Elephants in the Pacific? Pacific urbanisation and its discontents

Urbanisation has proved seemingly inexorable in the island Pacific in recent decades, yet has largely escaped critical attention. Urban growth has been associated with civil unrest, unemployment, crime, poverty, environmental degradation, traffic congestion (and heightened inequality), inadequate formal housing provision, the rise of the informal sector (and repressions of it), pressures on education, housing, health and other services such as water and garbage disposal, rather than with sustained economic growth. Such wide‐ranging issues have posed problems where economic growth is static, structures of urban governance are lacking or weak (or corrupt), land disputes are frequent and urban populations increasingly permanent. Urban development necessitates balanced regional development and sustainable urbanisation or the future will lie elsewhere.