Rural-urban migration in Nigeria is the cause of a number of problems; the problems of overcrowding and deterioration of the urban environment associated with rapid urban growth; the economic loss resulting from the high unemployment rates in urban areas; and the problem of adverse implications of prolonged periods of frustration among the urban, poor. Nigerian governments .recognize that rural-urban migration calls for more effective policies than those attempted in the past. In this context new approaches designed to foster greater understanding of the nature of this process and more effective policies should be helpful. This thesis proceeds on the premise that rural-urban migration is in reality a process within a complex socio-economic system consisting of many interacting components and significant feed-back effects. It is thus held that a General Systems Approach provides an appropriate and useful analytical framework for the study of this process. In addition to bringing a broader perspective to the analysis, a systems framework is a powerful tool for exploratory research and therefore well suited both to the promotion of a greater understanding of the process and for the generation of a number of initial policy considerations. Relying on material from existing literature and personal experience related to the process in south-eastern Nigeria, a model of rural-urban . migration is developed in Chapter 4 (Figures 4.1 and 4.2), and applied in Chapter 5 to derive a series of testable hypotheses related to the migration process. The methodology is demonstrative of a systematic procedure for generating a series of interrelated potential policies for shaping the process. The main thrust of the work is to develop a conceptual systems model of the rural-urban migration process and thus to lay a foundation for further, substantive research on rural-urban migration in Nigeria. In the concluding chapter, some directions for this future research have been sketched. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

In looking at rural-urban linkages, this thesis addresses the extent to which social research may be generalized within development policy. Studies of Yoruba migrants in south-western Nigeria demonstrate that the ties between migrants and their hometowns can have a positive impact on local community development, an outcome which some researchers would suggest reflects a larger trend throughout the Third World. However, using information on the historical and cultural background of the Yoruba as well as a brief examination of Yoruba immigrants to North America, this study proposes that the utility of these ties in hometown development relates more to the past circumstances of Yoruba migration than the existence of 'structural regularities' in the migrant linkages of developing countries as a whole. These conclusions are then used to argue that one cannot generalize the results of migrant-hometown studies in policy formation without an understanding of the historic evolution of those ties.

No description available.