2.1. Urbanization in Ecuador

Ecuador is increasingly a country of city dwellers; its urban population exceeded 50% of the total for the first time in the 1990 national census (INEC, 1990). The urban areas of the country are dominated by two cities: the economic and export agriculture center of Guayaquil on the coast (1990 urban core population 1.5 million, metropolitan area population 2 million), and Quito, the highland capital city (1990 urban core population 1.1 million, metropolitan area population 1.3 million) (Map 2.1). Together these cities contain 48% of the total urban population of the country, and 27% of the population of the country as a whole (Suárez Torres, 1992).

In its bipolar urban development, Ecuador does not follow the pattern of many other countries of the developing world which are completely dominated by a single city. While the growth of Quito and Guayaquil has been remarkable since the 1970s, the explosion of a single megacity has been avoided in Ecuador. In fact, the population growth of the two dominant urban centers has been accompanied by the simultaneous steady expansion of several intermediate sized cities during the last few decades (Suárez Torres, 1992).