Talk:Overurbanization

Planned expansion

I found this article through WikiProject Urban studies and planning and saw that it needs a lot of work. I have done some initial research on the topic and found that there is substantial scholarly research available to make expanding the article feasible. Generally, I understand the definition of over-urbanization to be when a city has a population greater than it can provide for in both infrastructure and jobs. The definition that is currently listed on the article, in which there is a smaller employment base than other countries had at similar levels of development, is also present in research, though it has been criticized for promoting a linear/Western model of development. I hope to add an extensive section discussing variance in how scholars define overurbanization and provide an overview of the characteristics of a city that is overurbanized. I have found existing research on this phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. I will create sections for each of these regions, and sub-sections for the historical background, causes, and impact of overurbanization in these reasons, as well as policy responses. Though this phenomenon may be occurring/have occurred in other places, these are the regions for which I found substantial research. I imagine that this structure may be changed as I do further research, but this is how I plan to begin working on the article. This is my second article for Wikipedia as a part of a university program/class in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. and I would really appreciate any feedback, especially regarding how the article ought to be structured. Thanks! Rgalts (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Expansion

So far, I have added information to the article by creating an extensive definition section, which is crucial to this topic since there is a large degree of disagreement between scholars. I have tried to reflect accurately the historical discussion on the theory of overurbanization by providing information from the articles and how they comment on each other. The authors constantly cite each other, so I have tried to note this where possible to avoid crafting a narrative around the scholarly discussion. I also have added a section on causes and a section on effects. I plan to further expand the effects section and to reorganize it into smaller sub-sections. I also intend to add sections on policy solutions and case studies. As always, feedback would be greatly appreciated as I move forward. Rgalts (talk) 18:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

To Rgalts

You have added a substantial amount of content to the page, and I really appreciate all of the content. You used diverse types of sources, including scholarly articles and monographs. Your "Definition" section especially shows careful research and wordings. One thing I would suggest to focus on is bringing in more modern theorists to the discussion. So far, I see mainly four research teams, and thus bringing more scholars will enable the readers to get a more comprehensive and modern understanding of the topic. If you add more the theories and add the sections as you have planned, I think this will be a great article. Keep up the great work! Lindaticket (talk) 00:06, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

A review of your recent article expansion

Your section on the economic effects of overurbanization gives great insight into the theoretical beliefs of the two scholars that coined the term. I think more practical examples, perhaps from studies that have claimed to be case studies of overurbanization would really add to this section. It also seems that this section contains two sides of a debate, which is great for neutrality, but it may be helpful to outline the two sides of this argument in the beginning of the section to give readers a better idea of what will be covered in detail later. Your additions so far and your plans for expansion show a lot of promise for the article. Rloftis5672 (talk) 01:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Further expansion

I contributed further to the article by responding to feedback and adding a lot more explanation to the Definition section. I also tried to make it more clear for the average reader, though I really struggled with this considering all the literature was dense theory. It was also difficult to find the right words to use for the definition section, as the first scholars in the 1950s used the terms “developed” and “underdeveloped” or “developing” countries, while many later scholars used the terms “First World” and “Third World,” before moving back to “more developed” and “less developed” countries. I tried to make this clear without simply making it one of my own observations from the texts. I also completely restructured the “Causes” section based on one of the later readings I did, which summarized the earlier research. I think this added a lot more clarity to the different theories playing into the theory of overurbanization. I split the economic effects section into economic and social effects based on suggestions. I also expanded the “Effects” section to include a section on employment. I originally had planned to include an “environmental” section, but I realized that the article I had found about overurbanization and the environment actually discussed more about the relationship between ecology, resource scarcity, and the causes of overurbanization rather than environmental degradation as an effect of overurbanization. Then, I added a sections on Proposed Solutions and Case Studies. These are by no means comprehensive, but I hope they will shed some light on the issue. With case studies, I hope this will give a more real and tangible example to the theory explained in the rest of the article. Unfortunately, I was not able to find many articles on the topic written after 2000, except for the Shandra article, which was written in 2003 and did a good job of summarizing a lot of the views up until that point. Any and all feedback would be appreciated! Given that the topic was a theory and that there was a lot of debate around the actual definition of the term, a lot of my writing was about what scholars were discussing, so I tried very hard to maintain a neutral point of view, but summarizing the different parts of the scholarly discussion was challenging.Rgalts (talk) 02:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Overurbanization/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Delldot (talk · contribs) 20:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

An interesting topic and a good start, but I do have a lot of concerns I think need to be addressed before promoting this. It will take a good amount of work but I'm game if you are! Here are my initial thoughts, let me know what you think and we can go from there.

• The lead needs to be expanded to summarize the whole article. It should have something from each section. Right now, the reader gets bogged down in the definition section before being fully introduced to what the phenomenon is, what the effects are, when and where it’s happening, etc. Let’s see if expanding the lead takes care of that.

• This sentence is unclear: ‘’ Urban planner John Dyckman suggested that inability to accommodate the expectations of migrants to the city made overurbanization a threat to social order.’’ Is ‘expectations’ the right word?

• How about images? Can you find pictures that illustrate some of the phenomena that occur in overurbanization? For the lead maybe a photo of an affected city. In the body, go through and see what else you can illustrate, e.g. deforestation in the Philippines, informal squatter settlements, squalor, filth, overcrowding, environmental degradation, etc. How about pie charts comparing rural and urban populations in an overurbanized country and one that is not? You could also include photos of the leading thinkers.

• Decide whether to use British or American spelling (labour or labor) then do a search and make it consistent throughout.

• The article uses too much scholarly language, making it hard for a novice to the subject to understand. For unusual terms like externalities, rural-push, and urban-pull, define them inline or replace them with simpler wording.

• Could this be put in a simpler, clearer way? ‘’ Economic opportunities are lacking due to "saturated urban labor markets" that exclude much of both the rural and urban populations truncated opportunity structures in rural areas.’’

• ‘’ Furthermore, high infrastructural costs stymie growth.’’ For example?

• Any links already in the article don’t need to be in the see also section. If only a couple are left it might be better to incorporate those and ditch the section.

• This sentence is unclear: ‘’these factors, among others, are caused by the exploitation of developed countries and the capitalist principles they operate under.’’ Wouldn’t it be exploitation ‘’’by’’’ developed countries?

• ‘’ ...inequality between large and small landowners, such as in the Latin American latifundia system.’’ This needs more explanation. What is this system? What’s going on in it? Why does it illustrate the point? (Answer these in the article, not here.)

• There are several instances where the same info is duplicated later, e.g. the question of rural push vs urban pull. The article needs a thorough copyedit, maybe we can get rid of some redundancy.

• Unclear: ‘’They and Shandra agree that INGOs can play an important role in decreasing overurbanization by supporting rural communities by promoting both economic and infrastructural development as well as the role of civic society.’’

• Unlike in a scholarly paper, encyclopedia articles rely preferably on secondary and tertiary literature like literature reviews and textbooks, not primary sources like original research. Thus if you're saying that Dyckman saw informal squatter settlements as breeding ground for revolutionary activity, you're better off with a source that says "Dyckman thinks this" than one by Dyckman that says "I think this". Of course with a topic this obscure, you just have to do your best, I'm just letting you know what's preferred.

• There are some tense changes that could be found in a copy edit too. e.g. "John Dyckman suggested" then in the next sentence "Philip Graves and Robert Sexton argue". Maybe adding dates to some of the important landmarks of these discussions could be helpful too.

I hope all this is not overwhelming. Feel free to take your time with it, I don't mind it taking a long time as long as progress is being made. Thanks for all your hard work so far Rgalts! delldot ∇. 20:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• No response so I'll go ahead and close this for now. But if you come back and address these issues feel free to relist at GAN! If I'm around I'll be happy to help out. delldot ∇. 17:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2015 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 17:25, 2 January 2023 (UTC)