Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World

Kenny Lynch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134513970
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Sustaining the rural and urban populations of the developing world has been identified as a key global challenge for the twenty-first century. Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World is an introduction to the relationships between rural and urban places in the developing world and shows that not all their aspects are as obvious as migration from country to city. There is now a growing realization that rural-urban relations are far more complex.

Using a wealth of student-friendly features including boxed case studies, discussion questions and annotated guides to further reading, this innovative book places rural-urban interactions within a broader context, thus promoting a clearer understanding of the opportunities, as well as the challenges, that rural-urban interactions represent.

1 Understanding the rural–urban interface

Summary

• Past approaches to development studies have tended to focus on either urban or rural spaces.
• New development paradigms consider networks and flows, so it is important to reconsider flows and linkages between rural and urban areas.
• Some rural–urban links can favour one area or the other, but it is important to be aware that the net benefits can flow both ways, resulting in change both over time and from one place to another.
• Urban–rural links have been important to development theory although this topic is rarely a focus of development research.
  
  

Introduction

This chapter introduces key ideas that will be the building blocks of the later chapters in the book. It sets out to explain why it is important to understand urban–rural relations in the developing world, how they relate to the broader evolution of development theory and how such study might help us understand the problems of development and poverty in some of the world’s poorest countries. The chapter concludes with a brief explanation of the rationale of the way the subject has been divided into the chapters in this book.

Why it is important to study rural–urban interaction

The rapid population growth of Third World cities gives rise to concerns about the changing nature of the relationship between urban and rural. The evidence for this is in a growing number of recent publications, research reports and policy documents of international organisations, which emphasise key development concepts such as decentralisation (see also Table 1.1 and Box 1.1). The UNCHS (1999) estimated that the world’s urban population would be 2.9 billion in 2000, accounting for 47 per cent of the global total. This is an increase on the 30 per cent in 1950; the urban population is likely to go over 50 per cent in 2007.

Table 1.1 Summary of international agency initiatives on rural–urban linkages

Figure 1.1 Rural–urban interactions.

Figure 1.1 illustrates schematically the way rural–urban flows have been organised in this book. However, the figure has limitations, as most two-dimensional representations of complex systems have. One of the key ideas the figure presents is the possibility of each of the flows to work in either direction. Under certain conditions one-way flows may dominate, or the emphasis may change over time or from one context to the next. The flows of people and food and natural flows are represented above ground to acknowledge their visibility. Money and ideas are less tangible and involve service sectors in delivery, so are represented below ground as they are less obvious. One of the main limitations of the figure is that it represents city and countryside as clearly separate. This ignores more problematic issues such as definitions of the rural–urban interface, where distinctions between city and countryside can become blurred. Another important theme that is discussed in this book is the role of intermediate settlements, which are not represented in the figure. Finally, examples of the types of flows provided in the arrows are selective. More detailed examples are discussed later in the book.

Until relatively recently much rural–urban research has focused on a single city and its hinterland. However, the increasing importance of international links and the process of globalisation have an impact on rural–urban relations. In addition, cities throughout the world are often caught between the pressure to be included in the world economy, on the one hand, and on the other the need for links with their rural hinterlands. Such tensions raise issues that have not been considered until recently. This tension is paralleled in the competing processes of globalisation and decentralisation.

A further reason for writing a book that focuses on the relations between urban and rural areas relates to the fact that these relations have been important throughout history. Many major world developments have been linked to the relations between urban and rural realms. For example, on coming to power in 1949, the revolutionary Chinese government was faced with one of the world’s greatest urban–rural dilemmas. It was made up of politicians largely from peasant backgrounds and with peasant support, but it took control of a country already struggling to cope with the demands of its many large cities. By 1950 Shanghai was already estimated to number 5.3 million people, Beijing 3.9 million, and Tianjin 2.4
million (UNCHS, 2001). Some of the earliest government actions were designed to impose state-controlled marketing of agricultural goods and rationing of urban food consumption, and to control the movement of people – especially rural–urban migration. In addition, the level of land scarcity experienced by rural dwellers convinced the Chinese government that urban-based heavy industrialisation was the only way the country would be able to support its population which was 541 million in 1952, of whom 57.7 million, or 10.6 per cent, were urban (Knight and Song, 2000). One of the issues that worried the Chinese government was that in 1964, the second census under communist rule found that the urban population had grown to 129.3
million, or 18.4 per cent. Such rapid growth, both nationally and in the cities, alarmed the government, which decided that there was a need to control population growth and to create employment for the urban population.

The hostility of external global powers meant that foreign investment was unlikely. Therefore the only possibility of producing savings to invest in industrialisation was to extract surplus from rural agricultural production, resulting in a bias of policy towards the urban rather than the rural areas. The result was that the State Purchase and Marketing Cooperative’s main function was to ‘extract as much of the harvest as possible from the peasants’ (Knight and Song, 2000: 11). The Cooperative also supplied agricultural inputs and the state controlled the banking. The state therefore mediated all rural–urban flows of goods and capital other than household remittances. The pro-urban bias was compounded by the agricultural tax which amounted to approximately 30 per cent of farm proceeds (Knight and Song, 2000). The Chinese government therefore funded its industrialisation by mobilising the rural areas to produce and save more in order to provide the capital and the tax revenue for investment.

Box 1.1

Comparing international organisations’ approaches to rural–urban linkages

A number of national and international aid agencies are beginning to revisit the issue of rural–urban interaction. There appears to be considerable convergence in the thinking and approach at this level. For example, much of the intervention in which the World Bank engages is guided by separate rural and urban strategy documents. However, a recent workshop arrived at the following overarching themes (World Bank, 2000):

• the need for a broad analytical framework that can integrate the processes and approaches that span the realms at various scales;
• the need to consider the role that spatial dimensions play, along with the dynamics, vulnerabilities and movements in and out of poverty;
• the importance of a long-term perspective in relation to shifts in settlement and economic patterns;
• recognition that local economies advance and decline and that different approaches may therefore be required, and the need to understand the linkages and their role in the changes;
• the need to recognise the importance of the trend towards decentralisation;
• the need for approaches that facilitate working across sectors;
• the need to recognise the heterogeneity of constructs of town and country and the divisions between them, including agriculture in towns and non-farm activities in the country.

The UK’s governmental aid organisation, the Department for International Development, has supported some research in this area. A recent summary sheet outlined the major challenges for rural–urban linkages as:

• The poorest areas may have little more than consumption linkages
• Production linkages emerge in more diversified settings, such as where rural-based workshops start to supply urban-based factories
• Financial linkages appear in all settings, but with different outcomes for rural economies
• The rise of network societies may contribute to bypass effects, when financial flows link rural areas directly with distant, larger cities at the expense of local towns.

(ODI, 2002)

Common ground is emerging here. There is a consensus that more flexible approaches are required, that flows may wax and wane over time, that the role of small towns in rural–urban interactions must be considered and that interventions in either rural or urban areas have implications beyond their locality. One of the challenges appears to be that it is not always clear which department or division should be responsible for the agency approach, with some agencies considering an issue from a rural-focused division and others from an urban-focused division.

In a recent report Mutizwa-Mangiza (1999), Planning and Coordination Officer for UNCHS, highlights past views on the rural–urban divide as either pro-urban or anti-urban. According to Mutizwa-Mangiza, these biases have underpinned much development policy and intervention affecting both urban and rural areas. However, he argues that promoting rural–urban linkages offers considerable potential for developing the entire rural–urban continuum. He highlights the importance of this balanced approach, referring to its place in the Habitat Agenda agreed at the Habitat II Conference organised by UNCHS in Istanbul in 1996.

• (a) ‘To promote the sustainable development of rural settlements and to reduce rural-to-urban migration . . .’ (para.165);
• (b) ‘To promote the utilization of new and improved technologies and appropriate traditional practices in rural settlements development . . .’ (para.166);
• (c) To establish ‘. . . policies for sustainable regional development and management . . .’ (para. 167);
• (d) ‘To strengthen sustainable development and employment opportunities in impoverished rural areas . . .’ (para.168); and
• (e) To adopt ‘an integrated approach to promote balanced and mutually supportive urban–rural development . . .’ (para.169).

(Habitat, 1996, quoted in Mutizwa-Mangiza, 1999: 6)

According to Mutizwa-Mangiza, achieving these objectives will require:

1. strengthening of rural–urban linkages mainly through the improvement of marketing, transportation and communication facilities;
2. improvement of a number of infrastructure components which, while enhancing rural–urban linkages, are also essential for economic growth and employment creation (both farm and non-farm) within small urban settlements and rural areas themselves, especially roads, electricity and water;
3. bringing private and public services normally associated with cities to the rural population; and
4. strengthening of sub-national governance at the regional, rural-local, and city-region levels.

(Mutizwa-Mangiza, 1999)

While the Chinese example illustrates a deliberate policy of exploiting rural areas, Hodder (2000) argues that inevitably rural agricultural sectors and urban industrial sectors play strategic roles in each other’s development. He identifies six key reasons for these close links between the two sectors (2000: 80–82):

1. Agriculture depends on manufactured goods both for the transformation of produce (for example, farm tools, machinery, inputs) and for the consumer goods which are in demand as agricultural incomes rise (such as radios and bicycles).
2. As agriculture incorporates more technology in its activities, labour becomes a less significant factor. More technologically advanced agriculture releases capital and labour which move into the urban industrial sector.
3. Agriculture provides raw materials for some industries, such as tobacco, cotton and sisal.
4. Agriculture for export can earn foreign exchange which is important for purchasing items which are vital to industrial processes. These include commodities such as petroleum, chemicals and technology which is not produced locally.
5. There is an important balance to be struck in incomes, prices and taxation between the urban and the rural areas. For example, high food prices provide rewards to farmers and incentives to increase production, but may mean high prices in urban areas which can lead to poverty and unrest. Taxation in the agricultural sector may be necessary to raise revenues to finance public expenditure, but may act as a disincentive to farmers, particularly if much of the expenditure is urban or industrial focused.
6. In rapidly urbanising countries agriculture produces strategically important food for the growing number of urban residents, thus ensuring food security at prices that are affordable.
   
   

International and national agencies are beginning to realise that their programmes of urban and rural development intervention have impacts on each other and that there is a need to integrate some of the thinking behind them (see Box 1.1).

The six reasons listed above explain the key interdependencies between rural and urban areas. While the discussion has so far concentrated on the flows between the urban and the rural, one of the main reasons for the separate approaches is the attempt frequently made to identify the defining characteristics of what is ‘urban’ and what is ‘rural’. However, Rigg (1998a) cautions against ‘pigeon- holing’ when it comes to such definitions. For example, he argues that to separate people into urban or rural categories is problematic. He outlines three main difficulties associated with such categorisation.

1. Registration records often do not detect changes in residence. For various reasons it may be undesirable for recent in-migrants to be registered as urban dwellers. Rigg gives examples of under-reporting of urban residence, particularly in relation to the controversies this can pose during elections when how an area is defined can have implications for the number of political representatives or the authority into which they are elected (for further discussion of this see Chapter 4 below).
2. Allocating people to discrete categories such as ‘urban’ or ‘rural’ assumes that these categories accurately reflect their realities. Rigg’s own empirical research in Thailand (1998b), among others, has demonstrated the significance of fluid, fragmented and multi-location households to survival strategies. This results in households straddling and moving across the rural–urban interface. Thus categorising them as one or the other makes no sense. In addition, there is the problem of defining the boundaries of urban places which is usually done on some arbitrary basis. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 below.
3. Rigg argues that many Asian urban residents do not consider the cities and towns they live in as ‘home’. This is because they ultimately intend to return to their rural origins. This, he argues, brings the issue of the identities of individuals into focus and ‘“home” and “place” are ambiguous and shifting notions, where multiple identities – both – can be simultaneously embodied’ (Rigg, 1998b: 501).

A final concern that could be added to Rigg’s three points above relates to the blurring of the actual geographical definition of the rural–urban divide. This is particularly the case where cities are expanding rapidly and extending their physical limits and influence outwards into the rural areas. To add to the difficulty of definition, we find that different sizes of settlement are defined as ‘urban’ by different countries. For example, in China, relatively small settlements are not counted as urban (see Box 1.2). However, a city, or city-region, may include a conglomeration of areas extending beyond the city proper. While such data make it possible to monitor demographic changes in countries across time – for example,

Table 1.2 Rural population densities of selected countries

comparing rates of urban growth from one census to the next – this problem of d...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Understanding the Rural–Urban Interface
• 2. Food
• 3. Natural Flows
• 4. People
• 5. Ideas
• 6. Finance
• 7. Conclusion and Future Perspectives
• References