ducted a survey on urbanization in the Philippines. The Philippines is a very i
nteresting case to study and offers a guideline in understanding the situation
in countries where eco-nomic and social development has been lagging. This repo
rt consists of seven chapters and discusses economic progress and development i
n addition to urbanization. It would only take an hour to read it, so I would l
ike you to read it by all means.
Now, what are the implications of "urbanization" which is taking place extensiv
ely in your countries? What are the important points and how are the problems t
hat will brought about by urbanization different from the existing ones?
First, development of urbanization differs from country to country. It is more
advanced in some countries than in others and the rate of urbanization also var
y. There is also a theoretical question of whether urbanization is blessing or
not for the humanity. Theo-retically speaking, the phenomenon of urbanization s
hould be the same regardless of whether the country is developed or not, but it
s process is different. While urbanization occurs in the so-called developed co
untries as a byproduct of industrialization during gradual advancement of devel
opment, it occurs suddenly in developing countries without being accompanied by
industrialization. This distortion resulting from the imbalance that is created
between the speed of industrialization and urbanization has occurred in some of
the Asian countries. Population has increased so rapidly in urban areas that it
has become impossible for the governments to deal with the ever-increasing popu
lation. This is the case of urbanization in developing countries in Asia and ot
her regions.
While developed countries are able to maintain balance in a sense because their
urbaniza-tion and industrialization have slowed down considerably, the same is
not true for devel-oping countries. As urbanization is advancing much more rapi
dly, cities that are receiv-ing the influx of population from rural areas do no
t have the time to make the adjustment. They do not have the leeway nor time to
do so. The direction and phenomenon of ur-banization may be the same between de
veloped and developing countries but the process is different.
The problems of urbanization that are occurring in developed countries include
ill effects of excessive concentration of industry and population in large citi
es as well as air pollu-tion, water pollution and environmental pollution broug
ht about by seeking only the economy of scale, resulting in further deteriorati
on of social environment. These phe-nomena experienced by developed countries a
re now occurring in developing countries as well.
Let us return to the survey on the Philippines. I would like to raise some poin
ts here instead of going into details. First of all, if you were to describe th
e Philippines in one word, it would be "a country of multiple culture," i.e. a
country in which various cultures coexist. It seems that this says more about t
his country than anything else. The charac-teristic that separates the Philippi
nes from other Asian countries is that she has many cul-tures. The Philippines
has a very large population of 69 million. China, Indonesia and Thailand also h
ave large population but 69 million is also very large. And in the Philip-