Urbanisation and Migration: An Analysis of Trends, Patterns and Policies in Asia

The present paper overviews urbanisation and migration process in Asian countries at macro level since 1950s, including the projections made till 2030. It questions the thesis of southward movement of urbanisation and that of urban explosion in Asia. Increased unaffordability of urban space and basic amenities, negative policy perspective towards migration and various rural development pogrammes designed to discourage migration are responsible for this exclusionary urban growth and a distinct decline in urban rural growth differential, with the major exception of China. The changing structure of urban population across different size categories reveals a shift of growth dynamics from large to second order cities and stagnation of small towns. The pace of urbanization has been modest to high in select countries in Asia, not because of their level of economic growth but its composition and labour intensity of rapidly growing informal sectors. Several countries have launched programmes for improving governance and infrastructural facilities in a few large cities, attracting private investors from within as well as outside the country. These have pushed out squatter settlements, informal sector businesses along with a large number of pollutant industries to a few pockets and peripheries of the cities. The income level and quality of basic amenities in these cities, as a result, have gone up but that has been associated with increased intra-city disparity and creation of degenerated periphery. Nonetheless, there is no strong evidence that urbanization is associated with destabilization of agrarian economy, poverty and immiserisation, despite the measures of globalization resulting in regional imbalances. The overview of the trend and pattern suggests that the pace of urbanization would be reasonably high but much below the level projected by UNPD in the coming decades.urbanisation, migration, exclusion, periphery, informalisation, small towns, economic concentration, urban rural growth differential, Asia, China and India

Globalization and Exclusionary Urban rowth in Asian Countries

This paper overviews the debate on the relationship between the measures of globalization, economic growth and pace of urbanization, and speculates on its impact on the quality of life and poverty in the context of Asian countries. After experiencing moderate to high urban growth for three to four decades since the 1950s, most of these countries have reported a significant deceleration. This questions the postulate of the epicentre of urbanization shifting to Asia. It also lends credence to the thesis of exclusionary urban growth, which is linked with the formal or informal denial of entry to poor migrants and increased unaffordability of urban space of the rural people. An analysis of the policies and programmes at the national and regional levels shows that these have contributed to the ushering in of this era of urban exclusion. The process of elite capture in the global cities has led to ‘sanitization’ and cleaning up of the micro environment by pushing out the current and prospective migrants and informal activities out of the city boundaries. Given the political economy of urban growth and the need to attract global and domestic capital into cities, governments would not interfere with ‘elitist interests’. Asia, thus, is unlikely to go the same way as Latin America did in the second half of the last century. To absorb incremental labourforce outside agriculture, many of the large countries may, however, promote the small and medium towns that have unfortunately reported economic stagnation and deceleration in population growth. Furthermore, a few among the small and less developed countries are likely to experience high urban growth, largely due to foreign investment. This would impact on the geopolitical balance on the continent despite the fact that expansion in the urban and industrial base in these countries would not make a dent on macro-level aggregates.globalization, urbanization, urban growth, URGD, exclusionary urbanization, inequality, poverty, small towns, small Asian countries economic resiliency, Liberia

Globalization and exclusionary urban growth in Asian countries

This paper overviews the debate on the relationship between the measures of globalization, economic growth and pace of urbanization, and speculates on its impact on the quality of life and poverty in the context of Asian countries. After experiencing moderate to high urban growth for three to four decades since the 1950s, most of these countries have reported a significant deceleration. This questions the postulate of the epicentre of urbanization shifting to Asia. It also lends credence to the thesis of exclusionary urban growth, which is linked with the formal or informal denial of entry to poor migrants and increased unaffordability of urban space of the rural people. An analysis of the policies and programmes at the national and regional levels shows that these have contributed to the ushering in of this era of urban exclusion. The process of elite capture in the global cities has led to 'sanitization' and cleaning up of the micro environment by pushing out the current and prospective migrants and informal activities out of the city boundaries. Given the political economy of urban growth and the need to attract global and domestic capital into cities, governments would not interfere with 'elitist interests'. Asia, thus, is unlikely to go the same way as Latin America did in the second half of the last century. To absorb incremental labourforce outside agriculture, many of the large countries may, however, promote the small and medium towns that have unfortunately reported economic stagnation and deceleration in population growth. Furthermore, a few among the small and less developed countries are likely to experience high urban growth, largely due to foreign investment. This would impact on the geopolitical balance on the continent despite the fact that expansion in the urban and industrial base in these countries would not make a dent on macro-level aggregates

The challenges of making Indian cities slum-free (Part 2)

Amitabh Kundu argues that the vision of slum-free Indian cities is hampered by poor urban planning and the failure to make adequate land and capital provisions for affordable housing. Click here for part one of this post, which introduces RAY and analyses the inadequate framework for categorising slums

The challenges of making Indian cities slum-free (Part 1)

Amitabh Kundu argues that the vision of slum-free Indian cities is hampered by big city bias and the failure to prescribe a framework for identifying non-tenable slums and legitimate slum households that must not be evicted

Oscillating Shells and Oscillating Balls in AdS

It has recently been reported that certain thin timelike shells undergo oscillatory motion in AdS. In this paper, we compute two-point function of a probe field in the geodesic approximation in such an oscillating shell background. We confirm that the two-point function exhibits an oscillatory behaviour following the motion of the shell. We show that similar oscillatory dynamics is possible when the perfect fluid on the shell has a polytropic equation of state. Moreover, we show that certain ball like configurations in AdS also exhibit oscillatory motion and comment on how such a solution can be smoothly matched to an appropriate exterior solution. We also demonstrate that the weak energy condition is satisfied for these oscillatory configurations.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; v2: refs added; v3: JHEP versio

Urbanisation and Migration: An Analysis of Trends, Patterns and Policies in Asia

The present paper overviews urbanisation and migration process in Asian countries at macro level since 1950s, including the projections made till 2030. It questions the thesis of southward movement of urbanisation and that of urban explosion in Asia. Increased unaffordability of urban space and basic amenities, negative policy perspective towards migration and various rural development pogrammes designed to discourage migration are responsible for this exclusionary urban growth and a distinct decline in urban rural growth differential, with the major exception of China. The changing structure of urban population across different size categories reveals a shift of growth dynamics from large to second order cities and stagnation of small towns. The pace of urbanization has been modest to high in select countries in Asia, not because of their level of economic growth but its composition and labour intensity of rapidly growing informal sectors. Several countries have launched programmes for improving governance and infrastructural facilities in a few large cities, attracting private investors from within as well as outside the country. These have pushed out squatter settlements, informal sector businesses along with a large number of pollutant industries to a few pockets and peripheries of the cities. The income level and quality of basic amenities in these cities, as a result, have gone up but that has been associated with increased intra-city disparity and creation of degenerated periphery. Nonetheless, there is no strong evidence that urbanization is associated with destabilization of agrarian economy, poverty and immiserisation, despite the measures of globalization resulting in regional imbalances. The overview of the trend and pattern suggests that the pace of urbanization would be reasonably high but much below the level projected by UNPD in the coming decades