Urban Development

Urban Development 59

thousands of refugees from conflict are seek-ing shelter in towns that now lack basic util-ities and facilutil-ities.

1.9.1 Indicators and trends

In 1990, 45 % of the world’s population (2.4 billion people) lived in urban areas [5].

Rapid urbanization is particularly important in developing countries, but urban settle-ments can also be expected to grow in some

parts of the European Region, and the number of large towns will continue to rise.

In addition, international migration has re-cently become widespread, and concern about illegal migration has grown consider-ably.

The populations of the European OECD countries, the CCEE and the NIS have more than doubled in the last 100 years, from around 500 million to over 1.2 billion. The urban population of these countries rose from around 120 million to 1 billion. All

Fig. 1.11: Percentage of urban population in selected countries of the WHO European Region in 1960 and in 1991 and its forecast in the year 2000

countries have, therefore, undergone a fun-damental urbanization; the changes in most OECD countries, however, took place out-side the major cities [33,34].

In 1950, with the exception of the German Democratic Republic, all the central and eastern countries in the Region were pre-dominantly rural nations. By 1980, all but Albania, Portugal, Turkey and the former Yu-goslavia had almost half of their populations in urban centres [33,34]. (See also Chapter 14.) Fig. 1.11 shows the growth of urban populations in the Region. In Belgium, Ice-land, Israel, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, around 90 % of the population live in urban areas. In 1991, the figure for the world as a whole was 44 %, and western European populations were more urbanized than those in the eastern part of the Region;

the average figures for the European OECD countries and the European Community were 77 % and 79 %, respectively, in contrast to 64 % for the CCEE and USSR. The urban population in the CCEE and NIS is ex-pected to grow to 67 % by the year 2000 [4].

The urban population is expected to con-tinue to increase worldwide. The trend to-wards urbanization will be stronger in the less developed parts of the world than in the more developed, with rather large differ-ences between more developed areas and countries [5]. The trend towards urbaniz-ation affects the trends in the economic sec-tors already described. As urbanization in-creases, so do the pressures on agriculture, energy, industry, transport and the environ-ment.

The WHO European Region is extremely heterogeneous. The number of Member States has increased substantially in recent years, and their differences have become more visible with the political and economic changes they are undergoing.

Economic growth has considerably slowed

1.10 Conclusions

down in recent years in the developed mar-ket economies, and an extremely sharp de-cline in output has occurred in the econ-omies in transition. The more optimistic, early expectations of the possibilities af-forded by the political changes in the CCEE and the former USSR have had to be signifi-cantly modified. It is now recognized that transition is going to be a slower process, and that international assistance must be sought over a longer period and on a much larger scale than originally envisaged.

To achieve quantifiable environmental health improvements in the general circum-stances of a transition, which is in many re-spects aggressively profit motivated and often on a short-term basis, is not an easy task. Proper sequencing is of enormous im-portance, especially with the present general lack of resources. Reducing the immediate threats to health – while at the same time supporting and influencing economic trans-formation by building environment and health needs into development programmes and improving management – should be high on the national agenda and on those of all relevant international organizations.

As economic growth is essential to human development, the question as to whether the economic sectors are able and willing to sup-port a sustainable pattern of development has become one of the most important in the European Region.

The targets set by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Develop-ment require, in practice, a balanced use of fuels with a decrease in the use of coal and an increase in the use of gas. Factors that have to be considered in a country’s efforts to reach these targets include: the natural energy resources, the need to avoid too great a dependence on imported oil, and public concern in some countries about nuclear power. Against this background, different scenarios are developing in the different parts of the European Region. Common requirements for sustainable development in the Region, however, are substantial changes in production and consumption patterns.

Conserving energy and increasing energy

ef-References 61 ficiency are crucial economic and

environ-mental health issues in all Member States, but particularly those with economies in transition.

During the present period of recession and transition from planned to market econ-omies, it cannot yet be predicted to what ex-tent the CCEE and NIS will follow the pat-tern of the other industrialized countries of the Region and move from traditional to ser-vice industries. The pattern and scale of in-dustrial activity are unlikely to change greatly in western Europe in the next decade.

Smaller private economic entities, often with foreign capital, are regarded as important long-term elements of the economic struc-tures in the Region.

Although agriculture is, in general, a smaller economic sector in western Europe, productivity is greater in these countries than in the CCEE and NIS. Food shortages in some of the CCEE and NIS mean that de-mands on the agricultural sector are likely to increase, and to be accompanied by the use of more intensive farming practices.

The number of cars in the Region con-tinues to rise (despite considerable popu-lation stability) and a rapid increase will pre-sumably take place in the CCEE and NIS when the economic situation improves. Envi-ronmental effects associated with road trans-port are therefore likely to become more widely prevalent in the European Region.

The vehicle stock in the CCEE and NIS requires considerable improvement.

Tourism is expected to increase through-out the Region, particularly in established tourist areas such as the Mediterranean coast and the Alps. Unfortunately, these areas already show inadequacies in meeting requirements for safe sewage disposal and drinking-water supplies. In the CCEE, tour-ism is undoubtedly one of the sectors likely to see substantial development and is thus a major focus of economic recovery.

The CCEE and NIS still show increasing urbanization, whereas the trend seems to have peaked in western Europe. Current economic conditions encourage the flow to towns of people searching for work, while

making it more difficult for municipalities to provide the necessary housing and public health services.

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Chapter 2