About Mee

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of study

The building of cities has a long and complex history. Although city planning as an organized profession has existed for less than a century, all cities display various degrees of forethought and conscious design in their layout and functioning.

Early humans led nomadic existence, relying on haunting and gathering for sustenance. Between 8, 000 and 10,000 years ago, systematic cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals allowed for more permanent settlements. During the fourth millennium B. C., the requirements for the ‘’urban revolution’’ were finally met: the production of a surplus of storable food, a system o writing, a more complex social organization. Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms can be traced to the complex functions that cities perform.

The world’s population is put at about 6.572 billion people out of whom the United Nations data indicated that about 3 billion people (50 percent) live in urban areas (UNHCS, 2007). Whereas about 66 percent of the entire world’s population lived in the country side in the early 1950’s (World Bank, 2000; IMF 2006), current estimates show that by 2030, about 61 percent of the total population in the world will be living in cities; and that all the world’s increase in population will occur in low and middle income countries (Peters, 2000:2; UNFPA, 2007). In view of the implications of the increasing urban population for sustainable development in low and middle income countries, the Johannesburg’s World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) called on all governments to address the overwhelming challenge of provision of urban basic services especially decent houses, water and sanitation for the teeming people in slums where the quality of life is appalling. While continents like Europe and the Americas have stabilized their population growth and economy to a large extent, most countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America...