"With rural depopulation galloping faster than anywhere in the world, the United Nations estimates over half Africa's 700 million people will live in towns by 2030." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17621753.htm
Was I unclear? I was talking about the migration of rural populations to towns in the developing world.
That is what is driving the growth of Third World megacities, it is what is leaving Chinese rural townships starved of revenue, http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_01/uk/doss26.htm it is what scores of aid programmes are (frutilessly) trying to prevent in East Africa. The "iron rice bowl" is no more. People in the developing world are moving from the countryside to the town, that leaves rural areas depopulating. http://www.fao.org/sd/wpdirect/WPan0029.htm
Malian president told the House of Reps in 2003: 'This situation generates poverty among African rural folks, and particularly in cotton producing areas. Poverty leads to rural depopulation.' June 24th, 2003