A Mad Rush To The Cities
Brandon Sun “Small
World” Column, Sunday, August 12/07
Zack
Gross
Sometime this
year or next,
the majority of people on our planet will switch from being rural to
urban. A family trying to escape the poverty of rural life,
or a
young person seeking employment in a city market or factory, or a baby
being born in an urban environment will tip the balance.
This is not a
small, slow
trend, but rather one that scientists, engineers, sociologists and
politicians are bracing for as, by 2030, 60 per cent of
Earth’s
inhabitants will live in cities.
The United
Nations Population
Fund recently released a report, Unleashing the Potential of Urban
Growth, stating that without progressive thinking and effective
planning, rapid urban growth will prove disastrous. For
example,
the urban African and Asian population increases weekly by one million
people. Rather than try to stem the tide and discourage
people
from moving to the city, there needs to be a concerted effort, says the
UN, to create economic opportunities and solve social problems.
In Canada, the greatest urban growth, by percentage, is happening in
secondary cities, especially in Ontario and Alberta. This
will be
true of the Global South as well, where many smaller cities will growth
to the size of a Winnipeg or Saskatoon. At the same time,
however, the world now has a host of
“mega-cities.”
In 1950, when only a third of people lived in urban areas, there were
two cities with ten million people or more, New York and
Tokyo.
Today, there are at least twenty cities over ten million, with Tokyo at
35 million people!
The UN estimates that every day in our world 180,000 are added to the
urban population. In North America and Europe, 75% of people
now
live in cities, not only causing a host of urban problems –
transportation, environment, crowding, poverty, crime and more
–
but also leaving some rural regions not viable due to lack of workers,
consumers, students and patients. As population decreases,
stores, services and programs cease to function. In a
spiraling
crisis, as the infrastructure that serves the population breaks down,
what little population is left disappears as well.
It is not
economic wealth and
opportunity that brings people into cities in many parts of the
world. Currently in Africa, about a third of people live in
cities, but this rate is growing at twice the rate of
“developed” parts of the world, due to conflict,
natural
disaster and poverty, so that the majority of Africans could be
urbanized – but not necessarily better off – by
2030.
As access to adequately paid employment, water, housing, education and
health care are not offered to Africans moving into cities, 70% of
Africans living in cities live in slums.
Conditions are
not good in
Latin American or Asian urban areas either. While strong
Asian
economies offer jobs in the manufacturing sector, pay is not
high. As an example, it is estimated that 200,000 formerly
rural
Chinese workers have set themselves up in slums on the outskirts of
Beijing. In the three major regions of the planet that make
up
the “Third World”, it is said that one billion
people live
in slums or illegal squatters’ settlements. Walden
Bello,
director of Focus on the Global South, a Thailand-based research and
policy institute, says that up to 40% of the populations of Manila,
Jakarta, Mexico City and Lagos (Nigeria) live in conditions of squalor,
crime and insecurity.
Obviously, then,
huge problems
in urban growth need to be solved. Energy use and pollution
need
green solutions. Clean fuels will preserve the health of its
users and renewable ones will minimize the urban ecological
footprint. Today, health problems from pollution of the
environment caused by growth, development and lack of regulations
(especially water and air) are major urban Third World
challenges. New forms of mass transportation, cheap enough
for
all to use, are needed to offset the explosion of badly maintained
cars.
Participatory
politics is
required in the post-modern urban environment. If political
leaders and developers don’t involve the populations around
them
in the decision-making process, polarization between the powerful and
the disenfranchised will cause discontent to grow out of
control.
Youth participation is an imperative as the average age of global
citizens drops and youth, alienated from their surroundings –
without jobs, money or hope – turns to crime and
violence.
Dignified and
reasonably
compensated employment is a given – without opportunity, our
cities will become the backdrop of future horror scenarios.
Cities also need to be developed so that large populations can live in
them without crowding and with a continued connection to nature to
preserve peoples’ sanity and, therefore, their ability to
live
with each other in peace.
These issues are
not confined
to the “developing world.” In Canada, the
shrinking
of the agricultural community and the concentration of industry in
large cities has paralleled the global trend. Meanwhile,
programs
to involve aboriginal, youth and immigrant populations in their own
positive development are not always well-funded or thought-through
enough to improve difficult situations.
While Canada is
proud of its
standing in the Human Development Index, in the top five, we are down
the list when it comes to how we deal with the poorer parts of our
society. Our cities face nagging problems of gangs, drugs and
crime. Vancouver’s Downtown East Side is one of the
most
troubled neighbourhoods on the planet. As the experts say, we
have a little bit of time to act on these issues before they overwhelm
us environmentally, socially and economically. We need to
turn
danger into opportunity.
Zack Gross is
program
coordinator at the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation
(MCIC), a coalition of 35 international development organizations
active in our province.
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