How Big are the Metropolitan Cities? Metropolization in the Far East: The Demographic Dimension I (with Table)Dirk Bronger

ASIEN – Nr. 14 (1985) pp. 71–79

‚Urbanization‘ or, to be more precise the degree of urbanization (urbanization quota) is considered throughout as a major indicator of development. In the „World Development Report 1982“, to cite an example, ‚urbanization‘ is named as one out of 24 key ‚world development indicators‘. Apart from the fact that the national definitions of what is ‚urban‘ vary significantly from country to country (from 200 inhabitants onwards in Scandinavia up to 30,000 in Japan) so that cross-country comparisions are impossible, the nomination of this indicator is astonishing at least for two reasons: Firstly the designation of the degree of urbanization as an indicator of development, obviously deduced from the ‚innovative‘ character of what is ‚urban‘, is quite questionable at least for the countries of the Third World.