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The process of rural-urban transformation presents both opportunities and challenges for development. If managed effectively, it can result in growth that benefits everyone; if managed poorly, it can lead to stark welfare disparities and entire regions cut off from the advantages of agglomeration economies. The importance of rural-urban transition has been confirmed by two consecutive World Development Reports: WDR 2008 Agriculture for Development; and WDR 2009 Reshaping Economic Geography. Focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, this book picks up where the WDRs left off, investigating the influence of country conditions and policies on the pace, pattern, and consequences of rural-urban transition and suggesting strategies to ensure that its benefits results in shared improvements in well-being. The book uncovers vast inequalities, whether between two regions of one country, between rural and urban areas, or within cities themselves. The authors find little evidence to suggest that these inequalities will automatically diminish as countries develop: empirical and qualitative analysis suggests that spatial divides are mainly a function of country conditions, policies and institutions. By implication, policymakers must take active steps to ensure that rural-urban transition results in shared growth. Spatially unbiased provision of health and education services is crucial to ensuring that the benefits of transition are shared by all. But connective infrastructure and targeted interventions also emerge as important considerations, even in countries with severely constrained fiscal and administrative capacity. The authors suggest steps for navigating the tricky political economy of land reforms. And they alert readers to potential spillover effects that mean that policies designed for one space can have unintended consequences on another. Policymakers and development experts, as well as anyone concerned with the impact of rural-urban transition on growth and equity, will find this book a thought-provoking and informative read.
This book explores the multiple effects of globalization on urban and rural communities, providing anthropological case studies from postsocialist Bulgaria. As globalization has been studied largely in urban contexts, the aim of this volume is to shift attention to the under-examined countryside and analyse how transnational links are transforming relations between cities, towns and villages. The volume also challenges undifferentiated notions of ‘the countryside’, calling for an awareness of rural economic and social disparities which are often only associated with urban environments. The work focuses on how the ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ have been reconfigured following the end of socialism and the advent of globalization, in socioeconomic, as well as political, ideological and cultural terms.
How do cities transform over time? And why do some cities change for the better while others deteriorate? In articulating new ways of viewing urban areas and how they develop over time, Peter Bosselmann offers a stimulating guidebook for students and professionals engaged in urban design, planning, and architecture. By looking through Bosselmann’s eyes (aided by his analysis of numerous color photos and illustrations) readers will learn to “see” cities anew. Bosselmann organizes the book around seven “activities”: comparing, observing, transforming, measuring, defining, modeling, and interpreting. He introduces readers to his way of seeing by comparing satellite-produced “maps” of the world’s twenty largest cities. With Bosselmann’s guidance, we begin to understand the key elements of urban design. Using Copenhagen, Denmark, as an example, he teaches us to observe without prejudice or bias. He demonstrates how cities transform by introducing the idea of “urban morphology” through an examination of more than a century of transformations in downtown Oakland, California. We learn how to measure quality-of-life parameters that are often considered immeasurable, including “vitality,” “livability,” and “belonging.” Utilizing the street grids of San Francisco as examples, Bosselmann explains how to define urban spaces. Modeling, he reveals, is not so much about creating models as it is about bringing others into public, democratic discussions. Finally, we find out how to interpret essential aspects of “life and place” by evaluating aerial images of the San Francisco Bay Area taken in 1962 and those taken forty-three years later. Bosselmann has a unique understanding of cities and how they “work.” His hope is that, with the fresh vision he offers, readers will be empowered to offer inventive new solutions to familiar urban problems.
This book focuses on the transformation of rural places, peoples, and land endemic to the contemporary manifestations of globalization. Migration, global economic restructuring, and climate change are rapidly transforming rural places across the globe. Yet, global attention characteristically focuses on urban social and economic issues, neglecting the continued roles of rural people and places. Organized around the three core themes of demographic change, rural-urban partnerships and innovations, and landscape change, the case studies included in this volume represent both the Global North and Global South and underscore the complexity and multi-scalar nature of these contemporary challenges in rural development, planning, and sustainability. This book would be valuable supplementary reading for both students and professionals in the fields of rural land management and rural planning.
While designers possess the creative capabilities of shaping cities, their often-singular obsession with form and aesthetics actually reduces their effectiveness as they are at the mercy of more powerful generators of urban form. In response to this paradox, Designing Urban Transformation addresses the incredible potential of urban practice to radically change cities for the better. The book focuses on a powerful question, "What can urbanism be?" by arguing that the most significant transformations occur by fundamentally rethinking concepts, practices, and outcomes. Drawing inspiration from the philosophical movement known as Pragmatism, the book proposes three conceptual shifts for transformative urban practice: (a) beyond material objects: city as flux, (b) beyond intentions: consequences of design, and (c) beyond practice: urbanism as creative political act. Pragmatism encourages us to consider how we can make deeper and more systemic changes and how urbanism itself can be a design strategy for such transformations. To illuminate how these conceptual shifts operate in vastly different contexts through analysis of transformative urban initiatives and projects in Belo Horizonte, Boston, Cairo, Karachi, Los Angeles, New Delhi, and Paris. The book is a rare integration of theory and practice that proposes essential ways of rethinking city-design-and-building processes, while drawing critical lessons from actual examples of such processes.
How do rural Chinese households deal with the conflicting pressures of migrating into cities to work as well as staying at home to preserve their fields? This is particularly challenging for rice farmers, because paddy fields have to be cultivated continuously to retain their soil quality and value. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and written sources, this book describes farming households' strategic solutions to this predicament. It shows how, in light of rural-urban migration and agro-technological change, they manage to sustain both migration and farming. It innovatively conceives rural households as part of a larger farming community of practice that spans both staying and migrating household members and their material world. Focusing on one exemplary resource - paddy fields - it argues that socio-technical resources are key factors in understanding migration flows and migrant-home relations. Overall, this book provides rare insights into the rural side of migration and farmers' knowledge and agency.
While most attention is given to the booming mega-cities in China and the associated problems of over-population, the rural areas in China are being largely ignored. Yet, a sustainable development of the rural areas is precisely that, which will be decisive for China’s future. Through its rapid development into an industrial country, China now needs to tackle far-reaching problems such as increasing population, growing income gap between the poor and the rich, rural exodus, decreased agricultural production, and environmental pollution. Rural Urban Framework is a work group at the University of Hong Kong that not only researches the far-reaching changes of the last thirty years in China’s rural areas, but has also realized concrete projects aimed at improving supply and infrastructure on site. In this publication, the authors present for the first time the results of their research as well as their built projects in the Chinese backlands, and question whether China’s only future model lies in cities.
IFPRI’s flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2018, and considers challenges and opportunities for 2019. This year’s Global Food Policy Report highlights the urgency of rural revitalization to address a growing crisis in rural areas. Rural people around the world continue to struggle with food insecurity, persistent poverty and inequality, and environmental degradation. Policies, institutions, and investments that take advantage of new opportunities and technologies, increase access to basic services, create more and better rural jobs, foster gender equality, and restore the environment can make rural areas vibrant and healthy places to live and work. Drawing on recent findings, IFPRI researchers and other distinguished food policy experts consider critical aspects of rural revitalization.
Winner of the Regional Studies Association's Best Book Award 2018. In the last few decades, many global cities and towns have experienced unprecedented economic, social, and spatial structural change. Today, we find ourselves at the juncture between entering a post-urban and a post-political world, both presenting new challenges to our metropolitan regions, municipalities, and cities. Many megacities, declining regions and towns are experiencing an increase in the number of complex problems regarding internal relationships, governance, and external connections. In particular, a growing disparity exists between citizens that are socially excluded within declining physical and economic realms and those situated in thriving geographic areas. This book conveys how forces of structural change shape the urban landscape. In The Post-Urban World is divided into three main sections: Spatial Transformations and the New Geography of Cities and Regions; Urbanization, Knowledge Economies, and Social Structuration; and New Cultures in a Post-Political and Post-Resilient World. One important subject covered in this book, in addition to the spatial and economic forces that shape our regions, cities, and neighbourhoods, is the social, cultural, ecological, and psychological aspects which are also critically involved. Additionally, the urban transformation occurring throughout cities is thoroughly discussed. Written by today’s leading experts in urban studies, this book discusses subjects from different theoretical standpoints, as well as various methodological approaches and perspectives; this is alongside the challenges and new solutions for cities and regions in an interconnected world of global economies. This book is aimed at both academic researchers interested in regional development, economic geography and urban studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers in urban development.