Impact Of Urbanization In Ghana

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Urbanization is the name for the movement of people from rural to urban areas, and the resulting growth of cities. Urbanization is a process that has occurred, or is occurring, in nearly every part of the world that humans have inhabited.
The word “urban” was derived from the Latin word “urbanus” meaning characteristic of or pertaining to, the city (Macionis and Parrillo,2007)[ ]. This goes on to explain or define urbanization as the “shift” from a rural to an urban society, and involves an increase in the number of people in urban areas during a particular year. (Nsiah-Gyabaah, 2003)[ ]. He further argues that urbanization is the outcome of the social, economic and political developments that lead to urban concentration and growth of large …show more content…

As ever greater numbers of people moved to a small number of rapidly expanding cities (or, as was often the case, a single main city), the fabric of life in both urban and rural areas changed in massive, often unforeseen ways. With the largest and one of the most rapidly growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana has experienced the phenomenon of urbanization as thoroughly as any African nation, but its experience has also been unique - in scale, in pervasiveness, and in historical …show more content…

According to Yeboah et al (2013, p1), the current definition of urban in Ghana is problematic for two reasons [ ]. First, the minimum threshold of 5000 habitants is unrealistic because it dates back to the 1960 census when the country had a population of 6,726,815. Today, the country’s population of 25,658,606 is almost four times as large and many localities with about 5000 inhabitants still exhibit agricultural functions. They further argue that, “Ghana Statistical Service” should reconsider raising the threshold for defining an urban locality.
Second, there is the need to qualify the kinds of urban places in the country if the current threshold of 5000 is maintained to compare trends from year to year.
Cities are not only independent centers of concentrated human population and activity; they also exert a potent influence on the rural landscape. What are distinctive about the growth of cities in Ghana are the length of its historical extension and the geographic pervasiveness of its