Migration and Natural Increase in the Growth of Cities

Keyfitz, N. & Philipov, D. (1981). Migration and Natural Increase in the Growth of Cities. IIASA Research Report (Reprint). IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: RR-82-002. Reprinted from Geographical Analysis, 13(4):287-299 [1981].

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Abstract

Roughly 1.8 billion people, 42 percent of the world's population, live in urban areas today. At the beginning of the last century, the urban population totaled only 25 million. According to recent United Nations estimates, about 3.1 billion people, twice today's urban population, will be living in urban areas by the year 2000.

Scholars and policy makers often disagree when it comes to evaluating the desirability of current rapid rates of urban growth and urbanization in many parts of the world. Some see this trend as fostering national processes of socioeconomic development, particularly in the poorer and rapidly urbanizing countries of the Third World, whereas others believe the consequences to be largely undesirable and argue that such urban growth should be slowed down.

Migration and natural increase are the two contributors to urban population growth. The complex question of which of the two is more important is analyzed in this article through the use of simulation techniques. Immediate effects are contrasted with long-run effects, and the age of the migrant is considered as an important factor, along with the crucial variable of rural population growth.

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