Urban growth of the population of Wasit Governorate and its social and economic effects

Abstract

Wasit governorate suffers from the problem of increasing the number of urban residents and emptying the countryside, which reflected negatively on the services provided to the residents of those cities, and on the agricultural production of the countryside, and resulted in an imbalance in the population distribution, and a slowdown in economic growth in the governorate in general.       

     This study sought to analyze the factors that led to the inflation of urban centers for all administrative units in the governorate for the period 1987-2023 AD and the social and economic effects of that inflation. urban growth. It was found through it that the urban population in the governorate is constantly increasing during the mentioned period, the reasons for this increase are due to the factors of natural increase (births, deaths) and immigration, which is one of the most important factors of high urban growth, especially migration from the countryside to the city. The study concluded with a number of conclusions and recommendations, the most important of which is that the failure of government strategies to develop solutions to the problems that urban cities suffer from, such as slums, unemployment, poverty, housing and other community services, due to the focus on achieving national economic growth, without focusing on investing in qualified centers for that. The study suggests the need to focus investment in medium and small urban centers to rehabilitate them and make them centers of attraction for employment and investment. Thus, it is possible to intervene indirectly in the redistribution of the population away from the big cities, which have become draining the human and material resources of the rural areas.