“Jump-Starting” Development: Hyperurbanization as a Long-Term Economic Investment

Abstract

Although hyperurbanization has been linked to many problems in the Third World, we contend that those nations in the greatest need of agglomeration economies are the ones experiencing the most rapid urbanization. We offer a view of hyperurbanization as a means of “jump-starting” development for those nations facing severe demographic, technological and organizational constraints. In samples of approximately 60 developing nations, results indicate that rapid growth in large-scale urbanization is a self-limiting dynamic that attenuates with urban and economic growth. The process of hyperurbanization is more pronounced in nations exhibiting low levels of urbanization, low-to-intermediate levels of development, poorly developed rural economies and very rapid population growth rates. These characteristics rather than urban growth itself account for the common finding that rapid urbanization damages economic growth. On the other hand, we find that the level of large-scale urbanization in 1965 is positively associated with economic growth between 1965 and 1990, supporting our view of hyperurbanization as an adaptive emergent property that helps some nations overcome severe constraints on development.