Summary
Contents
Subject index
It took New York City (the world's largest metropolis in 1950) nearly a century and a half to expand by eight million residents. Mexico City and Sao Paulo will match this growth in less than fifteen years. Asia's mega-cities, too, are exploding in number and size. This kind of unprecedented growth is being echoed in the urban centers of developing nations around the globe. The essays in this volume address the wide array of problematic issues–as well as the opportunities and advantages–that are the natural outgrowth of such rapid urbanization. Third World Cities examines three sets of vital issues. Drawing on the experience and evidence of the past two decades, the book's initial chapters assess theoretical frameworks upon which urban and migration policies are based. The authors of the middle section press for fresh approaches to the increasing demands placed on institutions and individuals in the largest cities of the developing world. The final chapters examine the complex demographic, social, and economic processes of urban growth. Students, professionals, and policymakers in development and urban studies, public administration, sociology, political science and comparative politics, geography, and ethnic studies will find Third World Cities to be a refreshing and innovative look at this growing concern. “Third World Cities offers a range of new ideas on the demographic, social spatial, and environmental changes that are ‘occurring so quickly that up-to-date evidence is elusive’ … Third World Cities is both thought-provoking and highly readable.” –The Economic Times
Urban Land and Housing Issues Facing the Third World
Urban Land and Housing Issues Facing the Third World
There are complex linkages among population and land and housing issues. Throughout the developing world, rapid population growth from continuing high rates of natural increase and rapid in-migration has resulted in a high rate of consumption of urban land. Many of the world's cities will nearly double in size over the next several decades. Boundaries constantly spread outward, resulting in what in Mexico City is vividly described as the “urban stain.”
Most Third World cities have burgeoning peripheries that have grown almost overnight by means of invasions or are the result of gradual accretion. Informal urban periphery development frequently has created sprawling, low-density settlements that are difficult to service and have poor sanitary conditions. Except for a few authoritarian regimes, very few governments have succeeded in controlling this unplanned urban growth. Past community upgrading efforts have usually concentrated on physical components, ignoring the existence of marginal settlements that persist mainly as a symptom of deeper economic and social factors directly traceable to large-scale poverty (Gilbert 1990).
The current situation in land and housing markets has been a drag on development in many Third World countries. The fundamental issue in most cities is more complex than a limited supply of urban land. The issue is more one of speculation and inefficient land use, with large vacant areas in the central city held by speculators, forcing workers to live on the periphery and commute long distances to the central city. Construction of high-quality, heavily subsidized, high-cost housing units has been a failure. Projects in many countries were devised without considering needs of the target groups, resulting in housing too costly for the intended beneficiaries.
Land Development Issues
With some Third World cities growing at 5–10 percent per year—and at rates as high as 20 percent or more on the urban fringes—land in urban areas is being consumed at a rapid rate. In Cairo, for example, an estimated 1,200 hectares of agricultural land are lost annually to urban encroachment. Mexico City has been losing at least 1,000 hectares of agricultural land and 700 hectares of forest land each year (UNDIESA 1990a, 1990b).
The extraordinarily adaptive nature of urban land markets under pressures unprecedented in the developed countries is surprising. Doebele (1987) explained the adaptability of urban land markets by the “porous” qualities of most developing country cities at the end of World War II. Most cities grew in an unplanned, loosely structured fashion that left many vacant interstices. Central city dwellings were often located on large plots suitable for construction of additional structures. Public authorities frequently owned large tracts in central areas that could be used for the construction of shelter. As urban growth rates accelerated, the price of central city sites increased dramatically, becoming far too expensive for low-income residential occupancy and creating pressures to expel the existing residents. On the periphery, entrepreneurs could often purchase farmland to subdivide and resell. Despite rudimentary services, such illegal subdivisions offered enough of a sense of security of title to encourage their owners to use them as economic resources (Doebele 1987).
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