ABSTRACT
Table 5.1.1 shows the scale of the growth in the urban population in what the UN terms ‘less developed regions’ from 304 million to over 2.6 billion between 1950 and 2010. This is almost the same as the population in low-and middle-income nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2011, all independent nations in Latin America and in Africa except for Equatorial Guinea were within the low-and middle-income categories. So too were the nations with most of the population of the Caribbean and Asia – the main exceptions being some oil exporters in the Middle East, Japan, Republic of Korea, Israel, Singapore and Hong Kong (China).
