ABSTRACT
Comparative urban research helps us to identify sources of variation in the causal mechanisms that shape cities and urbanization processes across space and time. Understanding causes and consequences is essential in any effort to plan, manage or govern cities. In this chapter, we demonstrate the potential of a comparative approach in urban studies by examining a fundamental relationship that has, surprisingly, seldom been tackled by comparativists: the nexus of internal migration and the urban transition. While the urban transition is generally imagined as a uniform function of mass migration from villages to cities, evidence indicates that the internal migration processes involved in urbanization are quite diverse. The speed, volume, directionality, selectivity, and temporality of internal migrations vary considerably across urbanizing countries, which may lead to different types of cities and urban systems. Because migration is also bound up with many of urbanization's most important social and economic consequences, the migration-urbanization relationship is an important ground for rigorous comparative research. We motivate this comparative research agenda and identify several approaches for rigorous cross-country analysis of internal migrations and urban transitions.
