A clear trend is that urban growth is reduced in almost all corners of the world. The signs of decline began mid 90's, when the average annual rate of population change increased from 3.17 percent to 2.93 percent by the end of 2000 on average for less developed regions. It is estimated that by 2030 the growth rate will drop sharply to reach 1.88 per cent ( UNPD, 2007). Of course the pace and level of decline will be very skewed in different regions: 2.8 percent in Africa, 1.76 percent in Asia and 1 percent in Latin America in 2030.
Intermediate cities are not immune to these trends and certainly also suffer similar declines, as shown by trajectory analysis. According to simple extrapolations, cities of this size in developing countries spend an annual growth rate of 2.7 percent in 2000 to 1.5 percent in 2030.
Africa will continue to maintain the fastest pace of global growth of intermediate cities with a rate close to 2.52 per cent by then the continent will be more urban than rural, reaching its urban transition precisely in the year 2030. Medium-sized cities in Asia will grow by then to just 1.5 percent and the mainland is mostly urban in 2025. America America and the Caribbean is the most urbanized region in the global south with 80 percent of the total population living in urban centers, cities are estimated to grow at an average annual rate of 0.5 percent in 2030, when the region 85 percent is urban.
Although mid-sized cities continue to grow faster than other cities in the developing world is interesting that the proportion of people living in cities of less than one million inhabitants will gradually reducing 68 percent in 1975 to 62 percent in 2007 and about 60 percent in 2025. These changes are due to two interlinked phenomena. The first is that some cities in the global south, particularly those of medium size, have begun to lose population and is very likely that this trend will become increasingly dominant in the next twenty years. The second is that several intermediate cities grow fast and become mega-cities and target in a slow but steady trend to take the proportion of people in the developing world live in large cities spend 8.3 percent in the year 2007 to 9.6 percent in 2025 to the megalopolis of more than ten million inhabitants and 6.9 percent to 7.5 percent for the megacities of more than five million people in the same years.
future changes in the size and functionality of the cities will be increasingly dictated by urban growth, but also by the contraction of the cities. These seemingly different processes are in fact two sides of the same coin ( Martínez Fernández & Wu, 2007). The cities experiencing the same rise and decline time (and sometimes even decline) as part of urban cycles is necessary to understand in order to respond to them. The World Cities Report 2008 shows that while just over half the global south urban centers grew at a rapid pace ( UN-HABITAT , 2008a), about 10 percent experienced the loss of population. Perhaps this ratio for some is rather insignificant, but we believe it is the prelude to a new urban trend, which, if it continues, as is likely, make a greater discontinuity not only in population growth and urban development, but also in the planning exercise in the future must recognize and respond to the rapid growth of some centers, while should anticipate and provide for the population decline of others.
It is very likely that in future some changes in the use of resources and technology to alter the definition of optimal size and functionality more suitable for medium-sized towns. In the next twenty years the most effective intermediate cities play a critical role in the decentralization of public services, in providing a variety of household consumer goods and the creation of small and medium enterprises in labor intensive to create jobs and thereby contribute to reducing the problems associated with the heavy concentration of population in large urban agglomerations.
However, the future of intermediate cities have much to do with the stage of development of countries and regions, diversification of the urban system, the level of decentralization and devolution of states, the population growth of the various urban centers and economic dynamism some regions and cities.
In Latin America and the Caribbean intermediate cities concentrate a significant and growing proportion of the population that will be key to the future urban and regional development ( Rodríguez, 2007). Developing a very plausible scenario is that cities of this size will helping to diversify the urban system and thus will contribute to reducing urban primacy in several countries in the region. It is very probable that the intermediate cities continue to expand the coverage of education and health systems, improving quality of life indicators. Many medium-sized cities will be substantial improvements in their transport and telecommunications sector as a result of growing public and private investment as part of policies of decentralization and regional development. Other cities, particularly in Central America and some Caribbean countries, reflect huge disparities in development between cities and regions, with a pyramidal structure that will retain very poor relations between the cities of the same hierarchical level. These imbalances in the spatial structure will be an impediment to regional economic growth and social development.
Saharan Africa's future medium-sized cities is more gloomy: Conflicts, disasters, forced population movements caused by drought, famine, ethnic conflicts and wars of various intensities, coupled with economic growth rather erratic , make it difficult for these cities play an important role in promoting socio-economic development because of poor accumulation of technology and lack of economies of scale and infrastructure.
as poor conditions of many of the cities (comparable to small towns as far as regards infrastructure and development) remain the expression of an exaggerated centralism and poor governance that continue to produce marked asymmetries regional development, which not only distort the economy, but also prevent a more political integration. It is very likely that in the next 20 or 25 years, urban primacy trends continue, with the emergence random from a limited number of medium cities more vibrant and dynamic.
In marked contrast, medium-sized cities in North Africa, along with other cities of comparable rank in South Africa and Namibia - countries at a relatively advanced urban transition with intermediate levels of development continue to play an important role in regional development process, providing new economic opportunities for people seeking greater social mobility. It is a very plausible assumption that these cities work in the future as centers of social transformation, absorbing rural migrants who might otherwise go to schools larger urban and providing better conditions for the inhabitants due to their comparative advantages and economies of scale that allow concentration of basic and intermediate levels of health and education. Intermediate cities in these countries can work more efficiently and sub-regional administrative centers and services, supporting decentralization processes that make them more accessible facilities and facilities not only for their own urban residents, but also for the rural interior.
In Asia the future of intermediate cities is highly contrasted. The region is so vast and heterogeneous defies generalization and residents in the largest and richest economies and also one of the poorest. Perhaps the most important feature of urbanization in Asia is the emergence of megacities and metropolitan growth. In 2000, the region contained 227 cities with more than one million inhabitants and 21 cities with populations of more than five million people. In 10 megacities are located in the global south, over 7 are Asian (UN-HABITAT , 2008b).
Given this phenomenon metropolitanization the future of the Middle Asian cities is presented with some clarity: they must counter the growth of large cities making the best use of great potential, serving as engines of regional economic and social development. Strategies that can be used for that purpose and to redistribute the populations from a more harmonious, vary depending on the political characteristics of countries and their levels of development.
In countries where urban primacy is still the mainstream of development as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, among many other nations, the role of intermediate cities to target intercept migratory flows are from the countryside and small towns to major cities. In industrialized nations like South Korea and India, it is likely that mid-range cities function as instruments to reduce regional imbalances and improve income inequality. Trend analysis shows that these cities may create in the future research and development for agricultural innovations and technology suitable to the region. In less industrialized countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines, the avenir of intermediate cities is perceived more as a bridge that serves to promote the growth of rural industries based on processing agricultural products for export.
The future of medium-sized cities in China deserves special comment: of the 125 cities in this range that emerged between 1990 and 2000 across the continent, 119 were in this country (UN-HABITAT , 2008b). Taking into account that most Chinese cities have a good intermediate industrial and commercial base and efficient transport systems, it is expected that in future these cities play a more prominent role in organizing economic activities, the development of production and reduction of regional imbalances and promoting integration regional.
changes and continuities over the future of medium ignore the possibility of major adverse shocks such as natural disasters, political revolutions and military conflicts that occurred in the case would pull some countries of their development path. It is certainly not improbable that the devastating effects caused by climate change or a new pandemic could influence these projections. For example, in Southeast Asian cities are highly populated and dense can start a global pandemic such as SARS and HPAI (NIC , 2008), with devastating effects especially in medium-sized towns with fewer capabilities detection and appropriate medical responses.
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