Differential Urban Growth and Distance Considerations in Domestic Migration Flows in Pakistan

Urbanization is a process which is gradually reshaping the population of Pakistan from a nation of farmers and villages to a nation of urban dwellers. Yet this process, so critical to the quality of life in Pakistan’s future, is not well understood. The literature of demography and development is liberally sprinkled with reports and articles dealing with both general theories of urbanization and case studies, but the processes and underlying factors affecting urbanization in Pakistan have as yet received little attention.1 Research designed to identify the underlying factors and interpret the urbanization process in Pakistan is currently underway, and it is the purpose of this paper to provide some background information on urbanization in Pakistan as well as to describe the directions of future research. Specifically, this paper examines differential growth among Pakistan’s twelve largest cities and the relationship of urban growth to origins and flows of domestic urban migration.