Contrasting Global Cities: Context and Growth

Two global cities with contrasting contexts

Mumbai and Sydney show how cities in different economic settings can become centres of employment and attract people from far beyond their surrounding regions. Mumbai is the newly industrialised country case study, in India; Sydney is the high income country case study, in Australia. Both are global cities: their influence and connections extend beyond their own countries.

At the regional scale, Mumbai belongs to Maharashtra and attracts migrants from elsewhere in that state. Its influence also reaches poorer regions farther away, including Uttar Pradesh in northern India. At the national scale, Mumbai is India’s financial and commercial centre, with the Bombay Stock Exchange and industries including finance, textiles, technology and film. At the global scale, international companies and Bollywood connect it to overseas investment, business and audiences. These activities help explain why people see Mumbai as a place of opportunity.

Sydney is in New South Wales. Its regional importance is reflected in its population growth: Greater Sydney gained about 107,500 people in 2023–24, compared with about 30,600 in the rest of the state. Nationally, it is a major Australian centre for services, finance, technology and tourism. International businesses, overseas students and migrants give it global connections, while landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House contribute to its tourism appeal.

How a city’s population changes

There are two main routes to population growth. Natural increase occurs when more people are born than die. Migration changes the population when people move into or out of the city. What matters for total growth is net migration, the balance between arrivals and departures.

The relationship can be written as:

$$\text{population change} = (\text{births} - \text{deaths}) + (\text{arrivals} - \text{departures})$$

Migration can operate at several scales. A farm worker moving from rural Maharashtra to Mumbai is making a rural–urban move. Someone moving from Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai is also moving between regions. A person crossing a national border to settle in a city is an international migrant. These categories can overlap: a move can be both rural–urban and regional.

A push factor encourages someone to leave their home area, whereas a pull factor attracts them to a destination. The two often work together. Low farm earnings can push someone away from the countryside, while the prospect of a construction job pulls them towards a city. An attraction is an expectation, however, not a guarantee that every migrant will secure a well-paid job.

Mumbai: migration at different scales

Mumbai’s growth has involved both economic migration and the movement of refugees. Following the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947, many Hindu refugees settled in Mumbai and received asylum. This was a historic international migration associated with displacement, rather than simply a search for higher wages.

From the 1960s, the Green Revolution changed rural employment. This programme sought to improve agriculture through chemicals and machinery. Mechanisation reduced the need for farm labour, while the cost of new equipment and chemicals disadvantaged smaller farms that could not afford them. Reduced employment and low rural incomes pushed farm workers towards Mumbai.

Other rural push factors include limited access to education and healthcare. Mumbai’s manufacturing, construction and service jobs are pull factors, alongside access to schools and hospitals. Migration from Maharashtra links Mumbai to its surrounding region, while migration from Uttar Pradesh demonstrates its wider national attraction. People continued moving from other parts of India in search of work and an improved quality of life.

Mumbai: growth accelerated, then began to slow

Mumbai’s population history shows why explanations must be tied to particular periods. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, its population was about one million. It took over 40 years to add another million. Growth then accelerated: the population was approximately eight million in 1980 and 12.5 million in 1990, an increase of more than four million in ten years. It crossed the ten-million threshold during the 1980s, becoming a megacity.

Continued migration helped produce this growth, but it was not the only explanation. Towards the end of the twentieth century, natural increase contributed more to population growth than migration. Births outnumbering deaths meant that the existing population was itself adding large numbers of people.

In the early 2010s, the population could increase by around one million in only two years. Later, growth began to slow as families had fewer children. This does not mean the population immediately fell: it continued rising, but added people less quickly.

When interpreting a population graph, read the dates on the horizontal axis and the population units on the vertical axis. Compare the increase over equal time intervals. A steeper line indicates faster growth; a rising line that becomes less steep indicates slowing growth. The graph establishes the pattern, but historical events and information about births, deaths and migration are needed to explain its causes.

Sydney: rural–urban and regional migration

Sydney has also attracted people from rural areas and other Australian regions. Aboriginal migration provides a specific historical example. Between the world wars, the closure or reduction of government reserves in rural New South Wales displaced residents, pushing some towards Sydney. Migration increased in the 1940s and 1950s, when labour shortages meant that Aboriginal workers could earn higher wages in Sydney than in rural areas.

Many Aboriginal migrants from the north coast and western New South Wales settled in Redfern and Waterloo. Established family and friendship networks helped attract further arrivals. La Perouse, in Sydney’s south, also had strong connections with Aboriginal communities on the south coast. These movements show how displacement, employment and personal connections could combine to encourage rural–urban and regional migration.

Regional migration could follow an earlier international move. Some Vietnamese refugees initially settled elsewhere in Australia, including regional areas, later moved to Fairfield and Cabramatta in western Sydney. They were attracted by an established Vietnamese community, relatively cheap housing and nearby manufacturing jobs. Migration therefore did not always involve a single journey directly from a home country to Sydney.

Sydney: international migration and economic growth

International migration from Europe after the Second World War contributed substantially to Sydney’s growth. War damage and displacement pushed people to leave Europe. Australian immigration programmes and Sydney’s expanding factory and construction employment provided opportunities to settle and work. British migrants were initially preferred, but recruitment widened to northern and then southern Europe as demand for workers continued. Migrants supplied labour that supported further economic expansion.

Later migration from Asia included refugees from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon in 1975. Large-scale refugee arrivals in Australia began in 1978. Political upheaval and the later nationalisation of the South Vietnamese economy pushed people to leave, with economic changes particularly affecting ethnic Chinese Vietnamese. Refugee resettlement offered a route to safety, while family reunion subsequently brought additional migrants.

The Cabramatta Migrant Hostel helped establish a Vietnamese community in western Sydney. Nearby jobs, affordable housing and community connections encouraged people to remain or join relatives there. This example shows that international migration can be driven by safety and family ties as well as employment.

More recent immigration from Asia and the Pacific has continued to add to Sydney’s population. Stable employment, high living standards and transport connections are pull factors, while its strong economy and international reputation attract skilled workers and students. Its economic character has also changed: manufacturing was especially important in the post-war decades, whereas finance, technology, tourism and other services now provide major opportunities.

Sydney: measuring the strongest recent growth driver

Natural increase contributes to Sydney’s growth too. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded the following changes for Greater Sydney in 2023–24:

The overseas migration gain was much larger than natural increase. Meanwhile, internal migration reduced the population because more people left Greater Sydney for other Australian locations than arrived from them. Adding the three components gives the overall gain of 107,538 people. Greater Sydney’s population reached 5,557,233 on 30 June 2024, an annual increase of 2.0%.

Movement also varies within the urban region. Box Hill–Nelson, in Sydney’s outer north-west, had a net internal migration gain of about 3,600 people. A growing suburb can therefore attract internal migrants even while Greater Sydney as a whole records an internal migration loss. Historical examples of people moving to Sydney do not mean that internal migration must always increase its population.

Comparing the explanations

Both cities grow through natural increase and migration, and both attract people through employment and services. Both also have histories of refugees arriving after major political upheaval: partition in Mumbai’s case, and post-war European displacement and the aftermath of the Vietnam War in Sydney’s.

Their growth mechanisms differ over time, however. Mumbai’s history strongly features rural employment changes and migration from other Indian regions. Natural increase became especially important towards the end of the twentieth century. Sydney attracted rural and regional migrants historically, but its recent growth is dominated by overseas migration, despite a net loss through movement within Australia.

The strongest explanation is therefore not simply that ‘cities attract migrants’. It identifies where migrants come from, why they move and when each process matters. Mumbai’s long-term growth and Sydney’s 2023–24 figures describe different periods, so they should not be treated as a like-for-like comparison of current growth rates.

Context

• Mumbai, India — NIC case: Maharashtra; national financial and commercial centre; global links through international companies and Bollywood.
• Sydney, Australia — HIC case: New South Wales; major service, finance, technology and tourism centre; global business and migration connections.

Population change

$$\text{population change} = (\text{births} - \text{deaths}) + (\text{arrivals} - \text{departures})$$