Overurbanization is a thesis originally developed by scholars of demography, geography, ecology, economics, political science, and sociology in thrergence of International Nongovernmental Organizations Amid Declining States. The term is intentionally comparative and has been used to differentiate between developed and developing countries. Several causes have been suggested, but the most common is rural-push and urban-pull factors in addition to population growth.
Definition.
The concept of overurbanization first emerged in the mid-20th century to describe cities whose rate of industrialization was growing more slowly than their rate of urbanization. According to sociologist Josef Gugler, the concept was "widely accepted in the 1950s and into the 1960s" and was split into two approaches, a diachronic and a synchronic approach. The synchronic approach, the main one taken in the 1950s, was proposed by sociologists Kingsley Davis and Hilda Golden who defined whether a country was overurbanized based on how its relationship between industrialization and urbanization compared to that of other countries during the same time period. Specifically, countries considered part of the Third World were compared to countries deemed part of the First World. Davis and Golden used data on "the percentage of economically active males not engaged in agriculture and the percentage of the population in cities of 100,000 or above in a large number of the countries in the world," in order to define the normal relationship between industrialization and urbanization. They then determine that countries whose rate of urbanization is significantly higher than normal in relation to their rate of industrialization are "overurbanized." The authors calculate an "expected" level of urbanization based on the rates of urbanization of other countries of the world at similar levels of industrialization (measured by percentage of males not engaged in agriculture). A few countries in particular that Davis and Golden measured as having higher levels of urbanization than expected were Egypt, Greece, and South Korea. Davis and Golden did not see overurbanization as a necessarily negative phenomenon, but rather a statistical reality that could have its challenges but would ultimately be self-correcting as an appropriate balance was found between levels of urbanization and industrialization. Scholars on overurbanization agree that N.V. Sovani was one of the first to discount Davis and Golden's argument, as he found that the connection between urbanization and industrialization was more significant in underdeveloped countries than developed ones, suggesting that Davis and Golden's measure of a "normal" relationship between urbanization and industrialization was not valid.
The definition offered by the United Nations and UNESCO in 1956 took a different approach to measuring overurbanization: the diachronic approach. A 1956 UNESCO report measured overurbanization historically, emphasizing that "at comparable levels of urbanization developed countries of today had a correspondingly greater proportion of their labour force engaged in non-agricultural occupations" than underdeveloped countries. Authors on overurbanization give the examples of France, the United States, Germany, and Canada as developed and often mention the continents of Asia and Africa as well as the region of Latin America as underdeveloped. This historical approach was applied to Asia in the report, which argued that because a smaller percentage of the labor force was engaged in non-agricultural activities than certain Western developed countries had at similar levels of urbanization, Asia was overurbanized. However, this method has been criticized by scholars who argue that it supports an ethnocentric idea that all countries follow the same path of development. Furthermore, economist N.V. Sovani argued that the evidence offered is not consistent with the development trajectories of developed countries, pointing out specific examples of developed countries such as Switzerland where high levels of industrialization did not correspond with high levels of urbanization. Sociologists John D. Kasarda and Edward Crenshaw pointed out that it was not so much the rate of urbanization of developing countries that was greater, but the absolute numbers of people migrating.
Scholars reference N.V. Sovani as a researcher who questioned whether to accept the 1950s definition of overurbanization. His debunking of the formerly accepted definitions of overurbanization encouraged further scholarly analysis and attempts to redefine the term. Sovani suggested that claims of overurbanization in underdeveloped countries stemmed from the perception that rapid urbanization had negative consequences. However, he claimed that there still lacked evidence for the idea that rapid urbanization actually made areas worse off. Economist David R. Kamerschen found that there was little statistical evidence to support that "rapid urbanization in underdeveloped countries hampers economic growth," suggesting that the phenomenon of overurbanization is questionable.
Following Sovani's work, several scholars offered alternative definitions, many of which included not just the relationship between population growth and their means of employment but also the ability of the urban area to provide public services, reflecting that economic development lagged behind population growth in a multitude of ways. Several scholars also increasingly embraced a negative connotation for the term. Urban planner John Dyckman suggested that inability to accommodate the expectations of migrants to the city made overurbanization a threat to social order. Economists Philip Graves and Robert Sexton argue that the definition of overurbanization must "involve the presence of negative net external effects for the city size in question," suggesting that as long as "positive external social benefits" from rapid urbanization dominate negative externalities, overurbanization is not at play. Gugler defined overurbanization by two factors: that migration to cities led to a "less than optimal allocation of labor between the rural and urban sectors" and that migration to cities "increases the costs of providing for a country's growing population." Sociologist Glenn Firebaugh disagreed, arguing that if overurbanization is caused by overpopulation, that overpopulation of rural areas could be worse than overpopulation of urban areas.
From its origins, the term has been used to differentiate between countries that are considered developed and underdeveloped. Davis and Golden considered a country to be underdeveloped if over half its economically active males were employed in agriculture. The UNESCO report frequently used the terms "developed" and "Western" in conjunction. Gugler and others use the terms "third world" and "first world" in their discussion.
Causes.
Sociologist John Shandra states that arguments about the causes of overurbanization fall into five groups:
Shandra's analysis of several variables related to each of these categories suggested that all of these arguments have significant evidence except for the economic modernization perspective. Recent scholars believe that a variety of these factors are relevant.
The rural-push and urban-pull perspective.
The biggest cause of overurbanization emphasized by scholars is rural-urban migration and the "push" factors associated with it, including "increased population, diminished size of holdings, and absentee landlord exactions." Specifically, lower death rates as a result of demographic transition lead to less available land and fewer opportunities for rural residents. The larger process of urbanization is characterized both by these factors that "push" migrants away from their homes as well as factors that "pull" them towards new areas. Davis and the UNESCO report both discuss that overurbanization is affected by the "push" factors away from rural areas being stronger than the "pull" factors. Pull factors towards urban areas include expansion of economic opportunity and the infrastructure of cities as administrative centers Shandra recognizes the relationship between push and pull factors, arguing that rural conditions, specifically environmental scarcity, cause decreasing income, decreased stability, and increased health risks, leading many to respond by migrating to urban areas. For example, drought in Brazil and Deforestation in the Philippines has made many rural residents' former manner of livelihood impossible, forcing them to move to the nearest city. Because migrants are primarily motivated by factors pushing them out of rural areas rather than factors such as demand for labor pulling them to the city, these rural-urban migrants often find themselves unemployed or quitting "low productive agricultural employment to [enter] yet another section marked by low productivity employment, namely handicraft production, retail trading, domestic services in urban areas." A study done by sociologist Glenn Firebaugh showed that agricultural density, a strong indicator of land constraint, and the presence plantation agriculture both have significant effects on overurbanization. These findings were later reversed by sociologist Bruce London, who emphasized that urban migration was not the only potential response to agricultural density.
Sovani argues that there is little evidence for the greater role of "push" factor of increased population in rural areas, as even countries where there is little pressure for land experience this phenomenon, but that instead the opportunity for higher income is responsible for the excessive migration and pressure on cities, as the salary for an unproductive job in an urban area was almost always higher than the salary for unproductive work in a rural area. Graves and Sexton also emphasize that individuals move despite negative factors such as overcrowding, suggesting that individuals still see urban migration as an overall benefit. They argue that if the benefits do indeed outweigh the costs for society as a whole, then the term "overurbanization" is not appropriate to describe the phenomenon. Gugler argues that while the benefits outweigh the costs for an individual migrating to an urban area, greater costs such as resource scarcity and widespread unemployment and poverty are present when this occurs at a larger scale.
Sovani also argues that the definition of overurbanization as developed by scholars in the 1950s and 1960s suggests some sort of limits to population density "beyond which the resulting social situation is abnormal," which he argues need to be defined more clearly. Such unsupportable growth would suggest that the cause of overurbanization is urbanization happening too rapidly for a city's level of economic development. Dyckman would call this the "pre-takeoff period." However, several scholars have questioned the validity of the connection between urbanization and industrialization.
The economic modernization perspective.
The economic modernization perspective on the causes of overurbanization is based on modernization theory, which argues that a hierarchical progression exists from pre-modern to modern society. An explanation of overurbanization from this perspective was given by sociologist Jeffrey Kentor, who wrote that under modernization theory, urbanization results from development and industrialization creating jobs and infrastructure. This argument has been criticized by those who do not ascribe to the assumption that there is a linear path of development that all countries follow.
The political modernization perspective.
Shandra's take on the political modernization perspective asserts that environmental degradation causes overurbanization, because the destruction of natural resources in rural areas lowers production and increases poverty and health risks. Supporters of the political modernization perspective suggest that a strong civil society supports lower levels of overurbanization. The presences of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in rural areas, political protests, and democratic government all have the ability of limiting rural-push factors by limiting factors that lead to resource scarcity. INGOs can reduce overurbanization by stimulating alternative employment outside of agriculture, supporting grassroots movements, and improving rural conditions, such as by providing clean water. Considering the role of political protest, Shandra offers the example of the Chipko movement in India, where local women protested deforestation. Protection of this natural resource "eliminated the causes (i.e., income risk and health effects) that facilitate rural to urban migration by protecting a natural resource base by which rural residents in India depended for their existence." Given these considerations, Shandra argues that repressive regimes that do not respond to the desires of the public are more likely to cause higher rates of urbanization than democratic governments.
The neo-Malthusian perspective.
The neo-Malthusian perspective is closely related to rural-push and urban-pull factors, but it suggests that the cause behind these factors is population growth, which leads to ecological problems, decreasing agricultural activity, and increased rural poverty. These factors then push rural residents to the city.
The dependency perspective.
The dependency perspective on the causes of overurbanization is based on dependency theory, which argued that economic and political systems rendered less developed countries dependent on developed countries, which used developing countries for resources, labor, and markets.
Proponents of the dependency perspective argue that rural-push and urban-pull factors are not only a result of population growth and resource scarcity, but that these factors, among others, are caused by the exploitation of developed countries and the capitalist principles they operate under. This is to say that "a comprehensive understanding of Third World urbanization cannot focus solely on intra-national, rural-push, urban-pull explanations...but must explicitly incorporate the impact of international capitalist forces." This holds that the negative rural-push factors are a result of the manipulation of developed countries. Michael Kentor found that dependence on foreign investment had a lagged effect on urbanization, meaning that urbanization rates increased a