Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 83, Spring 2002, p. 12
In this spot, we offer excerpts from LTC archives to provoke thought, highlight enduring issues, or reveal how tenure approaches have or have not changed. Responses are always welcomed. Contact the Editor or the LTC Tenure listserver: tenure@relay.doit.wisc.edu. (If you are not already a subscriber, see http://www.ies.wisc.edu/ltc//mission.html#tenlist)
“According to recent World Bank estimates, by the turn of the century, Mexico City is expected to reach a population of 31.5 million; São Paulo, 26 million, Calcutta, 20.4 million, Seoul, 18.7 million, and Jakarta, 17.8 million. M.A. Cohen, Cities in Developing Countries, 1975-2000. Finance and Development (March 1976), p. 15."
As quoted in Yehuda Don, Industrialization in Advanced Rural Communities: the Israeli Kibbutz, Madison: Land Tenure Center, 1977.
Statistics are starting to appear on end-of-the-century populations. Here are the current statistics from World Development Indicators (World Bank 2000): Mexico City 18.1 million, São Paulo 17.7 million, Calcutta 13.3 million, Seoul 12.9 million, Jakarta 13 million. (1996 data used; 1993 data used for Jakarta.)
More recent data on “agglomerations” also provide interesting comparisons. (See http://www.citypopulation.de/cities.html.)
Agglomerations for the places in question? Mexico City 20.8 million, São Paulo 20.3 million, Calcutta 14.6 million, Seoul 21.2 million, Jakarta 15.9 million.
Rapid growth of cities in developing countries is nearly universal, yet current populations appear to be smaller than estimates of 25 years ago. What should we conclude? The greatest urbanization is occurring in cities other than those largest ones listed? There are even more “mega-cities” than we imagine? Such estimates often err on the extreme side? Data for such estimates are never adequate?
Even if current populations are under projections of a quarter century ago, urbanization nonetheless will be a focus of much future development work, and even land tenure research on rural development increasingly must account for the race to the cities. —ed.
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