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Data source: State Department for Statistics, 1999. The excessive tendency towards urbanisation is coupled with trends towards the over-centralisation of management, characteristic of the soviet system, which led years ago to the emergence of Tbilisi as a single hypertrophic centre, with a concentration of more than 25% of the population of Georgia and more than 40% of the total urban population. Between Tbilisi and Kutaisi, which still retained the status of the second largest town, the difference in population reached more than one million by the end of the 1980s (with a population of approximately 1.3 million in Tbilisi and 240 000 in Kutaisi). There is no urban centre in the country with a population between 250 000 and 1 million. Such an unbalance was further aggravated by the fact that the third largest urbanisation, Rustavi, with a population of about 158 000 and a centre for heavy industry, is situated very close to the capital. The emerging structure of the Tbilisi-Rustavi urban agglomeration, containing about one third of the total population, has attracted the overwhelming majority of rural-urban migrants. Because of this, the development of other urban centres has held back, and the development process unbalanced. Recently Tbilisi became the subject of hot discussions in the local media, which often state that Georgia has turned into a country with only one city( see aglomeration map ), which deprives the others of all the resources and hampers their development. If one judges by the local budget indicators, this opinion is quite true. The capital concentrates about half of local budget revenues and more than 2/5 of expenditures while officially harboring about a quarter of its population. Per capita local budget expenditures are the second highest in the country (after Ajara), between two and two and a half times higher than in the other regions. The major part of the huge new districts of Tbilisi built during that period, each with at least 100 000 or more people (such as Gldani, Mukhiani, Vazisubani and others) served the purpose of satisfying the housing needs of new migrants. These districts often occupied valuable agricultural lands, which had previously supplied the capital with agricultural produce. The amount of agricultural land converted to urban use due to the expansion of the cities (Tbilisi in particular) since the beginning of the seventies roughly equals the total area of vineyards in Georgia. As a result Tbilisi, more than
other smaller towns, possesses large new areas only technically
belonging to it, while not integrated into it from a cultural or
habitant standpoint. The development of the town of Rustavi, founded
in the late forties as a future centre of heavy industry, was in
many respects a forerunner of similar processes observed in these
new districts of Tbilisi. Even today this town lacks the
individuality of a true city. |
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This page was last updated: 8/29/00 |