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Urban Population And Urban Development Essay

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In the last two centuries, particularly in the last decades, mankind has witnessed drastic population changes from rural to urban areas (Rui, 2013). This movement of people into major towns and cities of the world has been observed worldwide but at different extent. However, rapid urban growth/sprawl also causes problems. The increasing population observed is inevitable; therefore the solution to urban problems depends essentially on effective planning, infrastructural management and development. According to the 2011 revision of world urbanization prospects (United Nations, 2012), the world’s urban population increased from 0.75 billion (29.4 percent of the world’s population) in 1950 to 3.63 billion (52.1 percent) in 2011 and is expected to reach 6.25 billion (67.2 percent) in 2050. Africa is not behind in this rapid urbanization transformation. African urban populations will triple, reaching 1.2 billion people (The Growth Dialogue, 2013). Usually, unplanned population growth is associated with population demands that supersede infrastructure and service capacity, leading to the degradation of the environment. (Asoka et al., 2013).
Urbanization has been recorded globally, but it all starts from a city as an individual unit. According to Rui, (2013), a city should be a complex system that entails several interactive sub-systems, it should be affected by various factors including governmental land policies, population growth, transportation infrastructure, market behavior

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