The popular view about the process of urbanization in developing countries is

Concept: A tone-and-attitude question asks for the stance that a passage attributes to a named holder of a view — here the "popular view" — and that stance is read off the evaluative vocabulary of the clause that reports it, not off the writer’s own position stated elsewhere. When a reporting sentence is built on a concession of the form "despite X, ... connotes Y", the element X is merely acknowledged and subordinated, while the main predicate Y carries the stance being reported.

Application: The passage opens by reporting the popular view of towns and cities in developing countries: despite the benefits and comforts urbanization brings, the emergence of such cities "connotes environmental degradation, generation of slums and squatters, urban poverty, unemployment, crimes, lawlessness, traffic chaos etc." The favourable items — benefits, comforts — sit inside the concessive "despite" clause, while the main predicate carries an unbroken series of unfavourable ones. The stance the passage attributes to the popular view is therefore an unfavourable one: Negative.

Cross-check: The writer does not share that view. The very next sentences turn against it — "But what is the reality ? ... the wonder really is how well the world has coped, and not how badly" — and the rest of the passage records improvements in water, sanitation, power, health, education, communication and transport. That reversal only makes sense if the view reported first is the unfavourable one, so the writer’s own optimism confirms the reading rather than contradicting it. Note that the question asks about the popular view, not about the writer’s view.

Contrast with the alternatives:

• Positive would require the gains to occupy the main clause and set the overall impression; in the reported view they are conceded and subordinated.

• Neutral would require gains and costs to be held in balance; the concessive structure denies that balance by loading the main clause on one side only.

• Unspecified would require the reporting sentence to attach no evaluative vocabulary at all; instead it supplies an explicit catalogue of ills.