Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the solutions that have been put forward to deal
with the problems caused. Box 25.1 provides an
example of the traditional process of rural-urban
population movement: that of India, with its very
large absolute increases in urban population in
recent decades. Box 25.2 focuses on the
phenomenon of the 'guest workers' recruited to
northwest Europe in the third quarter of the
twentieth century—a movement that was
originally designed to be short-term but did not
turn out that way, serving to demonstrate the
potential for migration to be a 'self-feeding' process.
IMPACTS OF COUNTERURBANISATION
The centrifugal movement of population is a
long-established phenomenon at local scale,
where it is traditionally referred to as
suburbanisation because of its domination by
housing. Progressively over time, these shifts have
been involving a wider range of urban functions
and taking place over longer distances, as daily
personal mobility has grown and urban centres
have expanded to embrace their previously rural
hinterlands. As a result, suburban centres and 'edge
Box 25.1
Urbanisation and rural-urban migration in India
Although India still has a relatively low degree of
urbanisation, with only just over one-quarter (26.1 per
cent) of its population living in urban areas in 1991, its
urban population has been growing rapidly in both
absolute and relative terms over the past three
decades, with the larger cities constituting a
progressively larger share of the total (Table 25.1).
Rural-urban migration has accounted for only about
one-fifth of this growth, the remainder being due to the
rapid rise in the number of settlements classified as
towns and to the relatively high rate of natural increase
in urban areas. Moreover, the rates of urbanisation and
rural-urban migration both fell somewhat in the 1980s
compared with the previous decade.
Indian cities share most of the characteristics and
problems of rapidly growing cities in the developing
world, particularly in relation to housing. Census data
indicate that the quality of shelter
per capita
has
declined over the last thirty years as measured by
indices of overcrowding. Typically, the poorest of urban
dwellers, as many as 30-50 per cent in most cities, live
in dwellings that have been constructed by themselves
or with the help of neighbours, friends and other locals,
usually without formal design and often using waste
materials. There is an inadequate supply of sites for
development, leading to squatting. Much depends on the
availability of public funding, but the main local revenue
sources for urban authorities (property taxes and a tax
on goods entering urban areas) have proved difficult to
administer.
At the same time, there are some positive signs,
notably the relatively low level of rural-urban migration—
equivalent to only about 1 per cent of the rural population
annually—and also the fact that this appears to be
contributing as much to the growth of medium-sized and
small towns as to the larger cities. Rural areas are
characterised by a significant degree of surplus labour,
so current levels of migration are not likely to have an
adverse effect on production capacity. With so much
scope for further urbanisation remaining, however, the
main challenges are to accelerate the pace of economic
transformation into non-agricultural activities and to
reinforce the trend towards a more balanced distribution
of growth across the urban system.
Sources:
Mohan 1996; Papola 1997; Visaria 1997.
