Urbanization in Ghana

Urbanization is the increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities. Urbanization occurs because people move from rural areas (countryside) to urban areas (towns and cities).

When we talk about urbanization here, there are two main causes of it, and the are natural population increase and rural to urban migration. In this chapter allow me to explain some key concept used.

In demography, the rate of natural increase, also known as natural population change, is defined as the birth rate minus the death rate of a particular population, over a particular time period. One major cause of natural population increase is high birth rate. Rural to urban migration is the movement of people from villages to the cities and towns to seek greener pastures.

First of all, in Ghana there is a high natural population increase, this is because our women are very fertile when it come to producing babies and one thing is that there is low family planning, which causes the high production. Imaging all the people residing in the various cities decides to give birth, there would be a natural increase in the population. Also, movement of people from the rural areas to the urban area causes urbanization. In Ghana every now and then you see people moving to the urban areas to seek job opportunity.

These two major causes have caused a lot of effect on the urban centers. It has led to human traffic, air population and due to the rapid increase forest reserves has now served as residence for these people and it has brought about insecurity at various areas.

To continue with, urbanization has led to congestion, unregulated urban expansions, limited access to services and affordable quality housing and unable to cope with rapid transition.

One may be wondering what has led to the urbanization in Ghana, remember that there is a push meaning that there is the derive making the people move, and here are some push factors, industrialization, employment opportunities, commercialization, modernization, social benefits etc.

The urbanization is gradually taking people from their various homes to different unknown places which is not healthy for a country like Ghana, so here are some suggested ideas to put a stop or reduce the rate of urbanization. The first of all is, providing same social benefits to these local areas through the local government, also, helping to promote sustainable agricultural system and also, educating citizens on family planning.

Refences

Researchgate

Wikipedia