An explanation on how cities grows?

1. URBANIZATION : HOW CITIES GROW
An Academic Presentation to BdevS, Center for Development Studies
Kathmamndu University
2014
Rajendra P Sharma
rpsharma@mailcity.com

2. URBANIZATION & CITIES
• Urbanization refers to the proportion of people in living
in cities.
• It also refers to the process in which rural populations
move to urban areas.
• Urbanization refers to all of the cities in a country,
considered as an urban system.
• The urban system is the network of individual cities
within a region or country.

3. Urban and Rural Population, Less Developed Countries
1950 to 2025

4. Sources of Urbanization
• The urban system of a country grows mainly by:
1. Natural population increase (births – deaths)
2. Migration from rural areas (especially in countries with
large rural populations)
3. Immigration from other countries (especially in Europe and
North America)
4. Reclassification of urban boundaries to encompass
formerly rural areas

5. Urbanization in MDCs and LDCs
• MDCs
– Slow pre-industrial growth
– Rapid industrial growth
– Slows again once most
previously rural populations
are in cities
– Europe, North America,
Australia and Japan, the
population is 75% to 80%
urban.
– Canada is 80% urbanized.
• LDCs
– Rapid urbanization without
proportional industrialization
(population growth, land
tenure)
– By 2020 majority of LDC
population will live in urban
areas of 1 million+
– By 2020 most megacities of
10 million+ will be in LDCs

6. Urbanization
• The urbanization curve is typically logistic or S-shaped
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
MDC urbanization
LDC urbanization

7. Urban Growth is Speeding Up
Time required to reach 2 million population:
Rome, Italy 2000 years
Vienna, Austria 400 years
Vancouver, B.C. 115 years
Shenzhen, China 20 years

8. Share of World Population Growth Urban and Rural Areas LDCs and MDCs 1950 to 2025
• Over the next quarter century, increases in urbanization will be almost entirely attributable
to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

9. Cities with 10 million or more people
2015

10. Share of World Population Growth Urban and Rural Areas LDCs and MDCs 1950 to 2025
• Over the next quarter century, increases in urbanization will be almost entirely attributable
to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

11. Urbanization & the population
Thomas Malthus and Malthusianism
“I SAID that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio, and subsistence for
man in an arithmetical ratio.”
Thomas Malthus. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population
Availableat http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/
1766-1834

12. Urbanization & the population
Time
Pop.
Subsistence

13. Urbanization & the population
Thomas Malthus and Malthusianism
• Solution to unchecked population growth: inculcate ‘middle-class’ values in the ‘lower-
classes’
– Advocated universal sufferage, state-run education
• But his analysis of population growth has been used to naturalize the idea of
‘overpopulation’ as a purely mathematical problem ---> buries struggles for power (politics)
in apparently objective language of math.
1766-1834

14. Urbanization & the population question
Source: Marshall, J. 2005