Migration, Natural Increase and City Growth: The Case of Rio De Janiero.

The article presents a study of migration, natural increase and city growth with regard to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. The processes associated with the demographic transition from high to low vital rates in developing countries are progressively being understood as divergent from those prevailing during the chronologically earlier transitions occurring in the developed Western nations. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the nature of those demographic relationships which culminate in the unprecedented city growth of developing areas. Moreover, although several studies have concentrated on apportioning the relative contribution of natural increase and migration, few have paid systematic attention to the factor of migrant natural increase. Such an oversight can assume considerable proportions since, depending upon the dimensions of prior migratory moves, migrant natural increase could conceivably play a commanding role, even to the point of competing with either native natural increase or net migration. In an effort to illustrate the manner in which components of urban growth can concretely interact in an urban developing area, the growth processes operating in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the period 1920-1970 are presented here.