Due to the population growth in the past 20 years, and most of it happening in developing countries we can see how urban living has transformed. To this day we can see how urban living has changed mostly in the Middle East due to how much the world has become more dependent on oil. As urban economists emphasize how population size increases, due to more people working and earning a much higher salary, also the increase in city size drives up rents and the many costs of congestion, discouraging prospective migrants and encouraging business relocation. With this said, population growth rates overall in developing countries are still higher than in past centuries, the urban growth rates before 2000 are substantially higher than the rates that were seen during comparable historical periods in the West. This differs due to lower urban mortality in present-day populations, firmly high urban fertility in some cases, and a built-in momentum in urban growth that was influenced from the difference in age and sex structures caused by in-migration of young adults looking for jobs and past population growth. We see for example Baghdad’s urban population has increased by thousands in the past 10 years due to the demand for oil increasing as much as it has. We see people that had decent jobs to live a decent live in a rural area now finding better paying jobs in such rural are that they now can afford the life in a urban area. As much as these people benefit from this, we see how overpopulation can also affect the culture and sites of any country. For example, Israel has gained more and more population in urban cities, making it almost necessary for the column separating territories to exist in order to keep peace and somehow the historic look of such beautiful country. Most Middle Eastern countries are known to hold more history than any other place, and over populating such beautiful places cannot compare to a simple new building in New York City, but it can truly ruined what we see as a beauty of history.Like most developing countries, the entire country of Iraq has seen a great migration of its citizens toward urban areas. Iraq’s largest city, Baghdad has been at the center of this. According to Iraqi census data, Baghdad grew from 3,226,000 residents in 1977 to 3,845,000 residents in 1987; an incredible amount of 19% in just 10 years. Because of this trend, Baghdad alone is now home to 31% of the population. As of the 1997census recording, 75% of Iraq's population of 22.3 million people was concentrated in urban centers. In the last decade Iraq has been undergoing an accelerated process of urbanization, as can be seen in the primary city centers of Baghdad and Basra. The population of Baghdad was 3.8 million in 1987 and 5.6 million in 2002. Although urbanization has been increasing at rapid rates, the standard of living has not suffered as a result, and in 1990 the United Nations Development Program listed Iraq as 67 on its Human Development Index. However, after oil revenues fell due to UN policies the standard of living, in terms of sanitation, education, food/water supplies, healthcare and education fell. It has been estimated that 5 million people (19%) of the population are at risk from lack of access to safe water and in 2003. It was recorded that 60% of the population was dependent on government distributed food rations. However, there is no recorded shortage of food, which may be in part due to a World Food Program $1.3 billion emergency operation plan to reestablish the Public Distribution System.
Iraq has also been hampered by war over the past 30 years and has sustained great amounts of damage to its power plants. Directly following the Gulf War, four new power plants were built. However, supply still does not meet demand and the country is actively pursuing multiple new power projects. Because of these shortages, citizens in Baghdad routinely endure power shortages of four or more hours. Yet this is much better than other areas of the country where power shortages leave residents with only 12 hours of power per day.
Sources:
http://www.ameinfo.com/188298.html
http://www.ameinfo.com/188298.html
http://countrystudies.us/iraq/42.htm
http://web.mit.edu/akpia/www/articleheidemann.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment