The Journal of Developing Areas

This article considers the relationship of national political systems, freedom and individual rights, with the spatial distribution of population. It is hypothesized that nations lacking sufficient levels of political freedoms and rights will have high percentages of population clustered in their principal urban agglomerations, where the majority of national investments are concentrated; as it is in these cities where quality-of-life access opportunities will be most abundant. This study employs multivariate OLS regression analysis to measure correlations between political systems, political rights and civil liberties with compiled population data from 89 countries and territories. Findings show the hypothesis to have merit and offer contribution to international development planning discourse.