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Coping with a rapidly urbanising world

— FILE Photo: Paul Noronha

RAPID GROWTH: India has eight of the world’s 100 fastest-growing large cities measured in terms of population growth rates between 1950 and 2000. A view of skyscrapers forming the backdrop to ramshackle houses in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai.

When the United Nations Population Fund published its “State of the World Population” report earlier this year, it pointed out that the world would reach “an invisible but momentous milestone” in 2008 when, for the first time in history, more than half the world’s population would be living in urban areas. Now, in a recent study, the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has drawn attention to how good urb an governance holds the key to successfully coping with the unprecedented pace of urban expansion in many developing countries.

The world’s urban population had multiplied ten-fold during the 20th century and most of this growth had taken place in low- and middle-income nations, the study, which drew on the latest urban data from the U.N.’s Population Division as well as from several recent censuses, said. It would be the urban areas of these countries that would accommodate most of the world’s growth in population between now and 2020.

But, “most of these nations lack the institutional, legal, and financial systems needed to manage rapid urban change over the next 15 years in a way that addresses urban poverty and the risks associated with climate change,” according to the study’s author David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow in the Institute’s human settlements group.

Propelled by economic growth in countries such as China and India, much of the rapid urban expansion is occurring in Asia which already has many of the world’s largest cities. Although three-fifths of all Asians still live in rural areas, the region is home to half the world’s urban population. Asia has half of the world’s 100 fastest-growing large cities measured in terms of population growth rates between 1950 and 2000. China alone has 15 such cities and India eight. In addition, Africa has 25 cities in the same category and Latin America 21.

By contrast, Europe’s dominance had decreased dramatically. It had more than half of the world’s 100 largest cities in 1910 but had only ten such cities by 2000. It now has most of the world’s slowest-growing and declining cities, and its great centres of industry are no longer among the world’s largest cities, observed the IIED study.

The study held that economic growth was the most important factor underlying urbanisation. Increasing urbanisation was being driven by the growing concentration of new investment and employment opportunities in urban areas. “Within most nations, the main driver of urban change is best summarised as the geography of where private enterprises choose to concentrate [or to avoid].”

“There is no automatic link between rapid urban growth and urban problems,” according to the study. “Most of the costs associated with rapid urban growth are not caused by the growth itself but rather by the inability of national and local institutions to adapt to the new challenges that this growth presents.”

“Most cities may be centres of wealth and opportunity but they are also centres of extreme poverty and usually of very large and often growing inequality — in terms of income levels, housing conditions and access to services,” the study found. “Around a billion urban dwellers — a sixth of the planet’s population — are homeless or live in crowded tenements, boarding houses or houses or shacks in informal/squatter settlements [often three or more to a room]. Many are denied the vote, even in democracies, because they lack the legal address required for voter registration. They are often exploited by landlords, politicians, police and criminals.”

Besides, there were often problems with corruption. Even where city governments are elected, it was common for local politicians to use patron-client relationships with their constituents, which undermined democracy and accountability, the study noted.

“Poor local governance is the key to understanding growing urban problems,” said Dr. Satterthwaite in an email.

There was a long tradition in India and elsewhere of seeing ‘the poor’ in negative terms, he went on to say. A rapidly-growing economy like that of Mumbai, Bangalore or Hyderabad attracted many migrants who are essential to these economies. But few city or State Governments had actually recognised this and changed their policies and investments on housing, land-use, infrastructure and services accordingly.

“What is critical is that city and state governments become far more effective at working with low-income groups, not against them. In many ways, the very poor conditions in which so many of the residents in Mumbai and Bangalore live is a scandal, given the economic success of these cities. This is not so much about money as about the attitudes of senior politicians and civil servants,” Dr. Satterthwaite said.

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