The Poverty of Cities in Developing Regions

A LONG-STANDING BELIEF in development studies holds that, on the whole, living conditions in developing countries are superior for residents of large cities than for persons living in smaller cities, towns, and villages. The concept of big cities as “islands of privilege ” (Harrison 1982: 145) is fundamental to otherwise discrepant theories of modernization, dependency, world systems of cities, and the global division of labor, each of which posits long-lasting disadvantages for populations outside of major urban centers. 1 It is also supported by evidence from numerous developing countries of lower child mortality rates, greater income-earning opportunities, less frequent and less severe famines, and better access to publicly conferred entitlements in big cities than in smaller areas in the era since World War II. Since the late 1980s, however, the presumed superiority of large cities in developing countries has been widely disputed. One argument, informed by evidence of rapid population growth and economic stagnation in many cities, and by perceptions of associated negative externalities imposed on city environments, asserts deteriorating or relatively unfavorable living conditions for big-city residents, on average, as compared with conditions for inhabitants of smaller cities and towns. Paul Kennedy (1993: 26) observes that “Asian, Latin American, and Central American megacities of 20 million inhabitants have become increasingly centers of poverty