Discuss the effects of urbanization in Africa

It must be kept in mind that urbanization is a two way process because it involves not only movement from villages to cities and changes from agricultural occupation to business, trade, service and other professions, but it also involves changes in migrant attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviour patterns which then affect traditional values.
Urbanization in Africa has resulted in poor environmental conditions in urban settlements in the country.
It is common knowledge that a high concentration of people at one particular area would generate waste especially the plastic waste in our case. Major cities such as Accra, Nairobi, Kampala, johns burg among others can best be termed as dirt cities due to what has been acknowledged as the 'mounting waste situation".
The urban centres have become the preferred point of call by people desiring to leave their villages in search of "greener pastures" due to the high concentration of industries and other so called job avenues. Unfortunately these metropolises have not prepared themselves for the large influx of these Menial job seekers.
When the search for "greener pastures" eludes migrants to the city centers, the situation then leads to another problem of urbanization. Crime is a major problem urban centres in Africa and this goes for other cities including Accra, Nairobi and others in Africa due to the large influx of people whose ambitions of finding jobs have been dashed and without any form of education or skills they are tempted to fall on crime to survive.
Another effect of urbanization is the lack of shelter to cater for the large number of people in the city centers. It is estimated that only 8% of the population in Ghana can afford to buy properties without mortgage and only 15% can access mortgages. The situation is not different in other towns in Africa.
The consequence of this is that people who have migrated into the cities resort to sleeping on bare floors in front of stores at the main business districts. The dangers involved in this are that womenfolk who sleep at such places become preys to unscrupulous men who steal from them and even rape them Premarital and unprotected sexual encounters are very rampant among people living in the slums which lead to unwanted pregnancies. Children born of these relationships do not receive proper care and grow up lacking education and any skills. The effect of this is that the cycle of poverty and Illiteracy is the perpetuated.
Services such as education, health care, electricity, water and sewage and traffic are severely over stretched as a result urbanization. City officials struggle to build enough roads and provide electricity, water, sewage services and employment for all of these people.
The upcountry areas are known to be the agricultural bases of this country where most of the food produce are cultivated. Even cash crops such as cocoa and shea butter are cultivated in the villages. If then the people in these areas move to the urban centers the question that would beg for answer is who would remain to feed the nation?
Obviously our agricultural base stands to suffer greatly and as a matter of fact this has already started and it is high time the nation took tangible actions to stop this problem from further spreading.
The irony of the situation is that the agriculture sector has the capacity to employ the energetic youth who abandon their villages where the employment is and rather troop to Accra and other places in search of non-existent jobs.
Urbanization has caused for human values to take back seat in every situation and it has turned human beings into hostile elements with its problem of unemployment widening the already existing gap between the rich and the poor with social inequalities now a bare reality in our nation. Urbanization, if not derived from industrialization, inappropriate weight to the process of industrialization, the influx of residents moving from rural to urban to rural areas would lose a large part of human resources. Meanwhile, job shortages, poverty in growing cities, living conditions increasingly shortages, environmental pollution which could lead to many negative phenomena in economic life - society.
Urbanization not only contribute to accelerate economic growth, economic restructuring and labor structure but also make a change of the distribution of population and labor force, changing the process of birth, death and marriage in urban.

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francis1897 answered the question on January 12, 2023 at 09:38