Components of City Growth in Selected Latin American Countries

A detailed analysis of city growth by city size categories was made for the Latin American countries of Chile Mexico and Venezuela. These countries are among the 6 most urbanized of the region and additionally they have experienced a high rate of urbanization during the last intercensal period. The analysis of city growth--the principal factor contribution to urbanization--shows why cities are growing so rapidly and consequently why urbanization is so rapid. The study of city growth covers the last intercensal period with cities classified in 6 size categories according to their size in the 1960 census. All cities with 10000 or more inhabitants in the 1960 census were studied through the intercensal period. The analysis purpose was to determine whether internal migration had been the principal factor of city growth. A migrant factor was developed in which the estimates of the number of migrants were found by multiplying the factor by the number of migrants and their descendants born in the cities. The migrant factor was .8877 for Chile .8497 for Mexico and .8283 for Venezuela. Cities are growing rapidly in Latin American countries. Mainly in those less urbanized countries urbanization is occurring without any industrialization. In these areas the supply of services necessary in cities will cost relatively more than if the country were industrializing at the same time. Yet when some of the more urbanized countries industrialize they encounter sooner those problems related to urbanization such as air pollution and sewage because factories and industries locate very close to the largest cities without taking any precautions against smoke gases or waste. Principally Latin American cities are growing so fast because the population is reproducing at a high rate. Natural growth rates in certain cities as in the case of Chile and Venezuela are higher than in rural areas. In general the birthrate by city size category declines when the city size increases except for the intermediate category of 100-500 thousand in which case the birthrate increases in the 3 countries considered. Mortality counteracts part of the effect of the differential in birthrates and thus the growth rates are not very different between rural areas and cities. Migration from rural areas to cities the 2nd important factor in urbanization in the countries considered has been observed as following almost the same pattern. In Chile and Venezuela the lowest number of net migrants is received by the middle city size category. For Mexico the number of net migrants increases with the city size.