Dear Readers

While Researching found this very interesting debate . reproducing it with relevant links and credits.See , Think and give inputs.

Research on urban growth has traditionally focused on the Western metropolis, which was shaped by the massive industrialization, modernization, and migration patterns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  In recent years, scholars have started to examine the growth patterns of cities in other regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, and to question the universality of the Western model of urban development. While earlier data had led many scholars to concludethat cities in that region are growing at an unprecedented rate, new research has challenged the notion that Africa is fast becoming an urban continent.

Rapid growth

In Planet of Slums, urban theorist Mike Davis reported that according to Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) estimates, by 2020 the Gulf of Guinea will be home to three hundred cities, each with a population greater than 100,000 people. Historians Francesca Locatelli and Paul Nugent attributed the growth of sub-Saharan urban areas to the migration of rural residents to cities as well as to higher birth rates in urban areas. Using data originally contained in the 2002 UN publication The World Urbanization Prospects, together with data provided by the World Bank, demographer Barney Cohen projected that fifty-three percent of the sub-Saharan African population may live in urban areas by 2030, a dramatic increase from the first decade of the twenty-first century, when only thirty-eight percent lived in cities.

Slow development

Geographer Deborah Potts questioned these urban growth rates after analyzing UN-HABITAT data on cities in Malawi. With these data, Potts found just a one percent increase in urbanization between 1998 and 2010. Potts suggested that predictions of rapid growth made by other scholars did not adequately reflect the fact that in the 1970s, after several decades of rapid growth, the region entered a period of significant economic hardship that continues to the present day. As a result, rural residents have had little incentive to relocate to larger cities for work.

Resource allocation

As Potts argued, revisiting previous population estimates and growth models is necessary for the accurate allocation of financial and material resources. Equating population growth with urbanization can have negative consequences, she cautions, since the needs created by slow urban growth through increased birth rates are different from the results of projected rapid growth through migration. Understanding the exact model of urban growth at play in the sub-Saharan region is crucial, Potts argues, for politicians and development agencies that may adapt public policy in ways that would further encourage migration to cities.

Sources:Urban Portal

Related articles

• The City And The Land (3quarksdaily.com)
• The New Business of Africa: Markets and People Transforming the Continent (moroccotomorrow.org)
• Sub-Saharan Africa economy: Key issues in 2012 (moroccotomorrow.org)
• Phil Pauley: Cities of the Future – Beautiful Urban Metropolis or Overcrowded and Poverty-Stricken? (huffingtonpost.co.uk)