Sustainable Population Growth of Urban Settlements: Preconditions and Criteria

In the previous chapter, two criteria of urban development — the rate of private construction and the migration balance/natural growth index (the MB/NG index) — were used to gauge the performance of desert localities in comparison with urban settlements located elsewhere.In the present chapter, we shall discuss in detail the derivation of the index (MB/NG) and a manner in which it may serve as a general indicator of sustainable population growth. The performance and determinants of this indicator will also be analyzed using a broader settlement sample.