ABSTRACT

The key visible indicator of urban primacy is the concentration of population in the dominating city. For example, it was reported at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, 1994), that in 1992 there were 13 cities with a population of over 10 million. In itself, this is a cause for concern, but around half of these cities were in advanced economies. The factor that raised particular alarm about the growth in 10-million-population cities was that nearly all the new ones were predicted to be in less advanced economies, where they dominate the urban hierarchies and where there are fewer resources available to manage such huge population agglomerations. For example, Youssry and Aboul Atta (1997) point out that the population of Egypt grew more than fivefold in the twentieth century, while its capital, Cairo, grew more than sixteenfold. It grew from 600,000 in 1900 to 12.45 million by 1994; it accounted for 9 per cent of the population in 1940 and 21 per cent by 1994 (Youssry and Aboul Atta, 1997). However, Youssry and Aboul Atta (1997) also point out that population growth in some rural areas has been faster. One explanation for this is that the high cost of housing in Cairo has prompted people to build new houses in rural areas close to the city, resulting in an estimated 2 million daily commuters. Rigg (1991) reported that Bangkok had a population estimated between 100,000 and 400,000 in 1900. The city grew at rates of up to 8 per cent per annum (doubling every ten years), achieving its first million by 1950 and its second by 1970. By 1988 it was just under 6 million and by 2000 the urban agglomeration around and including Bangkok had a population of 8.76 million

for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP, 2001). This means the city at its greatest extent accounts for 14 per cent of the population of Thailand.