Measuring The Level of Liberia’s Urbanization

By: Aloysius Juwee Morris

This Paper is a Test Publication and is incomplete; The Author welcomes your criticisms

Abstract

Urbanization is a global issue and measuring the level of urbanization in my country Liberia is one of the most fundamentally important piece of academic work. Liberia’s urbanization level has been affected by many years of political instability and as a result the country has experienced a mass movement of people in urban areas in search of opportunities that they have not found in the rural areas.

The paper explains the universal means by which urbanization levels are measured and then it ties in to the measure of it in Liberia.

The paper does not use the traditional mathematical methods to explain the measurement of urbanization levels in Liberia but it uses visual aids such as graphs, charts and tables to show the movement of people from rural to urban areas in Liberia.

The paper gathers data from several sources including the CIA World Fact Book, The World Bank UN Habitat, and the UNDP and principally from the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo Information Services.

Thus, the study seeks to show that the measurement of urbanization level and development, measured in terms of the HDI are positively linked at least in the case of Liberia.

Key Words: Urban Sprawl, Urban Giantism, Urban bias, Informal Sector, Human Development Index

Introduction

Urbanization refers to the population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, and the ways in which each society adapts to this change. It is predominantly the process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more people begin living and working in central areas. Although the two concepts are sometimes used interchangeably, urbanization should be distinguished from urban growth: urbanization is "the proportion of the total national population living in areas classed as urban", while urban growth refers to "the absolute number of people living in areas classed as urban". The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized. That is equivalent to approximately 3 billion urbanites by 2050, much of which will occur in Africa and Asia.[6] Notably, the United Nations has also recently projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be by cities, about 1.1 billion new urbanites over the next 13 years.

Urbanization is a global phenomenon and as expected, it is more of a problem in developing countries than developed basically for the below reasons: Income inequality between rural and urban population, better job opportunities in the urban areas, availability of educational facilities in urban areas compared to the rural areas etc.

This paper attempts to measure the measurement of Liberia’s urbanization levels. Liberia is a country situated on the West Coast of Africa bounded on the North East and West by Guinea, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone respectively; Liberia like many of its neighbors has faced a mammoth challenge of rural urban migration which basically has been caused by the reasons mentioned supra.

Over the past two decades, Liberia has seen a rapid rise in urban areas especially the Capital of Monrovia. The Paper will discuss the details of the five most important ways urbanization is measured namely: The Push factor, The Pull factor, Economic growth, Push and Pull factors and Rural Urban Migration.

This paper will focus on how these factors have influenced the measurement of Liberia’s urbanization level.

Liberia is a country that has been affected by years of civil war and economic turmoil, which has led to the movement of almost all of its economic activities toward the urban areas. Because of these challenges there has also been the creation of shanty towns and large slum settlements to house the

People who have migrated to the urban areas to find better economic opportunities especially who have got no formal training are mostly the inhabitants of these shanty towns and are engaging the informal sectors in spite of the many challenges.

Literature Review

There has been many literature written on how Liberia’s urban population has been measured and how migration from rural to urban areas in Liberia over the last few decades has been fundamental to the challenges faced by the new urban growth models as postulated by Michael P. Todaro. “The Positive association between urbanization and per capita income is one of the most stylized facts of the development process” Michael P. Todaro (Economic Development 11th Edition; P 312). There has been assertions associated with the world bank that urbanization is closely related to or associated with economic growth, this has been very hard to prove in the case of developing countries ( Liberia as a case in point).

Liberia’s urbanization Levels have been measured by the factors as mentioned above as indicated by Puja Mondal (2012):

A. Population Growth One of the key reasons for urbanization in developing countries vis a vis Liberia is population growth which is as a result of poor economic considerations; as in the case of developed economies, the higher the literacy rate and understanding of the disadvantages of high fertility rates, the smaller the family size which in turn leads to slow down in population growth; unlike these developed countries Taiwan and South Korea, Liberia has experienced high population growth rates in the last decade with a population increase of more than 1.4 million persons over the last decade. A large chunk of this population has been migrated toward the urban centers especially its capital Monrovia; This is largely due to high illiteracy rates in Liberia, lack of adequate family planning information.

B. Rural-urban Migration: Migration is a form of geographical or spatial motion between one geographical unit and another. Internal migration consists of rural-rural, rural-urban, urban-urban and urban-rural migration. Migration is a continuous and repeated process. Because of these facts, it is difficult to measure and study. The time of migration also varies; it can be periodic, seasonal, or long-term migration. Migration has been proven to be one of the main reasons for rapid growth of cities. Migration has been going on over centuries and it is normal phenomenon. When considering urbanization rural-urban and urban-rural and rural-rural migrations are very important.

Many migrants are environmental refugees from badly depleted rural areas. In developing countries industrial growth in urban areas offers employment and trading opportunities for rural people which are faced with declining living standards. Nowadays the urbanization is increasingly occurring also without any significant opportunities for new migrants and it is fastest in Africa. In the case of Liberia, people migrate from the rural towns and villages because of urban bias which is a process where national government has placed more emphasis on projects in the urban areas ignoring the rural areas; these migrants are usually in search of education job opportunities which are rare in the rural areas. Over the last few decades, there has been a massive movement of migrants from rural to urban areas in search of economic opportunities.

C. Push and Pull Factors: People may move to the city because they are pushed by poverty from rural communities or they may be pulled by the attractions of city lives. Combination of these push and pull factors can also be one reason for moving to cities. In Liberia, people move to cities due to poverty in rural areas, lack of schooling and sometimes environmental degradation as a result of logging and mining which has caused the huge migration of hunting games which was used as a source of economic wellbeing in the form of income and food. Logging and mining activities has been rampant in Liberia’s rural towns especially in the South Central and Northern parts of the country; as a result the environment has been affected, the people’s drinking water has been polluted and there has been left little or no chance to earn a living through the traditional means they have used over the past decades of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

D. Push Factors: Liberia’s rural areas have had most of its land given to concessionaires by the government which has led to lack of arable lands to farm; as most of its rural inhabitants depend on subsistence farming as a lively hood; other natural disasters such as disease epidemic flooding and other health related problems has led to people leaving Liberia’s rural areas to urban areas in search of better living conditions. Some traditional cultural norms such as the practice of genital mutilation and the practice of the traditional Poro and Sande Societies are amongst some of the push factors that cause massive migration into urban areas in Liberia.

E. Pull Factors: speculation of high wages and better livelihood in urban areas are amongst the biggest attractions for rural people. People will continue to migrate to cities as long as they expect urban wages to exceed their current rural wages. Employment opportunities, higher incomes, joining other rural refugees, freedom from oppressive lifestyle, access to better health care and education, are the “bright lights” for rural people.

One of the main reasons for people to move to the urban areas is that the situation in the rural areas is very difficult. With the income level they have it is not possible to survive. In the case even the low salaries in the rural areas are more attractive than non-existing salaries in the rural areas.

Most of Liberia’s urban population is concentrated in and around its capital Monrovia which is due to several factors amongst which are effects of the long years of war on rural communities, most of the hinterland of Liberia is isolated due to lack of road connectivity, lack of farm to market road which has led to farmers’ crops not having access to the markets etc.

The figure below shows a visual of how the rural population is Liberia is being decimated in favor of moving to urban and peri urban areas due to harsh livelihood conditions in the rural areas compared to life in the urban areas

The cities highlighted in the above chart shows where there are economic activities which attracts many immigrants every year.

Liberia has experienced a massive movement of people from rural to urban areas from the early 1980s to present the present percentage of urban population in Liberia is 52% with the more movement concentrated where there are economic factor mobility.

Liberia’s urban Population Movement from 1980 to 2019

Level of urbanization is defined as the percentage of a country’s population in cities with at least 10,000 inhabitants.

The most populous city in Liberia is Monrovia which is the capital city; the city has a population of approximately 1,238,177 about 25% of the country’s population. This is largely due to pull factors; as most of the people are attracted to Monrovia due to the love for city life, better job opportunity the best schools in the country, industrial employment opportunities. This is the seat of the country’s governance activities because due to the civil war most of the political and economic activities have not decentralized. Like mentioned earlier, the roads into the rural areas are just being rehabilitated and in some instances being built which would slow down the movement toward urban areas especially the capital.

From the trend of the increase of the urban population in Liberia from the 1980s, there has been created the urban giantism problems. The population of the urban areas has increased significantly in the case of Liberia due to years of civil war which is another principal cause of people movement toward urban centres where there are less problems.

Methodology

There are two measures of the degree of urbanization of a population (CIA World Factbook

, August 2018).

The first, urban population, describes the percentage of the total population living in urban areas, as defined by the country.

As indicated supra, Liberia’s urban population composed 51.2% of the country’s total population (2019 est., UNDP, CIA World Factbook, UN Habitat). This large migration toward urban areas has been largely due to perceived high income levels in the cities, perceived infrastructural development, better opportunities and the fledgling urban informal sector which is comprised mainly of petty traders, family firms, services, labour intensive methods, free entry and market determined product prices (Michael P. Todaro Economic Development 11e p. 328); a case that is also identical to Liberia’s.

The second measure, rate of urbanization, describes the projected average rate of change of the size of the urban population over the given period of time.

In this instant case of Liberia, we find the projected average rate of change of the size of our urban population from 1980 to 2019. This is obtained by deducting the population of the starting year in Liberia’s case 1980’s urban population of 665,542 from the population of the ending year of 2019’s urban population of 2,548,857 and divide the result by the starting year’s population indicated in the below equation:

Rate of Δ of P =Psy-Pey/Psy; Where Δ is the rate of change P is the Population, Psy is the population of the starting year in this case the urban population in 1980 and Pey is the population of the ending year of the period which in the case is the urban population of 2019

Rate of Δ of P= 665,542-2,548,857/665,542

=1,883,315/665,542

Conclusion

Rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa places immense pressure on urban services to meet the needs of the burgeoning urban population and challenges of measuring urbanization levels.

The problems of measuring urbanization has been dubbed a global phenomenon; with global bodies looking for solutions to factor in the way to alleviate such problems of the mass movement of people toward urban areas in such of better economic opportunities and amenities such as the pride of city life etc.

There has been mixed literature on the measurement of urbanization in developing countries such as Liberia and most of sub-Saharan Africa. The trend which Liberia’s urbanization has taken has been one of immense side problems as discussed in the paper due to the attraction of many persons towards urban life, there has been the formation of large slum settlements like West Point, Clara Town and the Doe Community areas. Urbanization has also influenced the burgeoning informal sector. The establishment of petty trades, family businesses and the availability of casual labour workers are also some of the results of urbanization. The paper established that Liberia’s urban population is approximately 51.2% of the country’s overall population. The lack of roads leading to rural areas in Liberia has also led to the problems of isolating the rural parts from major economic activities which has in turn led to the mass movement of people toward the urban areas; the paper discusses the factors that measures urbanization as postulated by Mondal Puja and others experts on urbanization measurement; which include but not limited to Population growth which has been proven over time to be the case of most of the urban areas in Liberia the largest being Monrovia which is the Capital of Liberia.

Urban giantism is another phenomenon that has been associated with measuring urbanization levels in Liberia as indicated by the population of Monrovia which is almost 2.5 times as large as the second most populous city of Gbarnga.

The problems created by these mass movement of people toward the urban areas of Liberia include health and congestion of traffic which has in turn led to lag in time and an adverse effect on the economy.