Urbanization and Land Use

Abstract

In the first section of this document we saw that unbridled urbanization, especially in poor regions, is an important underlying disaster risk driver. We also had a brief glimpse of some of its effects. But what drives this kind of urbanization? One causal element has to do with free trade agreements between richer and poorer countries, an aspect of the trans-nationalization of capital over the past 40 years, and the increasing imbalance of political power relations between rich and poor in all countries and on a global scale. Unbridled urbanization and its accompanying misuse of land cannot, therefore, be treated in isolation from a variety of other factors.