Learning Objectives After you have read this chapter, you should be able to:
14.1Contrast the views of the New Malthusians and Anti-Malthusians on population growth and the food supply; explain why people are starving.
14.2Explain why the Least Industrialized Nations have so many children, consequences of rapid population growth, population pyramids, the three demographic variables, and problems in forecasting population growth.
14.3Explain how cities developed, and summarize urbanization from city to megaregion.
14.4Be familiar with the patterns of urbanization that characterize the United States.
14.5Compare the models of urban growth.
14.6Discuss alienation and community, types of people who live in the city, the norm of noninvolvement, and the diffusion of responsibility.
14.7Explain the effects of suburbanization, disinvestment and deindustrialization, and the potential of urban revitalization.
The image still haunts me. There stood Celia, age 30, her distended stomach visible proof that her thirteenth child was on its way. Her oldest was only 14 years old! A mere boy by our standards, he had already gone as far in school as he ever would. Each morning, he joined the men to work in the fields. Each evening around twilight, I saw him return home, exhausted from hard labor in the subtropical sun. I was living in Colima, Mexico, and Celia and her husband Angel had invited me for dinner. Their home clearly reflected the family’s poverty. A thatched hut consisting of only a single room served as home for all fourteen members of the family. At night, the parents and younger children crowded into a double bed, while the eldest boy slept in a hammock. As in many homes in the village, the other children slept on mats spread on the dirt floor—despite the crawling scorpions. The home was meagerly furnished. It had only a gas stove, a table, and a cabinet where Celia stored her few cooking utensils and clay dishes. There were no closets; clothes hung on pegs in the walls. There also were no chairs, not even one. I was used to the poverty in the village, but this really startled me. The family was too poor to afford even a single chair. Celia beamed as she told me how much she looked forward to the birth of her next child. Could she really mean it? It was hard to imagine that any woman would want to be in her situation. 453 Yet Celia meant every word. She was as full of delighted anticipation as she had been with her first child—and with all the others in between. How could Celia have wanted so many children—especially when she lived in such poverty? This question bothered me. I couldn’t let it go until I understood why. This chapter helps to provide an answer. Hearing from Students Population and Urbanization
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