Rural-urban migration refers to the movement of people from rural areas to the urban realm. It is the greatest contributor to the urbanization process mostly in the fast growing cities such as in Africa. People migrate to the urban areas from the rural chiefly in response to two forces: the push and pull forces. The push force represent those aspects and inadequacies such as poverty and unemployment in the rural areas that force the people to move out while the pull forces represent those factors such as employment opportunities in the urban areas that attract the people from the rural areas. This migration affects both the urban and rural areas in ways such as discussed below.
The migration of people to the urban areas exposes them to improved technology and better employment opportunities; these may find themselves being transferred to the rural areas thus helping develop the rural areas. It may also result to development of the rural areas when the people working in the urban areas invest in these rural areas. However, the migration of people from the rural areas results to underutilization of resources and unproductivity in the rural areas. This happens as the bulk of the people who migrate from the rural areas have been identified as being the able bodied youths who would otherwise be best fit to cultivate and engage in primary production in these rural areas. This migration thus results to the underutilization and low primary productivity in the rural areas as the elderly and children left there are not able to utilize these resources. This in Kenya has led to low productivity in the agriculture sector which affects negatively the country’s economy and food security. The migration also breaks the social bonds experienced in the rural areas.
In the urban areas, migration of the people from rural areas causes numerous effects both positive and negative. The immigrants most of whom get to the urban areas with little or no skills provide cheap labour in the offices and industries. The increased population in the urban areas also increases the demand for products and services in the urban areas leading to increased production. The migration however leads to increased population in the urban areas thereby increasing demand for basic goods, services and infrastructure in most cases beyond the provided scale. The increased population creates demand for housing for the low income city dwellers which has resulted in creation and thriving of slums and informal settlements such as Mathare, Mukuru, Lungalunga, Kibera all in Nairobi and Majengo in Nyeri.
Rural-urban migration has also been noted as contributing heavily to urban poverty as it transfers the poor in the rural areas to the urban realm where they are worse off. While as the rural people view the urban areas as full off employment opportunities, the massive migration of people to these urban areas decreases the employment opportunities resulting to massive unemployment, poverty and destitute. While the urban areas are viewed as safe havens and green pastures, the people on migrating are frustrated to live in conditions worse than in the rural areas, pay more for services and work for long periods searching for work. This unemployment spirals to insecurity as the youths engage in crime arguably for survival.
As the rates of urbanization sour more so in Africa and people increasingly move from the rural to urban areas, the illustrated effects of this migration point that the migration has need to be regulated. While as most of the developed nations have their development anchored on urbanization and growth of the urban realms where they engage in service and value addition activities, the developing nations should not rush to unstructured urbanization but learn that primary production is the first and important aspect of growth which takes place in the rural areas. For sustainable growth of the developing nations such as Kenya, there is need to plan both the urban and rural areas. Planning for service centres and employment zones in the rural areas will help reduce the rural-urban migration thus retaining the youthful people in the rural areas where they can work and also prepare those who will move to the urban areas of their expected environment. Planning of urban areas is also important to ensure that as the engines of development they are well equipped to provide the basic, social and economic well being of the people.
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