Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Human biological approaches to the study of Third World urbanism
- 2 Social and cultural influences in the risk of cardiovascular disease in urban Brazil
- 3 The urban disadvantage in the developing world and the physical and mental growth of children
- 4 Differences in endocrine status associated with urban-rural patterns of growth and maturation in Bundi (Gende-speaking) adolescents of Papua New Guinea
- 5 Nutritionally vulnerable households in the urban slum economy: a case study from Khulna, Bangladesh
- 6 Urban-rural differences in growth and diarrhoeal morbidity of Filipino infants
- 7 Child health and growth in urban South Africa
- 8 From countryside to town in Morocco: ecology, culture and public health
- 9 Urban-rural population research: a town like Alice
- 10 Selection for rural-to-urban migrants in Guatemala
- 11 Health and nutrition in Mixtec Indians: factors influencing the decision to migrate to urban centres
- 12 Urban health and ecology in Bunia, N.E. Zaire, with special reference to the physical development of children
- 13 Food for thought: meeting a basic need for low-income urban residents
- 14 Immunological parameters in northeast Arnhem Land Aborigines: consequences of changing settlement patterns and lifestyles
- 15 Amerindians and the price of modernisation
- 16 Sex ratio determinants in Indian populations: studies at national, state and district levels
- 17 Polarisation and depolarisation in Africa
- 18 Urbanisation in the Third World: health policy implications
- Index
17 - Polarisation and depolarisation in Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Human biological approaches to the study of Third World urbanism
- 2 Social and cultural influences in the risk of cardiovascular disease in urban Brazil
- 3 The urban disadvantage in the developing world and the physical and mental growth of children
- 4 Differences in endocrine status associated with urban-rural patterns of growth and maturation in Bundi (Gende-speaking) adolescents of Papua New Guinea
- 5 Nutritionally vulnerable households in the urban slum economy: a case study from Khulna, Bangladesh
- 6 Urban-rural differences in growth and diarrhoeal morbidity of Filipino infants
- 7 Child health and growth in urban South Africa
- 8 From countryside to town in Morocco: ecology, culture and public health
- 9 Urban-rural population research: a town like Alice
- 10 Selection for rural-to-urban migrants in Guatemala
- 11 Health and nutrition in Mixtec Indians: factors influencing the decision to migrate to urban centres
- 12 Urban health and ecology in Bunia, N.E. Zaire, with special reference to the physical development of children
- 13 Food for thought: meeting a basic need for low-income urban residents
- 14 Immunological parameters in northeast Arnhem Land Aborigines: consequences of changing settlement patterns and lifestyles
- 15 Amerindians and the price of modernisation
- 16 Sex ratio determinants in Indian populations: studies at national, state and district levels
- 17 Polarisation and depolarisation in Africa
- 18 Urbanisation in the Third World: health policy implications
- Index
Summary
The World context
One of the remarkable facts of the twentieth century has been the growing polarisation of population into smaller areas of the earth's surface, particularly towns and cities. Urban centres localise an ever-increasing proportion of the world's population despite its rapid growth. It is estimated by the UN (1989) that between 1975 and 2000 two thirds of all population growth will take place in urban areas, so that while 29% of the world's population in 1950 lived in urban areas, in 1990 about 43% are living in them and by 2000 it will probably be 47%.
More and more of the world's urban dwellers are found in less developed countries (LDCs), which were only 16% urban in 1950, but about 34% in 1990 and will probably be 40% urban by 2000. The annual urban population growth of LDCs has usually exceeded 3.5%, although recently it has declined slightly, while in the more developed countries (MDCs) it has declined markedly from 1.9% in the late 1960s to 0.8% in the late 1980s. Obviously, urban growth in the LDCs has far exceeded the capacity of countries to cope with it: hence the deteriorating conditions in overburdened towns and cities, many of which, like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Calcutta, Bombay and Shanghai, are among the largest in the world.
Africa presents a particularly poignant example of the problems involved, as it has the fastest population and urban growth in the world as well as the lowest economic development and growth and many of the poorest countries, especially in Tropical Africa.
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- Information
- Urban Ecology and Health in the Third World , pp. 260 - 273Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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