Urbanisation is what once formed civilisation. When we as a
species transitioned from living in small communities that were
dedicated to farming and small scale production to cities in which large
amounts of people were gathered to produce and to consume, the stage
was set, first for the Renaissance and later for the industrial
revolution. In today’s society, urbanisation is still the trend, in 2010
the world for the first time had more than half of the world’s
population lived in towns and cities and this is projected to increase
to 60% by 2030.[1]
While international migration often exercises national politics
internal migration is much larger in terms of total numbers; while there
were 190million international migrants in 2005, China alone had around
the same number of internal migrants.[2]
However, with increased mobility and a smaller need for manual labour,
it is been put into doubt whether the cities can handle the vast amounts
of people who enter on a daily basis. This is particularly problematic
in developing nations where any city already has innate problems which
might be exacerbated by the influx of more people. In major cities, such
as Nairobi and Johannesburg, large townships have appeared,[3]
often as large in themselves as major European cities, where poor
people lead a parallel existence, separated from the urban community.
Attempts have been made, in particular in China, to impose policies that
keep people in the rural communities from moving into the cities, in
order to stem the flow of domestic migration.[4] China’s
Hukou system is one of China’s major social controls with the aim of
directly regulating population distribution. It links Chinese citizens
access to state benefits, and sometimes jobs, to the individual staying
where they are registered. This does not prevent rural to urban
migration, as it is possible to change status, but it does attempt to
control migration.[5]
In
this debate the government would make it illegal for people in the
countryside to move into the cities without first receiving permission
from the authorities. Failing to recognise the ban would lead to
deportation to the community from whence the individual came and
possibly other sanctions. This could be done through border controls or
more probably by linking each individual’s identity to their community,
by means of passports or social identity numbers, to make it impossible
to live a functional life in the city without permission.
[1] Global Health Observatory, “Urban population growth”, World Health Organisation, http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/index.html
[2] Skeldon, Ron, “On Migration and the Policy Process”, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, August 2007, http://www.migrationdrc.org/publications/working_papers/WP-T20.pdf p.17
[3]
Maxwell, Daniel., “The Political Economy of Urban Food Security in
Sub-Saharan Africa.” 11, London : Elsevier Science Ltd., 1999, World
Development, Vol. 27, p. 1939±1953. S0305-750X(99)00101-1.
[4] Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine. London : Walker & Company, 2010. 0802777686.
[5] Chan, Kam Wing, and Zhang, Li, “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes*”, The China Quarterly, 1999, http://www.upf.edu/materials/huma/central/historia/xinaXXI/lectures/Chan0.pd. P.823
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