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Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Projections and Predictions

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  • Martin Brockerhoff

Abstract

Comparison of the United Nations' earliest and most recent projections to the year 2000 suggests that urban and city growth in developing regions has occurred much more slowly than was anticipated as recently as 1980. A modified “urban population explosion” in developing countries since the 1970s conforms to explanatory models of urban growth developed by economists around 1980. Trends in productivity and terms of trade, in particular, have been highly favorable to agriculture as compared to manufacturing, presumably slowing migration to urban centers. Increases in national population growth rates have produced less than commensurate increases in rates of city growth, further supporting an economic and migration‐related explanation for unexpectedly slow recent urban growth. Despite the efforts of the United Nations to maintain reliable statistics on urban and city populations, urban population projections should be interpreted with caution because of inadequacies of the data on which they are based. Moreover, current projections that virtually all world population growth in the future will occur in urban areas of developing countries may be misconstrued, if the forces that have retarded urban growth in recent years persist.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Brockerhoff, 1999. "Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Projections and Predictions," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(4), pages 757-778, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:25:y:1999:i:4:p:757-778
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.1999.00757.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Cuong Nguyen & Anh Tran, 2020. "Are children an incentive or a disincentive for migration? Evidence from Vietnam," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(3), pages 467-485, July.
    2. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2007. "New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 667-701, December.
    3. Liette Gilbert & Feike De Jong, 2015. "Entanglements of Periphery and Informality in Mexico City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 518-532, May.
    4. Franco, Sainu & Mandla, Venkata Ravibabu & Ram Mohan Rao, K., 2017. "Urbanization, energy consumption and emissions in the Indian context A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 898-907.
    5. Potts, Deborah, 2012. "Challenging the Myths of Urban Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Evidence from Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1382-1393.
    6. Shahid Yusuf, 2003. "Globalisation and the Challenge for Developing Countries," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(Supplemen), pages 35-72, February.
    7. Ashira Menashe‐Oren & Philippe Bocquier, 2021. "Urbanization Is No Longer Driven by Migration in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries (1985–2015)," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(3), pages 639-663, September.
    8. Robert Schoen, 2002. "On the Impact of Spatial Momentum," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 6(3), pages 49-66.
    9. Kyle Farrell, 2017. "The Rapid Urban Growth Triad: A New Conceptual Framework for Examining the Urban Transition in Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-19, August.
    10. Wei Lang & Muzhe Pan & Jiemin Wu & Tingting Chen & Xun Li, 2021. "The patterns and driving forces of uneven regional growth in ASEAN countries: A tale of two Thailands' path toward regional coordinated development," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 130-149, March.

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