Urbanisation in the developing world

Urbanisation — the increasing proportion of people living in urban areas — is happening fastest in low- and middle-income countries. CCEA examiners expect you to explain the causes of rapid urbanisation in developing countries, understand what megacities are, and assess the opportunities and challenges (including slums) they create.

What is urbanisation?

Urbanisation is the process by which an increasing proportion of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities. It is measured by the percentage of the population living in urban areas.

In 2007, for the first time in human history, more than half the world's population lived in urban areas. By 2050, two-thirds are predicted to live in cities.

Rate of urbanisation:

• HICs urbanised during the 19th-20th century industrial revolution — the process was relatively slow.
• LICs and MICs are urbanising extremely rapidly today, often without the infrastructure to support it.

Causes of rapid urbanisation in LICs/MICs

Rural-urban migration is the primary driver:

• Push factors (from rural areas): poverty, mechanisation of agriculture (fewer farm jobs), limited access to services (healthcare, education), unreliable rainfall and crop failures, debt.
• Pull factors (to cities): perceived better job opportunities (factories, informal sector, services), better healthcare and schools, social networks (family/community already there), excitement/cultural opportunity.

Natural increase: urban populations also grow because more births than deaths occur within cities.

Megacities

A megacity is a city with a population of over 10 million people. In 1950, there were only 2 (New York and Tokyo). By 2023, there are 35+ megacities, mostly in Asia and Africa.

Examples: Tokyo (37m), Jakarta (34m), Delhi (30m), Shanghai (27m), Mumbai (20m), Dhaka (20m), Karachi (17m), Lagos (15m), Cairo (21m).

Growth rates: many developing-world megacities are growing by 500,000+ people per year. Dhaka (Bangladesh) adds roughly 400,000 new residents annually.

Opportunities created by rapid urbanisation

• Economic growth: cities are engines of economic development. Concentration of workers, businesses, and ideas drives productivity.
• Improved services: cities can justify investment in hospitals, schools, and universities that rural areas cannot.
• Reduced poverty: urban incomes are typically higher than rural incomes, even in informal jobs.
• Social development: women often gain greater access to education and employment in cities.

Challenges — slums (informal settlements)

When rural migrants arrive in cities faster than formal housing can be built, they build their own housing on available land — often illegally — creating slums (also called squatter settlements, shanty towns, or informal settlements). In Mumbai: Dharavi; in Nairobi: Kibera; in Rio de Janeiro: favelas.

Characteristics of slums:

• Overcrowding — many families in single rooms.
• Poor-quality, self-built housing (corrugated iron, timber, plastic sheet roofing).
• Limited/no access to clean water — residents may buy water from tankers at 10× the price of a piped supply.
• No/inadequate sewerage → open drains → disease (cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea).
• Insecure tenure — residents fear eviction because they don't own the land.
• Limited access to formal employment and services.

Scale: the UN estimates that 1 in 8 people on Earth (approximately 1 billion people) live in slum conditions.

Mumbai (Dharavi) case study

Dharavi is one of Asia's largest slums — a 240-hectare area of central Mumbai home to approximately 600,000-700,000 people.

• Density: one of the most densely populated places on Earth (~300,000/km²).
• Economy: Dharavi has an estimated informal economy worth $1 billion/year — recycling industries, leather goods, pottery, garment manufacturing. Many residents are skilled entrepreneurs.
• Challenges: open sewers, inadequate water supply, fire risk, disease.
• Mumbai's response: the Dharavi Redevelopment Project proposed replacing slum housing with formal apartment blocks — but has faced decades of delays, controversy over displacement, and residents' resistance to being moved.