Urbanization In Jamaica

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Chapter one
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
Jamaica, with an area of 11,420 square kilometers is one of the three largest islands in the Caribbean. The nation’s population is estimated to be 2.6 million but the demographic rate has shown a population decline in the past decade. The population declined by 0.6% in 2001.
More than 40% of the island’s population lives in rural areas, which might decrease in time, if the present rate of urbanization continues. The majority (90%) of Jamaicans is of African descent with the remaining 10% spread unevenly across ethnic groups such as Indian, Chinese, Syrian and Caucasian.
Having once been a colony of Britain Jamaica’s political and constitutional forms show much affinity to Westminster-Whitehall …show more content…

In Jamaica, such spontaneous are becoming common. Since there is a correlation between informal economy and the social aspects of the citizenry, it can be observed herein that the emergency of illegal settlements in Jamaica could be contributing significantly to the sustainability of the informal economy.
For global comparison purposes, this study adopted the definition of illegal settlement suggested by the Vienna Declaration of 2004. According to the Vienna Declaration (2004), informal settlements are human settlements, which for a variety of reasons do not meet requirements for legal recognition (and have been constructed without respecting formal procedures of legal ownership, transfer of ownership, as well as construction and urban planning regulations), exist in their respective countries and hamper economic …show more content…

Informality in doing business is considered by many to be the norm in Jamaica[footnoteRef:11]. It has been a process of finding ways not only to identify the informal players, but also to measure their output and to regulate them where necessary. This brings about challenges. Challenges which not only we as Jamaicans face, but also several of our Caribbean colleagues face these issues as well because of a similar type of economy and history as that of Jamaica. [11: Stewart, Taimoon. 2010. “The Jamaican Informal Business Landscape.” In Roundtable on Competition Policy and the Informal Economy, by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Accessed November 27, 2015. http://www.oecd.org/]

The 2004 IDB– sponsored study categorized activities in the informal economy in Jamaica into 3 types:
· “pure” tax evasion, that is, failure to report “earnings from perfectly legal activities carried out in businesses that are properly registered and recorded in the national

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