week 5 2.0

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Week 5: Poverty and Inequality, Rural and Urban

Development

This week has been particularly interesting

because I consider myself to be from a “cross-over town”; Ontario offers a

unique diversity of urban and rural and the City of Peterborough (the term

‘city’ here is an official but loosely used term) offers a gateway to both the

world of urban Ontario and rural Ontario. An hour and a half drive from Toronto

–the largest city in Canada, and about an hour and a half to Algonquin National

Park –the largest provincial park in Ontario. My high school had pupils from

the hills of suburbia, the downtown core, farmlands of Douro and Dumber (yes

the area is called Dumb-er) and then the woods-people of Apsley and the

God-forsaken town of Kinmount. We are unofficially part of “Bear country”

because the city-slickers from Toronto and Richmond Hill have cottages near-by,

but those from Peterborough will settle further north for their summer cottage

escapes; those from Apsley, Kinmount, Dumber, Douro and the likes will come to

the city for their shopping excursions. Ultimately this preamble about my

humble hometown and the folks who pass through has the purpose of emphasizing

how I have forever had an understanding of the differences between urban and

rural life however it did not become apparent until this week the underlying

principles of this invisible fault line that runs through Peterborough.

Firstly,

the interaction between rural and urban is an assumed dichotomy; rural has the

aroma of agriculture whereas urban has a flavour of industrialism and

modernity. This is not an accurate representation because the agricultural and

industrial sectors have close links, as Lynch explains in his prose

“Rural-Urban Interaction”. The Agro-industrial link is in part because agricultural

production depends on manufactured goods and equipment for harvesting and then

the use of this technology in transforming the raw products into consumer

goods. More technology has been incorporated into agricultural processes

because it reduces the amount of human labor necessary and thus is more

economically efficient. The mutual reliance each industry has on the other is

also seen in many industries relying on the raw products produced by the

agricultural sector, as well urban city centers rely on agricultural regions to

produce the food and raw materials necessary for internal and external

(exports) use within regions all across the world (270-271). This

interdependence on each other one might assume would produce a mutual

appreciation, however this is where urban

bias theory comes in.

Urban

bias theory (UBT) is the “apparent bias in favour of urban-industrial models or

development”(Corbridge, Jones 243), and the idea that models of development are

based around the superiority of urban over bias and the effects this has on all

areas of life for individuals coming from these environments. Corbridge and

Jones explain in “Urban Bias” that: “many people migrate to the city because

[it is assumed that there is] more productive work and they can pull their

families out of poverty”(ibid. 243). This reasoning for migrating may be based

in urban bias assumptions of the distribution of wealth between urban and

rural. The urban bias thesis asserts that allocations of resources such as

education and health care are proportionally lower, taxpayers in rural areas

pay unfair national taxes and that ‘urban forms of teaching’ have the motive of

drawing “bright young minds” from rural to urban areas (244). The overarching

assertion is that urban elites are the ones who have the political and economic

power to orchestrate all of this as well.

The

criticism of UBT is that it lacks “imperial validity” and underestimates the

scale and relative growth of urban poverty (ibid. 244). As well, criticism over

the umbrella terms of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ are not stable and UBT’s supposed

ignorance towards “the new economic geography”(ibid. 245). UBT non-believers

also “suggest that an ‘urban bias’ in public expenditures and provision may be

an efficient allocation of resources”(ibid. 246). The criticism of lacking

imperial validity only has bearing in some areas, whereas I believe there could

be copious amounts of evidence support UBT claims. However, the umbrella terms

of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ I would assert refer to polar extremes on a spectrum of

population density and infrastructural density areas. Urban bias theory,

although existing in a changing geographical economy still has significant

explanatory power in perhaps some regions of the world.

Works Cited

Lynch, Kenneth. “Rural-Urban Interaction”. The Companion to Development Studies. Ed. Vandana

Desai and Robert B. Potter. 2 ed. London: Hodder Arnold Group, 2008. Print.

268-272.

Corbridge, Stuart and Gareth A. Jones. “Urban

Bias”. The Companion to Development Studies. Ed. Vandana

Desai and Robert B. Potter. 2 ed. London: Hodder Arnold Group, 2008. Print.

243-246.