a framework for reforming urban land policies in ... - UN-HABITAT

Table 2-1: Worldwide Urban Population Growth Trends 1975-2025
Region Urban Population
(in thousands)
15
Urban Population Increase
1975 2000 2025 1975-2000 2000-2025
Less
Developed
Countries 808,603 1,959,485 3,915,034 1,150,882 1,955,549
More
Developed
Countries 752,629 992,148 1,192,400 239,519 200,252
Total
Worldwide 1,561,232 2,951,633 5,107,434 1,390,401 2,155,801
Source: United Nations, 1985
2.3 Urbanization does not take place in thin air; it requires enormous amounts of land. As a
result, cities will mushroom – doubling their built-up urban areas over the next 15-20 years.
Large developing world cities like Mexico City, Jakarta, São Paulo, Bangkok, and Bombay are
converting between 3000 and 5000 hectares of rural land to urban uses each year. India, in terms
of sheer scale of urbanization, is in a class apart from most other countries.
2.4 In India, the urban population was forecast to grow from 150 million to 220 million
during the 1981-1991 – by the year 2001, the number of urban residents will have increased by
160 million, more than double the 1981 total. As urban growth continues some 600,000 hectares
of rural land must be transformed to urban use during the last two decades of the century, or
enough space to accommodate twenty new cities the size of Bombay (World Bank, 1984).
2.5 Such rates of increase in demand for residential, industrial, commercial, and community
land have few precedents in the history of developed countries. Recent experience in many cities
reveals that land to support urban growth is becoming increasingly scarce. Part of the problem is
due to the sheer scale of land development pressure. As Table 2-2 illustrates, the rate of
conversion of rural land to urban land for Asian cities is enormous. In Bangkok, for example,
between 1984 and 1988, urban growth required 3200 hectares of agricultural land per year
(PADCO and LIF, 1990). In Karachi, over a similar period, 2400 hectares of land were needed
per year for urban use. Even in small and medium-sized Asian cities such as Bangalore, land
conversion pressures are tremendous – about 1300 hectares of agricultural land is urbanized each
year (Srinivas, 1989).