Bigger cities mean more poverty, says UN

from the Bangkok Post

Urbanisation is resulting in larger numbers of poor people, reports ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT

Urbanisation in the Asia-Pacific region has driven up poverty, says the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap).

The agency's latest yearbook showed that with an increase in urbanisation and growth, urban poverty had also worsened.

This year represented a turning point in human geography. For the first time in history, more people now live in cities than in rural areas.

Although the Asia-Pacific region, along with Africa, was still one of the least urbanised regions of the world, its urban population had grown at the fastest pace in the last 15 years, said the yearbook, which describes economic, social and environmental trends in Asia and the Pacific.

Only 33% of people in Asia lived in urban areas in 1990, compared with 41% today.

The Asean bloc, comprising the 10 member countries of Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, had seen the fastest influx of people from rural areas to cities.

This growth was having an effect on the way people lived, said Pietro Gennari, the chief of Escap's Statistics Division.

"We're seeing more and more people living in slums and also a negative effect on people's ability to get access to clean water and sanitation in urban areas."

In Asia and the Pacific, two in five urban dwellers live in slums, compared with three out of five in Africa.

In China, Indonesia and the Philippines, fewer urban people had access to sources of high-quality water, said Mr Gennari. The region's rapid economic growth led to better social outcomes, but also put strain on the environment, partly owing to a rapid increase in energy consumption.

Energy consumption per capita in Asia and the Pacific more than doubled between 1990 and 2004, a pace unmatched anywhere else in the world, said Mr Gennari. Motorisation rates measured by the number of passenger cars in use per 1,000 people had also increased significantly in the Asian and Pacific region.

Vehicles had helped improve mobility and contributed to economic growth, but also increased pollution levels and traffic accidents, he said.

Personal mobility levels in many South and Southeast Asian countries were higher than the number of cars in use suggested, as two-and three-wheelers made up more than two-thirds of all motorised vehicles in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam.