Urbanization Over the Years

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

http://www.stonybrook.edu/economics/info/news/science/montgomery_sciencefeb08.pdf

    

The Oil Empire History Knowledge Iraq/Iran

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqhRizrimgc

The Politics of Oil

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company had been formed by W.K.D'Arcy in 1909 to exploit a piece of land which he had been granted by the Shah in 1901, and the Abadan refinery produced 273,000 tons of oil in 1914, its first year of operation. Anglo-Persian remained the sole oil producing undertaking in the Middle East until 1927; its operations were first confined to Persia itself and then extended to the Naft-Khana fields on the former Persian territories transferred to the Ottoman Government as a result of the Perso-Turkish Frontier Commission of 1913. The oil boom of the 1970s brought wealth to Baghdad, and the city was developed on an impressive scale. New infrastructure including modern sewerage, water, and highway facilities were built during this period.

Recently, there has been a long standing dispute within Baghdad with Iraq’s Kurds over the ownership of the oil in their semi-autonomous enclave within the city.  This is threatening the efforts to rebuild the neglected oil and gas industry that Baghdad profited from in earlier times.  This would restore all of Iraq to a point of prominence as an energy producer.  The city of Baghdad has said that the State Oil Marketing Organization is the only authority with the right to export crude oil.  They have begun cutting supplies of some refined products such as kerosene and diesel fuel to Kurdistan.  The problem continues to fracture the Baghdad area, but it seems the Kurds are beginning to lose ground in the argument.  Baghdad is now the site of oil field auctions and big oil companies from the US, China, and other large energy consuming countries are bidding for the fields. There is a huge international interest in Iraq’s oil due to the fact that they have highly favorable costs of extraction- as low as $1 per barrel. Many national leaders believe that Baghdad’s reserves are the last great reservoir of cheap oil in the world. 

Iraq’s Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani believes that they have 200 billion barrels of crude reserves in addition to the confirmed 112 billion barrels of reserves. If this is true, astonishingly, this would move Iraq ahead of Saudi Arabia in regards to global petroleum importance. Companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon are monitoring this situation carefully as they could be strongly benefitted in the future due to the oil in Baghdad. Many international corporations are establishing operations in Erbil instead of Baghdad to establish a stable environment, alleviate security threats and the cost of security. A new Iraqi law allows investment in Iraq including 100% ownership of capital, guarantees against nationalization and freedom to transfer profits, interest and dividends abroad.

Foreign investment in Iraq between 2003 and 2004 was centered on oil and gas agreements along with major infrastructure projects contracted by the United States to private companies. Due to the relative stability of the last few years, foreign investment in Iraq has surged nearly 1,500% from 2007 (2.7 billion) to 2009 (42.9 billion). Baghdad is on the cusp of transforming its urban landscape over the next few years, but these projects are just being funded. Most haven’t even begun construction, much less completion.
To view a video of the the Oil Empire History Knowledge of Iraq/Iran click here. 

Sources:

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/09/22/Baghdad-and-Kurds-battle-over-oil/UPI-15261285180529/

http://www.ameinfo.com/116499.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5B92EQ20091211

 

Oil Production Fueled by Urbanization

 Urbanization in Iraq has been able to accelerate in the past three decades due to global factors, such as oil production. Yet, it seems that oil production was more successful prior to 1990 than it is today. Iraq has the ability to significantly increase their oil production yield by millions of barrels simply by instituting modern oil field management techniques and developing new fields.  If Iraq is able to do this, oil production may continue to be successful in urbanizing the Middle East like it used to.

Iraq is one of the top three largest proven oil reserves, with approximately 115 billion barrels. This may seem like a lot, but without a viable legal framework, the country of Iraq will have difficulty attracting the investment capital required for sustainable development across the nation and oil production. Iraq was at its peak production shortly before the Kuwait invasion in 1990. They averaged 3.5 million of barrels per day (mbd). After the invasion, along with the Gulf War, oil production quickly decreased due to international boycott. Production dropped to about 500,000 barrels per day (b/d). A couple years later, the UN Oil for Food Program gave permission to start petroleum exports again. Between 1991 and 2001, Iraq averaged around 2.5 mbd of oil production. 

In 2003, with Saddam’s fall, oil production started back up again and began to increase. Although production had resumed, it was not getting done quickly enough due to the damage of the wells and lack of materials. Because of this, local refineries had to strip extracted oil of its gasoline and re-inject the leftover into the wells. This brought about uncertainty in determining the total amount of oil that was being produced. 

As of 2006, oil production in Iraq was averaging 1.9 mbd, which is below its potential of 3 mbd. Oil production in Iraq continues to stay low due to the lack of equipment, spare parts and inadequate foreign investments. To consider investment of large sums of money into Iraq, international oil companies require legal and constitutional protection for foreign direct investment.

Sources:

Brunn, Hays-Mitchell, and Zeigler.  (2008)  Cities of the World, 4^th Edition.  Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/xstandard/Chapter%20Five%20%20Dargin%20Rebuilding%20Sustainable%20Com.%20in%20Iraq(2).pdf