 33 percent high-er and utility costs 18 percent to 25percent higher than sprawl-free com-munities. Sprawled development con-sumes 25 percent to 67 percent moreopen land than nonsprawl develop-ment, and produces about one-thirdmore water pollution.

Urban sprawl also worsens condi-tions for poor central-city residents be-cause the movement of businesses tosuburbs creates a mismatch betweenwhere this untapped supply of poten-tial workers lives and where jobs are lo-cated. Public transport is not bridgingthis gap. In Boston, welfare recipientsusing public transit would, after a one-hour commute, still have access to only14 percent of the jobs in the metropol-itan area’s fast-growth communities.88

To restore the population of cen-tral cities and contain suburban sprawlrequires cooperation, rather thancompetition, between city and subur-ban leaders, and recognition thattheir problems are interrelated. Re-versing the downward spiral of U.S.central cities in the coming years alsorequires invigorating the Departmentof Housing and Urban Development(HUD), the federal agency most re-sponsible for dealing with the needsof urban areas in the country.

While the national government de-velops its agenda for urban areas, inmany cities elected officials, private in-dustry, and local citizens have takenthe initiative to manage urban popula-tion changes (see Box 6, page 38).Two notable examples are providingaffordable housing for low-income res-idents—in part to reduce urban home-

lessness—and using the arts to revital-ize downtown areas and increase rev-enues to make cities more attractiveplaces for more affluent families tolive.

Seattle is often lauded as an idealmodel for ways to keep housing af-fordable. On three occasions since1981, Seattle residents voted to taxthemselves to fund low-income hous-ing in middle-class neighborhoodsand downtown areas, and to allow old-er adults to live independently in theircommunities. Nonprofit developers,church groups, and public consor-tiums have coordinated to increasethe number of publicly subsidizedunits from fewer than 2,000 in 1988 tomore than 11,000 in 2000. To main-tain its reputation as a haven for thearts, the city established a co-op wherehomeless artists can sell their wares. Alarge, vacant office building down-town is being converted into apart-ment units for individuals diagnosedwith AIDS, chemical dependency, ormental illness. Funds from the federalHOME program—which was estab-lished in 1991 to expand the stock ofaffordable housing around the coun-try—are used selectively to help fami-lies in months when they cannot paytheir rent and to target assistance tohouseholds with children. The ration-ale underlying Seattle’s approach tohousing and homelessness is one thatAmerican cities are learning to applyas they enter the 21st century: Thecost of preventing homelessness is ulti-mately less than the cost of providingtemporary shelter and food.89

Municipal leaders, including civicand business groups, are emphasizing“cultural renewal” to save central citiesthat have been stagnant since the1960s. Since 1997, a plethora of down-town performing arts centers havebeen created as part of the most ambi-tious, expensive, and focused strategyof the post-World War II era to slowmigration to the suburbs and lure sub-urbanites back to the city. These cul-tural projects include the $180 millionconstruction in Newark of the NewJersey Center for the Performing Arts,the reopening of San Francisco’s his-

Affordable housing is crucial in thetransition fromwelfare to workin U.S. cities.

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Box 6Restoring America’s Cities: Lessons of Urban PlanningJane Jacobs’ pioneering book on U.S. urban prob-lems, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, pub-lished in 1961, observed that the country had spentbillions of dollars on “housing projects that are trulymarvels of dullness and regimentation, civic centersthat are avoided by everyone but bums … prome-nades that go from no place to nowhere … express-ways that eviscerate great cities. This is not therebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”

Over the years, however, a number of urban plan-ning projects have demonstrated strategies to revital-ize central cities and contain the exodus of people tothe suburbs. The primary lesson learned from theseprojects is that the role of city government in urbanplanning should be confined to three broad areas:strategic public investment, regulation, and incen-tives for private action. Governments must createways for the private sector to profit from investmentin declining urban areas.

The revitalization of downtown Portland, Ore.,during the 1970s and 1980s vividly demonstrates theeffectiveness of strategic capital investment. Duringthis time, the city government established a light-railsystem that starts in the downtown retail center andextends 15 miles into the suburbs. Financing was pro-vided for public fountains, bus shelters, artwork, andnew street furniture along the way. The governmentpurchased and refurbished sections of the riverfront.The response of the private sector was predictable.The Rouse Company constructed “The Galleria”(since replicated in other cities), large stores such asNordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue were quickly built,and dozens of cafes and restaurants lined the streets.Today, downtown Portland is a major tourist attrac-tion, and has lured so many people back to the cen-tral city that zoning restrictions have been imposedto keep housing affordable.

Land-use regulations transformed inner SantaBarbara, Calif., from a dusty, wooden town at theturn of the century into a modern tourist attraction.Civic leaders there decided that all architecture mustconform to a Spanish colonial style to maintain thecity’s historic feeling and charm. To head off eco-nomic collapse in the 1970s, New York City used taxexemptions to encourage private investors to pourtens of millions of dollars into improving existinghousing stock.

Six factors must be manipulated for any urbanplanning project to succeed in restoring the inner-city: market, location, design, financing, entrepre-neurship, and time. A market indicates apopulation’s desire for something and its willingnessand ability to pay for it in the face of available alter-natives. The Pulaski Ward on the edge of downtownSavannah, Ga., was successfully revived in the late

1960s after concerned citizens established a revolv-ing fund through nonprofit institutions that provid-ed money for many households to purchase andresell vacant or deteriorating buildings.

The preservation of beautiful antebellum sectionsof Charleston, S.C., is a product of zoning adoptedin 1931, but also of skillful design. The architecturalstyle, color, materials, and scale used in preservationhave attracted a growing population. The design ofMinneapolis’ interconnected 153 parks and 23lakes—allowing easy family recreation—has slowedsuburban migration from the central city.

Governments can finance the revitalization of cen-tral cities by providing mortgage and equity money,but they need to attract developers to obtain the ad-ditional money needed to pay all the costs. The re-newal of Philadelphia’s blighted “Society Hill”beginning in the 1950s has served as a prototype ofsuccessful public and private cofinancing. Federal ur-ban renewal subsidies made available in 1954 wereused to trigger private reinvestment in the neighbor-hood. By 1970, owners had rehabilitated more than600 of the neighborhood’s historic structures, prop-erty value had more than doubled, and the commu-nity’s population had increased by a third. Theproject succeeded largely from the entrepreneurshipof Edmund Bacon, executive director of the Philadel-phia Planning Commission. Bacon successfully com-bined the activities of bankers, bureaucrats, propertyowners, engineers, contractors, and countless otheractors needed to revitalize the neighborhood.

New York’s Lincoln Center has succeeded in lur-ing population to Manhattan because it satisfies thetime requirement of urban planning. The Center isalive with people all day, every day, and attracts peo-ple for different purposes at different times of theday or night, 52 weeks a year. Surrounding bars,restaurants, retail stores, and service establishmentsensure that Lincoln Center will survive changing po-litical and financial climates over time.

Successful urban planning in one city does notnecessarily provide a blueprint for another. Yet, ef-fective strategies to maintain economically viablecentral-city neighborhoods are now well-known.Their application in the future will be critical tokeep central cities alive and healthy.

ReferencesBillie Bramhall, “Building People Power in Three Cities,”Planning 58, no. 11 (November 1992); Timothy Egan, “Seattle and Portland Push to Avert A Paradise Lost,” The New York Times, Nov. 1, 1997; Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1995); and Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life ofGreat American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961): 4.

toric War Memorial Opera House after a $90 million refurbishment,Kansas City’s creation of the firstAmerican museum devoted entirelyto jazz, and Cleveland’s four-theaterPlayhouse Square, which has spurredinvestment of more than $225 millionin the surrounding neighborhood.There are comparable developmentsin Miami, San Jose, Chicago, Philadel-phia, and other cities.90

The urban planning concept un-derlying cultural renewal is “infill,” in-serting new buildings and businessesinto older, declining areas. The hopeis to create “urban villages” that clus-ter services within walking distance ofresidents and foster a sense of com-munity. The objective is to capturethe money of well-to-do suburbaniteson nights and weekends, and use it toimprove central-city schools, infra-structure, and safety.

The Sustainabilityof an UrbanizingWorldThe basic features of the urban demo-graphic revolution of the next fewdecades are already known. Urban areas of less developed countries willincur almost all of the world’s popula-tion growth and will envelop much ofthe world’s population. Urban areasof more developed countries will ex-perience population aging and an in-flux of immigrants.

Many of the consequences of ur-ban population change also can bepredicted with confidence. Urban areas of less developed countries willcontain increasing numbers of poorpeople, while those of more devel-oped countries will become more di-verse. The implications for delivery ofservices are likewise clear. The urbanpopulations in less developed coun-tries will need vastly expanded healthservices, safe income-earning oppor-tunities, and shelter. The urban popu-lations of more developed countrieswill especially require jobs that will

pay for adequate housing; incentivesto stay in central cities and urbanneighborhoods rather than move tosprawling suburban areas; and urbaninfrastructure and programs that aresensitive to physical limitations andcultural distinctions.

What is much less certain iswhether the horrific scenarios envi-sioned by some scholars will come topass. Will earthquakes and hurricaneskill millions of people in big cities thatare unable to prepare for or cope withsuch disasters? Will large and densepopulations become breeding groundsfor devastating new infectious diseases?Are ghettos a permanent and worsen-ing aspect of the urban landscape ineven the richest of countries? If citiesswell with youth, but not with jobs, willviolence erupt? Do increasingly volatileglobal financial movements impose aninsurmountable barrier to informedurban planning?

Ironically, one can take comfortthat these questions are being raisedbecause they charge policymakerswith planning for inevitable urban demographic changes. Such questionschallenge demographers and urbanscholars to improve our understand-ing of how urban populations aregrowing and the spatial forms theyadopt. These pessimistic scenarios en-courage governments to follow urbanpopulation trends closely—expandingdata collected by traditional methodswith data from new technologies suchas satellite imagery.

There is an abundance of evidenceon programs that do or do not workto alleviate problems generated by urban population change. There is a remarkable confluence of interestin urban population issues amonghealth and social scientists, andamong the public and private sectorsthroughout the world. Most impor-tant, there is a growing mass of people who are residing in urban areas, and who desire a good stan-dard of living. These factors and oth-ers suggest that sustainable urbandevelopment, even under conditionsof extreme population growth, is an attainable goal.

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References1. Unless otherwise noted, all urban demographic statistics in the text are derived from

United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision (New York: United Nations,2000). “More developed” countries include all of Europe and North America, plus Japan,Australia, and New Zealand. “Less developed” includes all of Africa, Asia (except Japan),Oceania (except Australia and New Zealand), and Latin America and the Caribbean.

2. Paul Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1988); and United Nations, Patterns of Urban and Rural Population Growth, Population Studies 68 (New York: United Nations, 1980).

3. Etienne van de Walle and John Knodel, “Europe’s Fertility Transition: New Evidence andLessons for Today’s Developing World,” Population Bulletin 34, no. 6 (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 1980); and Gora Mboup and Tulshi Saha, “Fertility Levels,Trends, and Differentials,” DHS Comparative Studies 28 (Calverton, MD: Macro Internation-al, 1998).

4. World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000: Entering the 21st Century (New York: Ox-ford University Press for the World Bank, 1999); Harry W. Richardson, “Efficiency and Wel-fare in LDC Mega Cities,” in Third World Cities: Problems, Politics, and Prospects, eds. J.D.Kasarda and A.M. Parnell (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1993): 32-57; and UnitedNations Centre for Regional Development, Habitat II. Dialogue 1: Proceedings of How CitiesWill Look in the 21st Century (New York: United Nations, June 4, 1996).

5. Sarah Atkinson, Jacob Songsore, and Edmundo Werna, eds., Urban Health Research in Devel-oping Countries: Implications for Policy (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996); andSamuel H. Preston and Michael R. Haines, Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Cen-tury America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

6. Thomas F. Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, eds., Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Popula-tion and Security (Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield Publishers Inc., 1998); Thomas F.Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict,”International Security 16, no. 2 (1991): 76-116; Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civiliza-tions and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996); and Robert D.Kaplan, “Cities of Despair,” The New York Times, June 7, 1996.

7. Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t (New York: McGraw-Hill,1995); Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (New York:Routledge, 1996); Trish Hall, “Flight to the Cities: Urban Areas—With Their Culture, Ex-citement and Convenience—Prove Irresistible for More Retirees,” The Wall Street Journal,Sept. 14, 1998; and Coco McCabe, “Many Elders Are On the Road Again,” The Boston Globe,Dec. 5, 1999.

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Policies in Mega-Cities: Bombay, Population Policy Paper No. 6 (New York: United Nations,1986).

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21. Ibid.22. Anita A. Summers, Paul C. Cheshire, and Lanfranco Senn, eds., Urban Change in the United

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23. Ibid.24. Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1991).25. Nancy Chen, Paolo Valente, and Hania Zlotnik, “What Do We Know About Recent Trends

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26. R. Mansell Prothero and Murray Chapman, Circulation in Third World Countries (London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Thomas Scharping, ed., Floating Population and Migration inChina: The Impact of Economic Reforms (Hamburg, Germany: Institut für Asienkunde, 1997);and Delia Deeds, Internal Migration in Contemporary China (London: Macmillan Press, 1999).

27. Dorothy Solinger, “The Floating Population in the Cities: Chances for Assimilation,” in Ur-ban Spaces in Contemporary China, eds. D. Davis, R. Kraus, B. Naughton, and E. J. Perry(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

28. A. Chamratrithlrong, K. Archavanltkul, K. Richter, P. Guest, T. Varachal, W. Boonchalaksi,N. Pirtyathamwong, and P. Vong-Ek, National Migration Survey of Thailand (Salaya, Thailand:The Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, 1995).

29. Andrei Rogers, “Sources of Urban Population Growth and Urbanization, 1950-2000: A Demographic Accounting,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 30, no. 3 (April 1982):483-506; and Nathan Keyfitz, “Do Cities Grow by Natural Increase or by Migration?” Geographical Analysis 12 (April 1980): 142-56.

30. John O. Oucho and William T.S. Gould, “Internal Migration, Urbanization, and PopulationDistribution,” in Demographic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, National Research Council Com-mittee on Population (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993): 256-96; and ElliotP. Skinner, African Urban Life: The Transformation of Ouagadougou (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1974).

31. John C. Caldwell, John K. Anarfi, and Pat Caldwell, “Mobility, Migration, Sex, STDs, andAIDS: An Essay on Sub-Saharan Africa with Other Parallels,” in Anthropological and Demo-graphic Perspectives, ed. Gilbert Herdt (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1997): 41-54.

32. Richard E. Bilsborrow and United Nations Secretariat, “Internal Female Migration and Development: An Overview,” in Internal Migration of Women in Developing Countries,ST/ESA/SER.R/127 (New York: United Nations, 1993): 1-17; Cristina Szanton Blanc withcontributors, Urban Children in Distress: Global Predicaments and Innovative Strategies (Grey,Switzerland: Gordon and Breach for UNICEF, 1994); and Nancy Riley, “Gender, Power, andPopulation Change,” Population Bulletin 52, no. 1 (Washington, DC: Population ReferenceBureau, 1997): 14-17.

33. Henry S. Shryock, Jacob S. Siegel, and Associates, The Methods and Materials of Demography,Condensed edition, ed. Edward G. Stockwell (New York: Academic Press, 1976): 133-34.

34. Anthony O’Connor, The African City (New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1983).35. Cecilia Tacoli, “Rural-Urban Interactions: A Guide to the Literature,” Environment and

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the World Bank, 1990); World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000; and United Na-tions Population Fund, The State of World Population 1996, Changing Places: Population Develop-ment and the Urban Future (New York: United Nations, 1996).

37. Sandy Cairncross, Jorge E. Hardoy, and David Satterthwaite, eds., The Poor Die Young: Housing and Health in Third World Cities (London: Earthscan Publications, 1990).

38. Douglas S. Massey, “The Age of Extremes: Concentrated Affluence and Poverty in theTwenty-First Century,” Demography 33, no. 4 (November 1996): 395-412; and World Bankand UNCHS (Habitat), Cities Alliance for Cities Without Slums: Action Plan for Moving Slum Upgrading to Scale, World Bank Group Annual Meetings 1999 Special Summary Edition. Accessedonline at: www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/urban/cws/cwoslums.htm, on March 13, 2000.

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40. Trudy Harpham and M. Tanner, eds., Urban Health in Developing Countries: Progress andProspects (London: Earthscan Publications, 1995); Atkinson, Songsore, and Werna, eds., Urban Health Research in Developing Countries: Implications for Policy, 1996; and TrudyHarpham and Carolyn Stephens, “Urbanization and Health in Developing Countries,”World Health Statistics Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1991): 62-69.

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49. Peter Newton and Peter Manins, “Cities and Air Pollution,” in East West Perspectives on 21stCentury Urban Development, eds. Brotchie, Newton, Hall, and Dickey: 277-304.

50. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Disaster Report1998.

51. Cited in Nicholas D. Kristof, “Across Asia, a Pollution Disaster Hovers,” The New York Times,Nov. 28, 1997. See also World Resources Institute (WRI), The Urban Environment 1996-97(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

52. Cited in “World Bank Wants to Get the Lead Out,” Albany Times Union, May 19, 1996.53. Homer-Dixon and Blitt, eds., Ecoviolence; Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations; Kaplan,

“Cities of Despair”; and Eugene Linden, “The Exploding Cities of the Developing World,”Foreign Affairs 75, no. 1: 52-65.

54. Nigel Harris, ed., Cities in the 1990s: The Challenge for Developing Countries (New York: St. Mar-tin’s Press, 1992): 201; and Massey, “The Age of Extremes”: 410.

55. Robert D. Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York:Random House, 1996).

56. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in theMaking of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); and Theda Skocpol, States & So-cial Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia & China (London: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1979).

57. John Walton, Reluctant Rebels: Comparative Studies of Revolution and Underdevelopment (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1984); Orlandina de Oliveira and Bryan Roberts, “UrbanDevelopment and Social Inequality in Latin America,” in The Urban Transformation of the Developing World, ed. Josef Gugler (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996): 253-313.

58. U.S. Census Bureau, “Poverty in the United States, 1998,” by Joseph Dalaker, Current Population Reports P60-207 (September 1999): Table 2.

59. Massey, “The Age of Extremes.”60. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P60-200. Accessed online at:

www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/inchdet.html, on March 23, 1999; and HUD, TheState of the Cities Report 1999.

61. John D. Kasarda, “Inner City Concentrated Poverty and Neighborhood Distress 1970-1990,”Housing Policy Debate 4 (1993): 253-302.

62. National Low Income Housing Coalition (LIHC), Out of Reach (September 1999). Accessedonline at: www.nlihc.org/oor99/introduction.htm, on April 14, 2000.

63. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Homelessness: Programs and thePeople They Serve. Accessed online at: www.huduser.org.org/publications/homeless/homelessness/highlights.html, on April 14, 2000.

64. HUD, The State of the Cities Report 1999.65. Ibid.

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66. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States (Washington, DC: FBI, 1997).67. William H. Frey and Ross DeVol, America’s Demography in the New Century: Aging Baby Boomers

and New Immigrants as Major Players (Santa Monica, CA: The Milken Institute, 2000).68. Jan Lin, Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 1998); Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transforma-tion of Miami (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997); and David Ferrell andRobert Lee Hotz, “Ethnic Pockets Amid a Vast Fabric of English,” The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 23, 2000.

69. Richard D. Alba, J.R. Logan, B.J. Stults, G. Marzan, and W. Zhang, “Immigrant Groups inthe Suburbs: A Reexamination of Suburbanization and Spatial Assimilation,” American Sociological Review 64 (June 1999): 446-60.

70. Jennifer Steinhauer, “High Infant Mortality Rates in Brooklyn Mystify Experts,” The NewYork Times, Feb. 29, 2000.

71. Lin, Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change; and Murray Friedman and Nancy Isserman, eds., The Tribal Basis of American Life: Racial, Religious and Ethnic Groups inConflict (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998).

72. Michael A. Fletcher, “In Rapidly Changing L.A., A Sense of Future Conflicts,” The Washing-ton Post, April 7, 1998.

73. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

74. Statistics based on medium-variant projections in United Nations, World Population Prospects:The 1998 Revision (New York: United Nations, 1999).

75. Ariel Alexandre and Yuko Aoyama, “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ‘The City and the Elderly,’” The OECD Observer (Paris: August/September,1992).

76. Martin Brockerhoff, “Migration and the Fertility Transition in African Cities,” in Migration,Urbanization, and Development: New Directions and Issues, ed. Bilsborrow: 357-87.

77. Dennis A. Rondinelli, Secondary Cities in Developing Countries: Policies for Diffusing Urbanization(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983).

78. Alice Goldstein and Wang Feng, eds., China: The Many Facets of Demographic Change(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).

79. Martin Brockerhoff, “Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Projections andPredictions,” Population and Development Review 25, no. 4 (December 1999): 757-78.

80. Shabbir Cheema, “Issues in Urban Management,” in Cities in the 1990s: The Challenge for Developing Countries, ed. Harris: 110-12.

81. Jonas Rabinovitch, “Curitiba: Towards Sustainable Urban Development,” Environment and Urbanization 4, no. 2 (October 1992): 62-73.

82. Richard Stren and Judith Kjellberg Bell, eds., Perspectives on the City 4 (Toronto: Universityof Toronto, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, 1995).

83. “Competitive Cities Summary Report.” (A report on the World Bank’s World CompetitiveCities Congress (WCCC), May 18-21, 1999, in Washington, DC.) Accessed online at:www.worldcongress.com/1999Cities/1999cities_report.htm, on April 19, 2000.

84. Michael Lindfield and Robert Stimson, “Urban Economic Development and GlobalisationLinkages in the Pacific Rim,” in East West Perspectives on 21st Century Urban Development, eds.Brotchie, Newton, Hall, and Dickey: 89-123.

85. See UNCHS (Habitat), “Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme,” and “Sharingthe Lessons Learned from Best Practices.” Accessed online at: www.bestpractices.org, onApril 19, 2000.

86. HUD, The State of the Cities Report 1999.87. See Robert W. Burchell, et al., “The Costs of Sprawl Revisited,” Transit Cooperative Research

Program Report 39 (Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, National ResearchCouncil, 1998); and Robert W. Burchell, “The State of the Cities and Sprawl,” a report prepared for HUD (1999).

88. Ibid.89. Dean Paton, “Seattle’s Innovative Answer to the Housing Crunch,” Christian Science Monitor,

April 11, 2000; Aurelio Rojas, “Seattle’s Innovative Solution to Homelessness,” San FranciscoChronicle, Dec. 23, 1997; Norman B. Rice, “Funding Affordable Housing: Seattle’s $159 Mil-lion Commitment,” Journal of Housing and Community Development 53, no. 3 (May/June1996); and Karen Thoreson and Tom Larson, “At Home With HOME: How InnovativeCities Use Home Funds,” Journal of Housing and Community Development 52, no. 3 (May1995).

90. James S. Russell, “Performing Art Centers: Using Art to Revive Cities,” Architectural Record(New York: May 1999); and Bruce Weber, “Cities Are Fostering the Arts as a Way to SaveDowntown,” The New York Times, Nov. 18, 1997.

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Suggested ResourcesBartlett, Sheridan, Roger Hart, David Satterthwaite, Ximena de la Barra, and

Alfredo Missair. Cities for Children: Children’s Rights, Poverty and UrbanManagement. London: Earthscan Publications, 1999.

Becker, Charles, Andrew Hamer, and Andrew R. Morrison. Beyond Urban Bias inAfrica: Urbanization in an Era of Structural Adjustment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.

Bilsborrow, Richard E., ed. Migration, Urbanization, and Development: New Directionsand Issues. New York: United Nations Population Fund and Kluwer AcademicPublishers, 1998.

Gilbert, Alan, and Josef Gugler. Cities, Poverty, and Development: Urbanization in theThird World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Gugler, Josef, ed. The Urban Transformation of the Developing World. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996.

Hardoy, Jorge E., and David Satterthwaite. Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban World.London: Earthscan Publications, 1989.

Jones, Gavin W., and Pravin M. Visaria. Urbanization in Large Developing Countries: China, Indonesia, Brazil and India. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Lo, Fu-chen, and Yue-Man Yeuny, eds. Globalization and the World of Large Cities. NewYork: United Nations University Press, 1998.

Mitchell, James K., ed. Crucibles of Hazard: Mega-Cities and Disasters in Transition. NewYork: United Nations University Press, 1999.

Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Stren, Richard. Perspectives on the City. Vol. 4. Toronto: University of Toronto, Centrefor Urban and Community Studies, 1995.

United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS). An Urbanizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements, 1996. Oxford, England: Oxford UniversityPress for HABITAT, 1996.

United Nations Department of International Economic and Social Affairs. World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision. New York: United Nations, 2000.

Wilson, David, ed. “Globalization and the Changing U.S. City,” The Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science 551. London: Sage PeriodicalsPress, May 1997.

World Health Organization. The Urban Health Crisis: Strategies for Health for All in theFace of Rapid Urbanization. A Report of the Technical Discussions at the Forty-Fourth World Health Assembly. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1993.

Related PRB PublicationsFor more information on urbanization and world population issues, here areseveral other PRB publications:

Attaining Global Health: Challenges and Opportunities, byScott C. Ratzan, Gary L. Filerman, and John W. LeSarThis Population Bulletin looks at trends in health over the past century, and identi-fies the ways that we can pursue the goal of better global health. The authors ex-plore the multiple factors that determine health and stress the need for actionfrom the individual to the international level to improve health. (BUL55.1) $7.00

World Population Beyond Six Billion, by Alene Gelbard, Carl Haub,and Mary M. KentThis Population Bulletin chronicles the demographic history of the world and thechanges in population in less developed and more developed countries. The Bul-letin provides a rich store of data about population before 1900, from 1900 to 1950,from 1950 to 2000, and projections to 2050. It describes a new world vision of whatto do about population issues and draws attention to particular population groups,such as the elderly, women, children and adolescents, migrants, and people at highrisk of HIV/AIDS. (BUL54.1) $7.00

Household Transportation Use and Urban Air Pollution: AComparative Analysis of Thailand, Mexico, and the UnitedStates, by Roger-Mark De SouzaThis report presents the results of a comparative case-study analysis of the impactof household transportation use on urban air pollution. The case studies were con-ducted in three cities that are known to have severe transportation-related prob-lems: Bangkok, Mexico City, and Washington, DC. (IMACARTHEN) $5.00

2000 World Population Data Sheet, by Carl Haub and Diana Cornelius PRB’s popular World Population Data Sheet—available as a wallchart or in a 12-pagebook edition—contains the latest population estimates, projections, and other keyindictors for 200 countries and for major geographic regions. Users can find annu-al rates of birth, death, infant mortality, total fertility, and population growth, aswell as measures of urbanization, age structure, contraceptive use, GNP per capita,population density, and other indicators. The 2000 edition features estimates ofHIV/AIDS prevalence. Wallchart (32" by 22") (DSWENG) $4.50; Book Edition (11"by 8.5") (DB00WBK) $4.50

Recent Population Bulletins

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Volume 54 (1999)No. 4 Population and Health: AnIntroduction to Epidemiology, 2ded., by Ian R.H. Rockett

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Volume 52 (1997)No. 4 Population and Reproduc-tive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa,by Thomas J. Goliber

No. 3 Generations of Diversity:Latinos in the United States, byJorge del Pinal and Audrey Singer

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No. 1 Gender, Power, and Popula-tion Change, by Nancy E. Riley

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