anization is also a major factor, but it is less prevalent in both Africa and Asia. This does not mean, according to Knox and Marston (416), that Africa and Asia lack major metropolitan areas or densely populated cities. Rather, it means that such cities are fewer in number than they are in other regions of the world.
Knox and Marston (424) have noted that the economic, political, and cultural importance of some cities is disproportionate to their population size, making them central to their economies. This is a reflection of core-periphery differentials within countries. The centrality of these cities also leads to localized problems of congestion, land price inflation, pollution, and inadequate public service infrastructure, including public transport systems.
In recent years, urban planners have recognized the difficulties inherent in serving large dispersed suburbanized cities with mass public transit (Stilwell, 375). Frank Stilwell (375) summarizes the problem of this challenge as follows:
"àallegedly there is just not enough population 'mass' in any one locality to make the expansion of public transport viable. Trip patterns are too criss-cross: they tend to be, as one analystà puts it, 'like a box of matches thrown almost randomly on to a table'. The inflexibility of fixed-route transit systems, it is further contended, cannot cope with the increasingly complex travel needs and multi-purpose trips more easily undertaken by car. The private car, others simply assert, is the inherently 'superior economic good': its increased dominance vis-a-vis public transport is an inevitable consequence of increased affluence. We have to learn to accommodate it in our urban planning processes, to live with it, if not love it.
As significant, said Stilwell (375), is the question of:
"How governments position themselves in this ongoing debate is of crucial significance. Transport, both private and public, consumes a massi...