Rural-Urban Migration. A necessity to survive (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Urban and Regional Planning, grade: 2,0, Dresden Technical University (Lehrstuhl für Raumentwicklung), course: International Spatial Development, language: English, abstract: Introduction.
Migration processes have been existent throughout all times and in all regions of the world. While the original triggering in former times had been the search for more favorable conditions and not yet or only sparsely populated living spaces, patterns of migration
underwent many changes since industrialization. In Europe the period in the 18th century was marked by a migration waves from the countryside to urban areas in unprecedented form and extent. But in comparison to European migration and urbanization processes as we
know them the developments in developing countries are of a whole different dimension. Population and rates of population growth are by far higher than they had been in Europe which leads to increasing dynamic urbanization but also severe side effects. In most of the so-called developing countries employment possibilities and housing facilities are not sufficient at all to absorb the huge influx of people moving into the cities. While European cities had been able to at least offer enough jobs to incoming migrants many cities in Africa, Latin America or Asia face severe problems like unemployment, poverty, pollution or crime. This paper deals with the pattern of rural-urban migration in general in the first part, followed by some explanations about the special case of China that sets certain criteria to migration, trying to control the movement of its people.
The question behind these topics will be the following: To what extent is rural-urban migration a desirable phenomenon and how can local authorities intervene?