GEOG 1400 Human Geography

The news piece chosen is an article from The Guardian talking about the continent of developing countries- Africa. The urban populations of the African countries as mentioned in the article were 27% in the year 1950, have risen up to 54% by the year 2015, and are projected to touch 66% by the end of 2050 (Chonghaile 2016). This news article expresses that the rapid urbanization in African countries needs to fuel the engines of development to bring the correct utilization of urbanization into play. The continent though largely rural, is one of the swiftest urbanizing places in the world. Africa has seven megacities - Cairo, Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, and Johannesburg to name a few. This article is chosen as Africa depicts the extent of urbanization that has spread as studied in the chapters but at the same time, the African countries have not utilized the opportunity to the extent where the cities can be developed to their potential. The article mentions that more than half of the investments need to be funded on urban infrastructure to build such urban policies, which can change the cities into engines of feasible systemic transformation.

The urbanization rate of Africa is the highest and can escort towards economic growth and most importantly poverty reduction but with the lack of proper laws and policies it is leading towards increased inequality, expansion of slums and urban poverty. The living standards of the African countries match the squatter settlements as studied in the chapters. Another reason for bringing out this article is that the young generation are said to be the new hope for the advancement of urbanization (Goneralp 2017). In Africa, most of the urban dwellers are young but are either unemployed or underemployed.

This state should be changed by bringing forward the positive aspect of urbanization into play. The African cities have failed to benefit from the firms and the industrialization in the countries. The living standards as mentioned in the article remain the same as the expansion is rooted on unplanned and unconfined growth. These expansions are worsened by the neoliberalism, structural adjustments and the bequest of colonialism (Awumbila & Mariama 2017). The expansion of slums brings about the overcrowded houses, poor access to supplies, insecure living conditions all of which are seen in the chapters while studying about the growing cities in the developing world. A study mentions that the proportion of household in the slums of countries like Ghana without the facility of in-house water supply is 76%.

The final reason for highlighting the article is the ray of hope it brings along in the end showing that remittances can be accessed to stimulate growth and reach the sustainable developmental intents. Informal settlements have been seen to thrive with various businesses mostly in the informal sectors as read in the chapters. In some African countries, there is a high standard of urban superiority in terms of economic activities, population and political power (Sulemana et al. 2019). Urban living in some scenarios has contributed towards proper education, refined social services and health facilities. Thus, it can be concluded that African countries have the potentiality to make the correct usage of urbanization and proliferate in terms of industrial development with equal expansion in all countries.

References

Awumbila, Mariama. "Drivers of migration and urbanization in Africa: Key trends and issues." International Migration 7, no. 8 (2017).

Chonghaile. 2016. "Africa's Urbanisation 'Megatrend' Needs To Deliver Growth, Says Report". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/07/africa-urbanisation-megatrend-needs-to-deliver-growth-says-report.

Goneralp. 2017. "Urbanization In Africa: Challenges And Opportunities For Conservation". Iopscience.Iop.Org. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa94fe/pdf.

Sulemana, Iddisah, Edward Nketiah-Amponsah, Emmanuel A. Codjoe, and Jennifer Akua Nyarko Andoh. "Urbanization and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa." Sustainable cities and society 48 (2019): 101544...

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