A high-level study, funded by the European Union, led by two Canadian professors, Jean Goulet, Dr. in Urbanization and Paul-Martel Roy, Dr. in Economics, was realized for 2 years by 27 Haitian and foreign university researchers of Belgian, Canadian and Haitian universities as well as the Center for Planning Techniques and Applied Economics (CTPEA)

This study, which studied the main factors that make up the metropolitan region: demography, household dynamics, natural risks, economy, income, housing, transport mobility, infrastructure and governance, predicts that nearly 5 million Haitians will live in the metropolitan area ( ± 40% of the national population) many in shantytowns because of the precariousness of the building and the host environment.

Jean Goulet says that this prediction is inescapable if nothing is done to reverse the trend because it relies on a statistical analysis, demographic carried out with extreme precision, by studying phenomena of rural and urban migration and the birth rate that exerts in the metropolitan area and population growth in general" adding that 100,000 people settle each year in metropolitan area specifing that 50% of the growth comes from the rural exodus and the other 50% from natural growth.

Further, this study, notes the acceleration of the area of the metropolitan area in recent years. In 1979 the metropolitan area occupied 45 km2, 10 years later almost 60 km2, in 2002: 200 km2, in 2005: 225 km2, in 2010: 250 km2 and between 2010 and 2015 the metropolitan area occupies 375 km2 an increase of 125 km2 more in 5 years.

The Cul-de-Sac and Léogâne plain, the entire Canaan sector, Cessless Coral is expanding considerably. Between 2010 and 2015, 300,000 people settled in Canaan.

The problem is that the economy does not follow the increase in urbanization which has the consequence among others the maintenance of urban pollution pollution, migration will remain important, the competitiveness of export sectors will remain precarious, based solely on insufficient real wages, mutual contractions between the formal and informal sectors will continue, the agricultural sector will continue to decline and the gap between the average income of urban and rural assets will persist in favor of the cities.

Without planning, without adequate public policies, without targeted investments, a revitalization of exports, a sustained development of the tourism sector, a policy of development of medium-sized cities and a sustained policy of demographic control, Haiti is heading straight for the precipice concluded these researchers.

PI/ HaitiLibre