Although the urban transition is a universal event that unfolds in all countries, the determinants, patterns, and outcomes do not necessarily follow a uniform process. With the urban transition being basically completed in developed countries around the turn of the 21st century, the growth of cities today is almost entirely confined to developing countries. Still, much of our conceptual understanding of this process is derived from earlier accounts, with definitions rooted in a historical context. This has resulted in common misconceptions such as a tendency to view the growth of cities primarily as an outcome of rural to urban migration, neglecting the growing contributions of urban natural population increase and reclassification of rural areas. A tendency to treat the components of urban growth in isolation has created a rift within the urban studies discourse, preventing any real theorization of their combined impacts and the interplay among them. Applying a systems thinking approach, this paper introduces a multidisciplinary framework for conceptualizing rapid urban growth in developing countries. The framework offers explanatory power to previously neglected components of urban growth and serves as a diagnostic for examining the urban transition—ultimately revealing new policy levers for managing it in a sustainable way.

Having gone from 11.8% of its population inhabiting urban areas in 1950 to 49.2% by 2010, China represents the most dramatic urban transformation the world has seen. With the contemporary urban narrative presenting new challenges, particularly in terms of its unprecedented pace and scale, this paper conducts an inquiry into the nature and causes of China’s rapid urban ascent. Making use of a new analytical framework, this paper maps out the changing stages of China’s urban transition and examines the components of urban growth underpinning it. It arrives at several notable findings. Rural to urban migration has been the dominant component of urban growth, followed by urban natural population increase and reclassification. Although China’s urban growth rates were high, it is the reduction in rural growth rates that underpinned China’s particularly rapid urbanization rates. China is currently in the latter part of the accelerated stage of its urban transition, and is expected to enter the terminal stage by 2030. In light of China’s ongoing urban transition, this paper concludes with reflections on China’s New-Type Urbanization Plan 2014–2020.

Owing to the dramatic pace and scale of its transformation, Nigeria is considered Africa’s next urban giant. Between 1960 and 2010, Nigeria added approximately 62.5 million inhabitants to its urban population, with forecasts to 2050 projecting an additional 226 million. As Nigeria forges ahead into the next chapter of its urban transition, there is an unmet need to take stock of past experiences, identify trends, and speculate on future growth trajectories. Taking advantage of recently available datasets from the United Nations and the Africapolis Project, this paper launches an inquiry into the nature and causes of Nigeria’s rapid urban transition between 1960 and 2010. It disaggregates urbanization into its individual components of urban growth and calculates their contributions to the overall urban increment. Several notable findings are highlighted. Nigeria, which is considered a late urbanizer, is currently in the accelerated stage of its urban transition and is projected to enter the terminal stage by 2030. Urban natural population increase has been the dominant component of urban growth in the post-colonial period and will likely continue to be so in the immediate future. Despite this, policies aimed at stemming rural to urban migration appear to have been the preferred mechanism for lessening the pressures posed by the contemporary urban transition, suggesting a potential policy mismatch.

Despite adding 292 million inhabitants to its urban population between 1960 and 2010, the level of urbanization in India has remained considerably low. Recent efforts on behalf of the government, however, illustrate a shift from a previously passive approach to urban development to a more active one, signifying a concerted effort to accelerate urbanization. In an attempt to better understand India’s contemporary urban narrative, this paper sets out to examine its urban transition between 1960 and 2010, and to speculate on its future growth trajectory. In doing so, it seeks to explore the questions, why has India’s urbanization failed to take-off? And, should India be pursuing an accelerated urbanization strategy? Findings suggest that India’s urban transition has been underpinned by processes of demographic change, leading to dramatic increases in both urban and rural populations; a dynamic that has slowed urbanization. It also finds that, despite there being a strong relationship between the level of urbanization and the level of economic growth, no compelling relationship between the speed of urbanization and the speed of economic growth was found. This suggests that pursuing an accelerated urbanization strategy may not lead to the intended economic outcomes. This goes to show that the relationship between urbanization and economic growth is complex, and that urbanization on its own is not a panacea for development. Urbanization strategies thus need to be complimented and reinforced by a range of other development policies.

As a country transitions from a lower order of development to a higher order of development, it undergoes a structural transformation. Accordingly, the spatial economy transforms from a system organized around smaller economic units distributed throughout the countryside, to one comprising larger economic units concentrated in dense urban areas. While historically this process unfolded at a rather gradual pace, it is now being redefined by the unprecedented pace and scale of the contemporary urban narrative. This has presented new patterns of urbanization. Utilizing comparable datasets for China, Nigeria and India this paper examines the evolution of national urban systems under conditions of rapid urban transformation. In doing so, it scrutinizes three key dynamics: the spatial distribution of cities, the rate of growth by city size class and the size hierarchy of cities. The results are compared to see if uniform patterns emerge. The findings of this paper suggest a certain degree of heterogeneity among national urban systems; and in some instances contrasting patterns can be observed. We thus caution against a ‘one size fits all’ approach to interpreting the urban transition in developing countries. The findings of this paper have implications for both theory and policy.