african city planner: urbanization 1

Urbanization

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What is an Urban Centre?


Subject to subsection (3), an urban area may be classified as a city under this Act if the urban area satisfies the following criteria—

(a) has a population of at least five hundred thousand residents according to the final gazetted results of the last population census carried out by an institution authorized under any written law, preceding the application for grant of city status;

(b) Has an integrated urban area or city development plan in accordance with this Act;

(c) has demonstrable capacity to generate sufficient revenue to sustain its operation;

(d) has demonstrable good system and records of prudent management;

(e) Has the capacity to effectively and efficiently deliver essential services to its residents as provided in the First Schedule;

(f) Has institutionalised active participation by its residents in the management of its affairs;

(g) Has infrastructural facilities, including but not limited to roads, street lighting, markets and fire stations, and an adequate capacity for disaster management; and

(h) Has a capacity for functional and effective waste disposal.

GoK, Urban Areas and Cities Act


• Other Characteristics

– Population and Density

– Non Agro-based

– Infrastructure

– Piped water

– Transport systems/Mobility

– Informality

– Governance


Image – Urban Area, Compton LA


Image – Urban Area, Curitiba, Brazil


Image – Urban Area, Nairobi, Kenya


• In today’s increasingly global and interconnected world, over half of the world’s population (54 per cent) lives in urban areas although there is still substantial variability in the levels of urbanization across countries.

• The proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas is expected to increase, reaching 66 per cent by 2050.


• Northern America (82 per cent living in urban areas in 2014),

• Latin America and the Caribbean (80 per cent),

• and Europe (73 per cent).


Megacities, Medium cities and Large cities


Characteristics of Urban Living

Literacy and Education

Health

Social Services

Opportunities – cultural and political

Infrastructure


Challenges

Rapid and unplanned growth is blamed seen to be a major cause of:

• Urban Inequality

• Urban Environmental degradation

• Access and mobility

• Sprawling Cities


Facts!• Sustainable development challenges will be increasingly

concentrated in cities

• Cities offer opportunities to expand access to services, such as health care and education, for large numbers of people in an economically efficient manner

• Providing public transportation, housing, electricity, water sanitation for a densely settled population is typically cheaper and less environmentally damaging than providing a similar level of services to a predominantly rural household

• Urban dwellers also have access to larger and more diversified labour markets, and enjoy healthier lives overall.


Way forward?

• Governments must implement policies to ensure that the benefits of urban growth are shared equitably and sustainably

• Diversified policies to plan for and manage the spatial distribution of the population and internal migration are needed

• Policies aimed at a more balanced distribution of urban growth

• Accurate, consistent and timely data on global trends in urbanization and city growth

• Successful sustainable urbanization


Urbanization is integrally connected to the three pillars of sustainable development:economic development, social development and environmental protection


Urban Areas

Economic Social Environmental

Urbanization has the potential to usher in a new era of well-being, resource efficiency and economic growth. But cities are also home to high concentrations of poverty. Nowhere is the rise of inequality clearer than in urban areas, where wealthy communities coexist alongside, and separate from, slums and informal settlements.


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