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Trends in the Relationship between Urbanisation and Development in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Karen A. Laidlaw  and
Edward G. Stockwell
Karen A. Laidlaw
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Northwest, Gary
Edward G. Stockwell
Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University, Ohio
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Extract

It can be suggested that the ‘economic development’ of most Third-World nations today will be reflected in two distinct but interrelated processes: (1) a rise in economic productivity and in real incomes, and (2) a reduction in fertility and a corresponding slowing down in the rate of population growth.1 Historically, an increase in both the number of cities in a country and the number and proportion of the population living there, has been closely associated with both these processes. Accordingly, as urbanisation proceeds in Africa it might logically be assumed that economic growth and demographic modernisation are also taking place. It is our purpose in this brief article to offer a partial explanation for the fact that this historical association has not characterised recent trends in the continent.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1979 , pp. 687 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 687 note 1 See Stockwell, Edward G. and Laidlaw, Karen A., Third World Development: problems and prospects (Chicago),Google Scholar forthcoming.

page 687 note 2 Davis, Kingsley, World Urbanisation, 1950–1970, Vol. II, Analysis of Trends, Relationships, and Development (Institute of International Studies, Berkeley, 1972).Google Scholar

page 687 note 3 Cf.Wiarda, Howard J., ‘Toward a Framework for the Study of Political Change in the Iberic-Latin Tradition: the corporative model’, in World Politics (Princeton), XXV, 01 1973, pp. 206–35.Google Scholar

page 688 note 1 Sources: the 1965 and 1978 issues of the Population Reference Bureau, , World Population Data Sheet (Washington, D.C.),Google Scholar various editions of the United Nations Demographic Yearbook (New York), and the United Nations Yearbook of National Accounts Statistics, 1976 (New York, 1977), Table 4A.Google Scholar

page 688 note 2 Beier, George J., ‘Can Third World Cities Cope?’, in Population Bulletin (Washington D.C.), XXXI, 12 1976 pp. 3–34.Google Scholar

page 689 note 1 Sources: the correlation coefficients have been calculated from the data contained in the publications cited for Table 1.

page 691 note 1 Sources: calculated from data published in the 1971 and 1973 editions of the United Nations Demographic Yearbook (New York).

page 692 note 1 Laidlaw, Karen A., ‘A Comparative Study of Civilian and Military Rule in Peru,1963–1974: implications for economic development’, Ph.D dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1976, pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

page 692 note 2 Weinstein, Jay A., Demographic Transition and Social Change (Morristown, N.J., 1976).Google Scholar

page 693 note 1 Ibid. pp. 86–97.

page 693 note 2 Ibid. p. 93.