An assessment of urban expansion in Caribbean small island developing States. The cases of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago

The disproportionate increase in urbanized areas in relation to populations resulting in the spread of low-density urban settlements is recognized as a sustainable development challenge globally, including in Caribbean SIDS. This phenomenon has numerous adverse effects on urban settlements’ capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change, such as the increased vulnerability of critical infrastructure to climate disasters; the formation of informal settlements in risk-prone areas; an increase in impervious surfaces affecting floods’ spatial patterns and increasing related risks; and the destruction of ecosystems affecting natural services critical to climate change adaption. Cognisant of these challenges, the 2030 Agenda proposed the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 11.3.1 —ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate— as a global methodology to measure this phenomenon. This study utilizes this and other secondary indicators to measure urban expansion in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago between 2000 and 2020, and to compare urban densities with other regions and Caribbean SIDS. The study concludes that the Urban Centres in these two countries have been expanding their built-up surfaces at a faster rate than the growth of their respective populations. In addition, the built-up area per capita in these countries’ urban settlements is significantly higher than in other selected Caribbean SIDS. The study concludes by suggesting critical implications of these findings for public policy in several sectors, and proposes additional questions for future research.