Urbanization & Urban Crisis in Developing Countries: Population Growth & Migration Trends, Summaries of Urban Services Design and Administration

Download Urbanization & Urban Crisis in Developing Countries: Population Growth & Migration Trends and more Summaries Urban Services Design and Administration in PDF only on Docsity! - 189- THE URBAN CRISIS Facts and trends During the last decades the main emphasis in com­ munity health in developing countries has been on extending health service coverage in rural areas, but in more recent years health authorities throughout the world have become increasingly concerned with the public health problems emerging in the cities. During the last 20 years or so, a number of inter­ national meetings have called the attention of deci­ sion makers and researchers to the issue of urbani­ zation. Among these were the United Nations confer­ ence on the human environment in 1972; the United Nations world population conference in 1974; the United Nations conference on human settlements (Habitat) in 1976; two international conferences on population and the urban future in 1980 and 1986; the United Nations conference on large cities in 1985; and the conference on small and medium­ sized cities in 1986. In 1980, the Rome Declaration on Population and the Urban Future predicted that "in the next two dec- 'Unless otherwise specified, the figures provided in this section are based on the projections prepared by the United Nations Depart­ ment of International Economic and Social Affairs (3}. These projections follow the practice of previous UN studies of not imposing uniform definitions on all countries and therefore using national definitions of what constitutes rural or urban populations. ades, the world will undergo, as a result of the urbanization process, the most radical changes ever in social, economic and political life". It also casti­ gated the inadequacies, in most cities of the world, of "virtually every service, amenity and support re­ quired for tolerable urban living" (1, 2). The total population of the world,• estimated at 4 851 million for 1985, is expected to reach 6 261 million by 2000 and 8 504 million by 2025, an in­ crease of 29% between 1985 and 2000 and of a further 36% between 2000 and 2025. The urban population of the world, estimated at 2 048 million for 1985, is projected to reach 3 197 million by 2000 and 5 493 million by 2025, an in­ crease of 56% between 1985 and 2000 and a further increase of 72% between 2000 and 2025. This in­ crease may be attributed to a combination of rural­ urban migration, natural increase in the urban popu­ lation, reduced mortality and reclassification of rural lands as urban or peri-urban areas. The contribution of migrants to urban growth is greater than would appear from numbers alone: most migrants, in fact, are in the child-bearing age and thus have higher birth rates than the urban population as a whole. United Nations estimates suggest that, between 1975 and 1980, 54.3% of the total population increase in the developing regions took place in urban areas. It FIG. 1 AVERAGE ANNUAL URBAN GROWTH RATE, LESS DEVELOPED REGIONS AND MORE DEVELOPED REGIONS, 1970-1975 TO 2020-2025 TAUX ANNUEL MOYEN DE LA CROISSANCE URBAINE DANS LES REGIONS MOINS DEVELOPPEES ET DANS LES REGIONS PLUS DEVELOPPEES, DE 1970-1975 A 2020-2025 5 4 Ql Ol .el c Ql 3 ~ :::> 0 0... Ql 2 Ol .el c Ql ~ Ql 0... 1 1970 - 1975 1985 - 1990 1995- 2000 2020- 2025 Years- Annees B More developed regions- Regions plus developpees - Less developed regions- Regions mains developpees Wid hlth statist. quart., 44 (1991) - 190- is anticipated that in the period 1995-2000, 71.5% of the increase will be in urban areas as against 28.5% in rural areas. From 1985 to 1990, the urban population of the less developed regions grew by 4.5% annually (Fig. 1), that is about 1.5 times the rate of the urban and rural populations combined (3.1%). This rate of urban growth is slightly lower than that of the previous 5-year period (4.6% annually), showing the reversal of a trend of rising urban growth rates since 1960. The urban population growth rate of the less developed regions is projected to decline to 3.7% per year during the period 1995-2000 and to 2.2% in 2020-2025. Cumulative percentage changes anticipated in the urban and rural population of the developing coun­ tries to the year 2025 are shown in Fig. 2. The speed at which a population is urbanizing is expressed in terms of the rate of urbanization (see definition in Box 1). The rate of urbanization is also equal to the difference between the urban popula­ tion growth rate and the total (urban and rural combined) population growth rate; it is therefore a sensitive measure of the intensity of the redistribu­ tion of population from rural to urban areas. The rate of urbanization in the less developed regions was estimated at 2.5% during the period 1980-1985 and 2.4% during 1985-1990. In these regions, popula­ tion redistribution from rural to urban was intense during the 1980s, and will still be important in the future. The level of urbanization (Box 1) in the developing regions is expected to increase from 37% in 1985 to 45% by the end of the century, and to 61% by 2025. Most major areas of the world are likely to show some increase in urban population in the future; in Africa and South Asia increases as high as 30-60% are expected in each decade from 1990 to 2020. Box 1. Definitions The level of urbanization is defined as the fraction of the total population living in the urban areas. The rate of urbanization is defined as the annual rate of change of the level of urbaniza­ tion. The rate of urban population growth defines the change in the number of people living in urban areas relative to the initial number at the beginning of a given period. Of the 22 regions of the world into which the 210 countries (or areas) have been grouped by the United Nations, the more developed re­ gions cover five regions in Europe, Northern America, Eastern Asia (excluding China), Aus­ tralia/New Zealand and the USSR; the less developed regions cover the remammg re­ gions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. The United Nations publication World urbanization prospects 1990 (3) shows that the growth in the world urban population over the period 1975-1985 was 507 million. This growth was 53.4% in develop­ ing regions compared with only 11.5% in developed regions. A significant proportion of the urban population of the world resides in large agglomerations. The size and rate of growth of urban agglomerations are such that they outstrip the capacity of urban administrations to face the growing demand for services with the result that large sections of the population live in poverty and squalor. An urban FIG.2 PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN THE POPULATIONS OF URBAN AND RURAL AREAS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES UP TO THE YEAR 2025 a MODIFICATION DES POURCENTAGES DANS LES POPULATIONS DES ZONES URBAINES ET RURALES DES PAYS EN DEVELOPPEMENT,JUSOU'A L'AN 2025 a 50 45 ~ 40 ::J mE Cl::J ~ (.) 35 .r:<ll Urban areas- Zones urbaines <.lCl (!)~ e>c 30 cc (!) +-'(.) c ~ (!) ::J (.) 0 :Vc. 25 C.c (!) (!) 20 >..-·.;:; c:: cc (!) "SE 15 E m ::JCl u~ .r: 10 u 5 0 1970 75 80 85 90 95 2000 05 10 15 20 2025 'Base 1970. Years- Annees Rapp. trimest. statist. sanit. mond., 44(19911 - 193- de-urbanization (1961-1976) by various means, and one of return to rapid urban growth with officially sanctioned return to the cities of millions of people previously displaced, and with net rural-urban migration playing a larger role than natural increase. Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and China (Province of Taiwan) urbanized rapidly during the period 1960-1982 as they developed economic­ ally, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand showed smaller increases in the level of urbanization despite relatively rapid economic growth. It has been suggested that this may be due to understatements because of inaccurate statistics, the exclusion from calculations of the 1982 data for new urban centres, the booming agriculture that kept the work force in rural areas, a rapid growth of jobs and incomes in the rural areas, but not in agriculture, or possibly a combination of these. The political orientation may also be important as centrally-planned economies do not show the con­ centration of urban population that prevails in market or mixed economies. As for China, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea and Viet Nam, the controlled de-urbanization imposed by governments during the period 1961- 1971 have had important effects on the cities (10, 11 ). Urban change in Latin America. Some countries of Latin America have a high proportion of their popu­ lation living in urban areas and cities which rank among the largest in the world: by 1985 Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo had populations of more than 10 million inhabitants. The largest increases in the level of urbanization were observed in countries with rapid growth in economy and manufacturing in the period 1960- 1970, such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Now, however, urban growth rates are declining. Argen­ tina, Chile and Uruguay experienced less dramatic recent increases in the level of urbanization and slow economic growth: their major urbanization im­ pulse was the result of immigration from Europe at the end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XXth century. Peculiar to Latin America is the heavy concentration of productive activities and urban population in a few "core regions" which contain the largest cities: examples are the regions of La Plata-Buenos Aires­ Campana Zarate-San Nicholas-Rosano-San Lorenzo, of Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo-Belo Horizonte and of Mexico City-Toluca-Cuernavaca-Puebla-Oueretaro. Here growth has taken place mostly in the suburban rings. The urban poor The censuses of the 1980s on which levels and trends of urbanization in the developing countries have been estimated and projected, are rather old. Caution must therefore be exercised when interpret- .'Satterthwaite, D. Urban change in the Third World: recent trends, underlying causes, future prospects. WHO Expert Committee on Environmental Health in Urban Development, Geneva 17-23 April 1990. (WHO document RUD/WP/90.3). ' Moser, C. & Satterthwaite, D. The characteristics and sociology of poor urban communities. Paper prepared for a workshop on com­ munity health and the urban poor, organized by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. OXFAM and UNICEF, 7-12 July 1985, Oxford, United Kingdom. Wid hfth statist. quart., 44(1991) ing the statistics reported and discussed in the pre­ vious sections, until the results of the 1990 or 1991 censuses are known. The above caveat notwithstanding, certain con­ clusions are evident. The level of urbanization reached by cities and the speed at which they are expected to continue growing have different impli­ cations depending on the ability of the local auth­ orities to provide existing and future populations with adequate livelihoods, appropriate health and social services, protection of the environment and the institutional and legal structures required to sustain development and preserve a balance be­ tween supply and demand. It is being realized that in most cities of developing countries local adminis­ trations have been unable to meet the challenge. This failure to respond adequately has been the central problem for decades, but it has been aggra­ vated recently by widespread economic difficulties. Poverty and its well-known array of social mani­ festations, deterioration of services and degradation of the environment are all consequences of this situation .• The interpretation of the urbanization process has generally been based on the experiences of in­ dustrialized countries. In this model the key ele­ ments are the increasing complexity of technology and the shift in the demand for labour from the agricultural to the nonagricultural sector (12). The imbalance between labour demand and the geo­ graphical distribution of labour supply created "pushes" and "pulls" between urban and rural areas, and a migration flow from rural to urban areas with a resulting rise in the proportion of people living in the cities. What happened in the developing countries may not easily fit this model as urbanization may be occur­ ring independently of any increase in prosperity through industrialization. Urban growth may not be caused primarily by the "pull" forces of economic prosperity in the cities, but by the "push" forces of rural poverty. Even in economically stagnant socie­ ties therefore, there may be significant additions to the urban population which are not absorbed into the urban economy, but remain employed in un­ productive fields or totally unemployed. The situation may be aggravated by other events taking place in developing countries, such as eco­ nomic recession, external debt, drought, storms and floods, guerilla warfare, etc., all of which contribute a further push to rural-urban migration and to poverty. Contributing factors may also be those gov­ ernment policies which tend to concentrate on new productive investments in large cities, thus diverting resources away from those working in small towns and rural areas.1 The population explosion experienced in the cities of the developing world during the last decade has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of squatter settlements and slums. It is estimated that an average 50% of the urban population live in conditions of extreme deprivation, and this figure is much higher in some cities: for example, slum and squatter settlements account for 79% of the population of Addis Ababa (and this proportion has been estimated to be as high as 90%). Although this may be an extreme case, other major cities in the developing world are not far - 194- behind. By the end of the century, the urban poor may represent a quarter of the world population. Unemployment, underemployment, low income, low education and malnutrition are closely associated with poor health. The unemployed in developed countries are estimated to number about 30 million, more than 70% of whom live in urban areas. It has been calculated that between 1970 and 1985 the size of the urban population living in absolute poverty increased by 73% (from 177 million to 306 million); the corresponding increase for rural populations was 11%. Assuming that in the year 2000 one-half of the urban population is still living in conditions similar to present ones, at least 1 billion people will be counted among the urban poor. Of these, approxi­ mately 56% will live in Asia, 24% in Latin America and 20% in Africa. These figures, translated into human terms, forecast harsh times ahead for most of the poor living in the cities and towns of the developing world where squatter settlements built of cardboard, wood and flattened kerosene cans have already become a common sight and even a permanent feature of the landscape. Attempts to analyse the characteristics of low­ income households in urban areas bring to the fore the category of "women-headed households". In spite of scarce information on the extent of the problem, their growing number is generally rec­ ognized. So is their condition of being the poorest among the poor. Women heads of households, in addition to being among those with the least access to income-earning activities, have heavy domestic responsibility for the management of the household and the care and raising of children. This generally happens under conditions of neglect from auth­ orities and of discrimination both in the job market (because they are women) and in the competition for shelter in low-income housing schemes.1 As many as 30% of all households in the world are estimated to be headed by women, with the highest proportions being observed in Latin American cities (more than 50%) (13). In their discussion on the causes of urban poverty, Moser & Satterthwate1 refer to the two stereotyped interpretations of the forms of social and economic development observed in different Third World nations. The first is known as the "modernization" approach in which Third World nations are undergo­ ing a process of development similar to that ex­ perienced in the past by Western nations; a dualist economic and social structure would become apparent, of which the traditional and backward sector would become gradually adapted and assimi­ lated into the modern sector, so that by the end of the process the dual economy and social structure would cease to exist. To characterize the traditional and backward sector, the concept of "marginality" has been developed to describe particular aspects of the urbanization process. The people who migrate to the cities are labelled "socially, spatially and politic­ ally marginal" to emphasize the fact that a high proportion are illiterate and unskilled, live on the periphery and are outside political organizations or structures. Their marginality is seen as a problem of • Misra, H. N. Health and habitat in popular settlements, a case study of Chleetpur, Allahabad. International Institute for Development Research, Allahabad University, India, 1985 (cited in'). adaptation and is attributed to their own short­ comings rather than to a malfunctioning society itself. The alternative interpretation is that Third World nations, with few exceptions, could not go through a process of social and economic change similar to that undergone by Western nations because their societies are different and the international context has little in common with the one prevailing when the Western nations underwent rapid industrializa­ tion (large empires providing cheap raw materials, protectionist measures, etc.). The problem of urban poverty may not be one of particular characteristics and traits (or a "culture of poverty" as in Oscar Lewis (14)), but the consequence of a particular type of economic development and the result of a lack of opportunities and resources. There is now an in­ creasing tendency to give credit to the resourceful innovative behaviour of the urban poor in relation to their own survival strategies and to their importance as contributors, despite innumerable problems and constraints, to the social and economic development of the cities. Rural-urban migration flows can be considered as responses, largely dictated by necessity, to changing economic circumstances. Moreover, on the whole urban immigrants have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to urban life in ways that are necess­ ary for survival. As Moser & Satterthwaite1 point out: "People in urban squatter communities estab­ lish their own norms of social organization. Unstable households and high incidence of single-parent households are often cited as ex­ amples of the breakdown of social organization. But empirical studies suggest that they are more realistically seen as the result of economic un­ certainty. Under conditions of extreme poverty, men may be unwilling to commit themselves to relatively permanent obligations. In other in­ stances, women themselves may be unwilling to take on the liability of a permanent attachment. The fact that there are similarities between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters may well be the outcome of their sharing sim­ ilar experiences and problems rather than the transmission of cultural traits. Where the under­ utilization of public services such as health clinics by lower income groups occurs, the primary determinant may not be apathy or alienation (as so often thought) but structural factors such as transportation costs or avail­ ability or clinic hours. Misra,9 in a study of a small squatter settlement in Allahabad (India) where illiterate, unscheduled castes made up most of the families, found that their under­ utilization of the free hospital close by was essentially due to the fact that a three-to-four hour wait before seeing a doctor was common, and adults who have to work each day to sur­ vive cannot afford the time to do this. Further­ more, the inhabitants did not feel that the doc­ tors in the hospital gave them much attention because of their low status-and some doctors were reported to tell patients that they can only receive treatment if they come to their private clinics for which they have to pay". Experience has shown that the poor can develop complex patterns of social interaction based on friendship, kinship, ethnicity, caste or religion or important mutual self-help initiatives, and develop mutual aid linkages with new neighbours. Such link- Rapp. trimest. statist. sanit. mond., 44 (19911 - 195- ages provide the basis for community mobilization to appeal to local authorities to allocate public in­ vestments in infrastructure and services to the area.h This contradicts the concept of political marginality. Likewise, it is possible to argue against the concept of economic marginality that portrays the immi­ grants as a mass of idlers, since the problem is not that of the unemployed poor, but of the "working poor" subjected to long hours of work under harsh conditions, and for low returns. The "informal sec­ tor", by which name a large proportion of Third World city populations is designated because self­ employed or working in small enterprises escaping recognition and regulation, is neither marginal to the city economy nor a separate sector and is functional in relation to the prevailing economic system. Fin­ ally, the fact that squats and other low-income settle­ ments are often spatially separated from the main city centre and better-off areas ("spatial mar­ ginality") does not mean that they are not closely integrated into the urban economy. Squatting on land ill-suited to housing or on tidal swamps or on land prone to flooding or landslides just makes it easier to avoid harassment and forceful eviction. In fact, now that the days of unrestricted bulldozing are generally over, an increasing number of govern­ ments are realizing that squatters and other poor urban populations can be functional to city econ­ omies and of benefit to city governments.h It is therefore possible to conclude with Frankenhoffi that " ... it is essential to facilitate the involvement of the untapped resources of marginal communities into the process of urban development. There are politi­ cal, social and economic arguments in favour of this option. The political argument states that increasing the stability of these slum communities in terms of jobs, housing, education and health will contribute to national political stability. The social argument states that the community which is helped to build itself will produce social benefits for the nation. The economic argument states that the slum community can generate significant consumer demands as well as capital formation. Houses, sewers, sidewalks, schools and clinics can be built by such a com­ munity with a minimum of assistance". Reversing the trend The current urban population increase is without precedent since today's developed countries ex­ perienced lower rates of urban population growth when they started to industrialize. There is great concern among governments about the conse­ quence of rapid population increase and population distribution. In a survey conducted in 1978) only 3 out of 76 respondents expressed the desire to ac­ celerate rural-urban migration. Most developing h Moser, C. 0. N. Residential struggle and consciousness: the ex­ perience of the poor in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Guides and Planning, Working Paper No. 1, Development Planning Unit, University College, London, 1985 (cited in 1). 'Franken hoff, C. A. The need for a primary health service strategy for the urban poor in the less developed countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. (WHO unpublished document, 1976). i United Nations. High level committee on the review of technical cooperation among developing countries, New York, 1-8 June 1981. Item 8 of provisional agenda: role and potential of technical cooperation among developing countries in rural-urban migration and economic development. (UN document TCDC/2/10, 1981) [This section is largely based on this report]. Wid hlth statist. quart., 44 (19911 countries indicated dissatisfaction with the rise and continuing high growth rates of their largest cities. Preoccupation was expressed for the overloaded public services, inadequate social infrastructure, environmental degradation and the amount of re­ sources needed to deal with these problems. Even when migration benefits the individual immi­ grant, it may impose a heavy burden on the cities. This has led many governments to adopt policies to control and regulate the flow of rural-urban migrants. Opponents of these policies maintain that they disturb spontaneous balancing mechanisms and contravene Article 13(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the borders of his own state. Policies adopted by governments to stem rural­ urban migration can be divided into the following four categories: (i) Incentive measures to reduce rural-urban migra­ tion. Taking into consideration the prevailing causes of migration, governments have undertaken reforms to increase rural employment and opportunities. Attempts have been made to replace traditional, landlord-type farming with modernized farming, or to abolish the use of servant labourers, or to intro­ duce tenancy contracts in order to increase the security of peasant cultivators, or to redistribute land by setting a maximum size of holding. Such pro­ grammes have been carried out in Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Egypt, India, Mexico, Peru and the Republic of Korea. Although the agrarian structure was modified to some extent, these attempts rarely resulted in a large reduction in migration. Legislative loopholes allowed landlords to retain the more fer­ tile land or keep control of equipment or irrigation points. Occasionally, land reform stimulated rural­ urban migration because of mass eviction following the introduction of tenancy contracts or the inten­ sification of mechanized production by landlords. Paradoxically, land reform also stimulated urban growth indirectly, leading to transfer of capital and other resources to urban areas because of invest­ ments made by landlords in manufacturing, con­ struction or other urban industrial sectors. There were exceptions: land reform did have some measure of success in Bolivia and Costa Rica, for example. In general, in such cases land reforms in order to be successful had to be backed by other policies relating to farm credit, rural infrastructure or favourable agriculture prices, among others. In many cases, for example in Egypt, these improvements never materialized. Moreover, rural minimum wage legislation as a means of improving rural employment conditions failed to reduce rural-urban wage differentials and actually stimulated rural-urban migration rather than reduced .it. This type of legislation was easily by­ passed by paying a large proportion of the wage in kind, overvaluing the non-monetary elements, by replacing permanent labourers with unprotected casual workers and by accelerating labour-saving mechanization. Tax reform to induce land redistribu­ tion was also easily evaded (especially in the ab­ sence of an effective land-title system) or the burden was passed on to the consumer and thus contribut­ ed to raise labour costs. Agricultural subsidies have been introduced in many countries but they have led to labour-displacing