The number of urban dwellers is growing much more rapidly than populations as a whole. The number of urban Middle Easterners has increased by about 100 million in the past 35 years. Roughly half of the population of the region now lives in cities.
The number of urban dwellers is expected to rise from its current level of over 135 million to over 350 million by 2025. From 1985 to 1990, the most rapid growth was in secondary cities — 6 percent — compared with a growth rate of 3.8 percent for the 19 largest cities with populations of more than 1 million in 1990. This trend has continued during the 1990s.
Public services and utilities are already overloaded. In Jordan and Morocco, for example, one-third of the urban population lacks adequate sewerage services. Urban water supplies are often erratic. Governments attempt to provide urban services through heavy subsidies. These strain government budgets and thwart the necessary investments to extend and improve services.
The rapid urbanization of the region challenges governance in at least three ways. First, the rapid growth of cities strains infrastructure — and government budgets. Governments’ perceived inability to cope with mundane problems like housing, sewerage, potable water supply, and garbage collection further weakens already strained regimes’ legitimacy. Second, the process of migration from rural to urban areas is always disorienting for many migrants. Whether in Ayachuco or Asyut, the mix of rural-urban migration with discontented provincial intellectuals has proved highly toxic to existing governments. The recently arrived disoriented rural migrants to cities provide fertile fishing grounds for militants, particularly when the (allegedly) decadent mores of the cities shock the sensibilities of the newcomers. The problems are also made more acute by the difficulties that migrants sometimes find in obtaining economic reform in the Middle East. Third, urban discontent is clearly more politically volatile and dangerous to regimes than is its rural version. Rapid urbanization strains budgets, legitimacy, and governance, while swelling the ranks of regime opponents.
The magnitude of the problem dwarfs available resources to cope. Managing these problems adequately will be expensive. The World Bank estimates that solving the problem of municipal solid waste collection for the region as a whole will require $4-6 billion of investment over a ten-year period, while solutions to water distribution and air pollution will be still more expensive. Governments are unlikely to be able to afford to provide services at below cost to urbanites if coverage is to be extended and health hazards are to be reduced. The problem is both cause and effect of governance difficulties.
At least in part, the problems stem from the weak tax base of most urban entities. Few cities have much independent tax authority, thanks to the fiscal centralization in most countries in the region. At the same time, macroeconomic austerity has deprived many municipalities of the funds needed to cope with urban problems.
The problems of urbanization are fundamentally caused, of course, by rapid urban population growth; they are significantly exacerbated, however, by governments’ lack of revenues.
Coping with urbanization is another force pressing governments to reform their policies. Governments are very widely perceived as having defaulted on their responsibilities to their citizens. This situation provides radical opponents of existing regimes with excellent opportunities. They have been nimble in filling the niche vacated by fiscally retrenching governments. They have created schools, clinics, day-care centers, and dozens of other NGO-style activities, to substitute for penurious and incompetent local government. The contrast of the incompetence of the Egyptian bureaucracy and the dedication of such NGOs in caring for victims of the Cairo earthquake neatly illustrates the point.
— Dr. Abdelazim Mahmoud Hanafi is an Egyptian economic expert.
