The text in this short paper could easily be used to construct new - and potentially dangerous - myths.

This paper is not suggesting that less attention be given to rural poverty reduction but it is saying that the scale and depth of urban poverty is constantly under-estimated and it needs more attention. It also stresses that there are many characteristics of deprivation in urban areas that are different from those in rural areas.

The document does not say that rapid urban growth is not happening or not causing problems; it is suggesting that it is less rapid and less concentrated in very large cities and that the association between urbanization and stronger, more robust economies is often forgotten.

This document is not saying that cities are not causing serious environmental problems; it is saying that an increasingly urbanized world need not imply insuperable environmental problems.

The document's stress on the need for far more support to 'good local governance' does not imply that that 'good national governance' and 'good global governance' are not important but it does suggest key roles for these higher levels of governance in providing frameworks and support for effective, accountable, transparent local governance - which in turn can deliver on the national and global targets.

In the end, this document is not so much about proposing new generalizations as about questioning the validity of existing generalizations. Perhaps more thought needs to be given to why so many inaccurate generalizations are generated. In part, it is because we have to hand so many tables which list all the world's nations with lots of statistics. One can even get most of these tables electronically and it is very easy to use the data to produce charts or graphs comparing nations without knowing anything the nations in the chart or graph and without knowing whether the information used is accurate. We can compare nations' levels of urbanization against their per capita incomes - without recognizing that many of the statistics on levels of urbanization are guesses or projections from old data because many nations have had no recent census. We compare city populations or population growth rates without recognizing the many different ways in which city boundaries are defined - which limits the validity of these comparisons. London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Buenos Aires or Mexico City can be correctly stated as having populations that are declining or expanding in recent decades, depending on which boundaries are used. And even if the statistics are accurate, what does it tell us when we find that two cities have comparable population growth rates? One may be growing primarily from rapid in-migration because of a prosperous economy and a low rate of natural increase. Another may be growing primarily because of high rates of natural increase or rapid flows of refugees fleeing wars or civil strife.

There is now a large literature on how urban trends in particular cities or city districts or small towns are influenced by a vast range of local, regional and often global factors. But the generalizers ignore this literature because it does not lend itself to short summaries or easy generalizations. This creates a large gulf between the literature on the specifics and the general literature - yet the general literature should be a summary of the findings of the more specific literature.

No-one knows how many urban centres there are around the world but they must number over 50,000. They stretch in size from small market towns or district headquarters with a few thousand (or in some nations a few hundred) inhabitants to metropolitan regions with tens of millions of inhabitants. They include among them many with among the best and among the worst living conditions; also among the best and the worst quality of lives. Also among the highest and among the lowest levels of resource use, waste and greenhouse gas emissions per person. From this vast and diverse range of urban centres, some can be selected that are growing very rapidly - but it is as easy to find a sample that are not growing rapidly or that are losing population, even in Asia and Latin America. (Probably in Africa too - although the statistical base on the population of individual urban centres over time is very weak in most nations). We do know that well-functioning and well-governed urban centres and urban systems are very important for strong economies, better service provision (water, sanitation, health care, schools.....) and good environmental management - but the means to move towards this must be locally rooted and determined locally - with much space given to democratic pressures. The motive for preparing this text was because of the myths, mis-conceptions and inaccuracies that abound about urban development. It would be unkind to give references for this but my research programme is constantly sent drafts of documents about urban change that are full of the myths noted above. Many published documents also present variations of the myths listed above. But please do not use this document to produce more generalizations, other than the importance of rooting responses to urban problems in the needs, rights and priorities of those who suffer most from current inactions and inappropriate policies.

[ top ]