Population, territory and sustainable development

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D. URBANIZATION, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
AND RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION
The leading theories and the historical evidence all continue to point to a close link between urbanization
and economic and social development: “There is a strong correlation between urbanization and economic
development across countries, and within-country evidence suggests that productivity rises in dense
agglomerations” (Glaeser, 2011).
With regard to economic progress, the link has been evident for many centuries, but it gained
traction along with the industrial revolution. Population and production concentration reduces costs
(economies of scale and agglomeration); increases the return on investment; fosters exchange, networking
and association; and promotes the division of labour and competition. It is therefore one of the driving
forces behind technical progress and innovation, provides a natural base for secondary and tertiary
activities and favours the diffusion of knowledge and technology. Thus, population concentration is
naturally associated with economic development.
The connection to social progress is not as obvious, at least historically (Hall, 1996). In the
currently developed countries, industrialization was based on extremely unjust, ruthless urbanization, as
evidenced in unhealthy, abysmal slum districts for the emerging working class. These unfair, substandard
living conditions were exposed by social analysts, the new urban planners, State investigative
commissions, articles in the press and denunciations by various social actors, including physicians and
churches. Exposure sparked government response on housing and urban issues, and the advantages of
concentration for deploying active social policy began to be leveraged and yield direct results in terms of
living conditions and the functioning of cities. In practice, urbanization facilitates the provision of basic
services and, therefore, the expansion of coverage and improvement in service quality. 7 Urbanization also
increases the value of education and makes universal education feasible, and it broadens options for the
exercise of citizens’ rights.
In examining the sustained urbanization of Latin America, one point that stands out is that
regardless of the economic and social development indicators used, higher levels of urbanization are,
on average, invariably associated with higher levels of economic and social development, as argued
at the start of this section. This is illustrated in figures VIII.2 and VIII.3 using the human
development index and per capita GDP, respectively. Both figures confirm the close positive
relationship between urbanization and economic and social development. They also show that the
trend has held over time.
With that in mind, does it make sense to examine the link between urbanization and development
in Latin America? The answer is that yes, it does, for at least three reasons, although only one will be
explored systematically in this report.
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Urban economies of scale and proximity should translate into access to better services for all urban dwellers.
Extending services to poorer neighbourhoods costs much less than reaching the same numbers of people in
remote and scattered rural settlements (UNFPA, 2007, p. 30).