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Over-Urbanization and Under-Urbanism: The Case of the Arab World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Saad E. M. Ibrahim
Saad E. M. Ibrahim
Affiliation:
De Pauw University Greencastle, Indiana
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Extract

Speaking of comparative urbanization, Gideon Sjoberg noted that the Near East, the region in which cities first rose, has been understudied by urban sociologists. Few research projects have been realized on contemporary urbanization in the Arab World. This paper purports to examine recent trends of urbanization in the region; and their inter-relationship with the ‘modernization’ process.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1975 , pp. 29 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 29 note 1 See Sjoberg, Gideon, ‘Comparative Urban Sociology’, in Merton, Robert K., Broom, Leonard and Cottrell, Leonard S. Jr (editors), Sociology Today (Basic Books, New York, 1959), pp. 334–539. The reference to the Near East is on page 337.Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 This definition is synthesized from over ten different definitions presented by Thomlinson, Ralph in his Urban Structure (Random House, New York, 1969), pp. 37–42.Google Scholar

page 29 note 3 See a discussion of definitions of related terms such as industrialization, modernization, industrialism, etc., in Moore, Wilbert, The Impact of Industry (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965), in the opening Chapter.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Espousing this approach, for example, is Lerner, Daniel. See his The Passing of Traditional Society: The Modernization of the Middle East (Free Press of Glencoe, 1958).Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 Ward, Barbara, ‘The Poor World's Cities’, The Economist, December 1969, pp. 56–71.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Lerner, op. cit. pp. 8–61.Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 Reference to the non-linear relationship between urbanization and economic growth is implied in a discussion by Issawi, Charles, ‘Economic Change and Urbanization in the Middle East’, in Lapidus, Ira (ed.), Middle Eastern Cities (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969). We contend that the same non-linearity holds for the relationship between urbanization and modernization — especially in the developing nations.Google Scholar

page 31 note 3 Issawi, ibid. pp. 103–4.

page 31 note 4 Ibid. p. 106.

page 32 note 1 The early formulation of this model is by Sjoberg, Gideon, see his The Preindustrial City (The Free Press, New York, 1960).Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 For a discussion on the nature of the ‘heterogenetic’ cities in general, see Redfield, Robert and Singer, Milton, ‘The Cultural Role of Cities’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 10 1954.Google Scholar

page 32 note 3 All the figures are based on those given by Issawi, op. cit. p. 108.Google Scholar

page 32 note 4 Issawi, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 32 note 5 Baer, Gabriel, ‘Urbanization in Egypt, 1820–1907’, a paper presented at the Conference on the Beginning of Modernization in the Middle East (University of Chicago, 1966).Google Scholar

page 32 note 6 Hasan, M. S., ‘Growth and Structure of Iraq's Population, 1867–I947’, Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics, 1958.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Iwassi, op. cit p. III.Google Scholar

page 33 note 2 UAR Agency of Statistics and Public Mobilization, The President's Statement on Annual Increase of Egypt's Population, reported in El-Shabab al-Arabi, 10 April 1971.Google Scholar

page 35 note 3 Intrapolated from the UN Demographic Yearbook of different years.Google Scholar

page 35 note 4 For an early statement on the theory of demographic transition, see Davis, Kingsley, ‘The World Demographic Transition’, Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 237 (01 1945), pp. 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a formal presentation of the theory see Cowgill, Donald, ‘Transition Theory as General Population Theory’, Social Forces, vol. 41 (07 1962), pp. 270–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 35 note 5 Fertility rates in the UAR, as an example, in fact show that Cairo and Alexandria have higher fertility than most of the predominantly rural governorates, see The UAR Statistical Indicators for 1966 (UAR Central Agency of Statistics and Public Mobilization, Cairo, 1967), p. 23 (Arabic edition).Google Scholar

page 35 note 6 Recent examples include a drought in Syria in 1959–61, and deteriorated economic conditions in Southern Iraq in the early 1960s.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 El-Shabab al-Arabi, 10 April 1971.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 The ‘rank-size rule’ was first recognized by Felix Auerbach in 1913 studying German cities. It was restated and elaborated by Lotka, Alfred in 1925 in his book Elements of Physical Biology (Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1925), pp. 306–7.Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 Issawi, op. cit. p. 117.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 Ibid. p. 117.

page 38 note 2 Ibid.

page 38 note 3 For a detailed discussion of ‘Urbanism’ see Wirth, Louis, ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 44 (07 1938).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 39 note 1 Abu-Lughod, Janet, ‘Varieties of Urban Experience Contrasts, Coexistence and Coalescence in Cairo’, in Lapidus, Ira (ed.), Middle Eastern Cities (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 159–87.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 The phrase was first coined by Gans, Herbert, see his book The Urban Villagers (Free Press of Glencoe, 1962). The book is a study of Italian–Americans and their lifestyle in an urban area (Boston).Google Scholar

page 39 note 3 Abu-Lughod, op. cit. p. 161.Google Scholar

page 39 note 4 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society, p. 67.Google Scholar

page 39 note 5 Al-Madfai, Khtan, ‘Bagh;dad’, in Berger, M. (ed.), The New Metropolis in the Arab World (New Delhi, 1963), p. 59.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 Gulick, John, ‘Village and City: Cultural Continuities in Twentieth Century Middle Eastern Culture’, in Lapidus, Ira (ed.), Middle Eastern Cities, pp. 145–9.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Ibid. p. 149.

page 40 note 3 The reference here is to the broad liberating effect of the revolutionary struggle in Algeria. Frantz Fanon contended that many of the traditional values and outlooks were abandoned in favor of more emancipated ones. See his, A Dying Colonialism, translated from French by Chevalier, Haakon (Grove Press, New York, 1967).Google Scholar

page 40 note 5 Harbison, Frederick et al. , Quantitative Analyses of Modernization and Development (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1971).Google Scholar

page 40 note 6 Urbanization was operationalized in this study as total population living in communities of 20,000 or more.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Ward, Barbara, ‘The Poor World's Cities’, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 For an analysis of the phenomenal growth of bureaucracy and its shifting effects in the Arab World, see, for example, Berger, M., Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1957).Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 See a discussion on the problems of economic ‘take-off’ in developing nations in Saad Ibrahim's, E. M. Population Growth and Economic Development, unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Washington, Seattle, 1964.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 Jones, L. W., ‘Rapid Population Growth in Baghdad and Amman’, Middle East Journal, Spring 1969, p. 212.Google Scholar

page 44 note 2 Ibid. p. 213.

page 45 note 1 El-Shabab al-Arabi, 10 April 1971.Google Scholar