Talk:Overurbanization/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Delldot (talk · contribs) 20:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting topic and a good start, but I do have a lot of concerns I think need to be addressed before promoting this. It will take a good amount of work but I'm game if you are! Here are my initial thoughts, let me know what you think and we can go from there.

The lead needs to be expanded to summarize the whole article. It should have something from each section. Right now, the reader gets bogged down in the definition section before being fully introduced to what the phenomenon is, what the effects are, when and where it’s happening, etc. Let’s see if expanding the lead takes care of that.

This sentence is unclear: ‘’ Urban planner John Dyckman suggested that inability to accommodate the expectations of migrants to the city made overurbanization a threat to social order.’’ Is ‘expectations’ the right word?

How about images? Can you find pictures that illustrate some of the phenomena that occur in overurbanization? For the lead maybe a photo of an affected city. In the body, go through and see what else you can illustrate, e.g. deforestation in the Philippines, informal squatter settlements, squalor, filth, overcrowding, environmental degradation, etc. How about pie charts comparing rural and urban populations in an overurbanized country and one that is not? You could also include photos of the leading thinkers.

Decide whether to use British or American spelling (labour or labor) then do a search and make it consistent throughout.

The article uses too much scholarly language, making it hard for a novice to the subject to understand. For unusual terms like externalities, rural-push, and urban-pull, define them inline or replace them with simpler wording.

Could this be put in a simpler, clearer way? ‘’ Economic opportunities are lacking due to "saturated urban labor markets" that exclude much of both the rural and urban populations truncated opportunity structures in rural areas.’’

‘’ Furthermore, high infrastructural costs stymie growth.’’ For example?

Any links already in the article don’t need to be in the see also section. If only a couple are left it might be better to incorporate those and ditch the section.

This sentence is unclear: ‘’these factors, among others, are caused by the exploitation of developed countries and the capitalist principles they operate under.’’ Wouldn’t it be exploitation ‘’’by’’’ developed countries?

‘’ ...inequality between large and small landowners, such as in the Latin American latifundia system.’’ This needs more explanation. What is this system? What’s going on in it? Why does it illustrate the point? (Answer these in the article, not here.)

There are several instances where the same info is duplicated later, e.g. the question of rural push vs urban pull. The article needs a thorough copyedit, maybe we can get rid of some redundancy.

Unclear: ‘’They and Shandra agree that INGOs can play an important role in decreasing overurbanization by supporting rural communities by promoting both economic and infrastructural development as well as the role of civic society.’’

Unlike in a scholarly paper, encyclopedia articles rely preferably on secondary and tertiary literature like literature reviews and textbooks, not primary sources like original research. Thus if you're saying that Dyckman saw informal squatter settlements as breeding ground for revolutionary activity, you're better off with a source that says "Dyckman thinks this" than one by Dyckman that says "I think this". Of course with a topic this obscure, you just have to do your best, I'm just letting you know what's preferred.

There are some tense changes that could be found in a copy edit too. e.g. "John Dyckman suggested" then in the next sentence "Philip Graves and Robert Sexton argue". Maybe adding dates to some of the important landmarks of these discussions could be helpful too.

I hope all this is not overwhelming. Feel free to take your time with it, I don't mind it taking a long time as long as progress is being made. Thanks for all your hard work so far Rgalts! delldot ∇. 20:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No response so I'll go ahead and close this for now. But if you come back and address these issues feel free to relist at GAN! If I'm around I'll be happy to help out. delldot ∇. 17:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]