The Demographic State of the World

Keyfitz, N. (1981). The Demographic State of the World. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-81-080

Preview

Text WP-81-080.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Roughly 1.6 billion people, 40 percent of the world's population, live in urban areas today. At the beginning of the last century, the urban population of the world 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 globe. 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.

This paper, originally written by Nathan Keyfitz for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences volume entitled Five Year Outlook on Science and Technology, was slightly revised by him during his stay at IIASA earlier this year and is being issued as a working paper with the kind permission of the Academy. It links together a number of topics of interest to the HSS Area and sets out an agenda of research that is congruent with our future plans.

A list of the papers in the Population, Resources, and Growth Series appears at the end of this report.

Actions (login required)

View Item