Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 29
Why Location Matters
This chapter explores the ways in which urban environments can influence demo-
graphic behavior. Although we refer to empirical findings, our main purpose is
to provide a map of concepts, with emphasis on the features that give the urban
socioeconomic landscape its distinctive character. The discussion begins at the
micro level, examining how neighborhoods might affect individual and family de-
mographic decisions. It then moves to successively higher levels of aggregation,
surveying the linkages that cross neighborhoods, taking in the broader urban econ-
omy, exploring connections among cities, and finally examining the structures of
government that are overlaid upon this varied terrain. The themes developed here
have international extensions, but this chapter remains within national boundaries.
In closing, the concepts that have entered the discussion are reviewed, and a few
of the major features that distinguish urban from rural landscapes are identified.
Although the discussion in this chapter traverses a great range of contexts, it is
guided by a mere handful of concepts: diversity, proximity, externality, network,
and centrality. As they are assembled in different configurations, these concepts
present a series of urban frameworks through which demographic behavior can be
viewed. Urban frames do not always offer novel views of demographic phenom-
ena, but they often provide a fresh perspective.
At the center of our argument is a proposition so unexceptionable as to be
banal: individuals and families demographic decision makers are located or
embedded in social contexts that determine what information is available to them
and influence the decisions based upon that information. Health, fertility, and
human capital investment decisions are influenced by multiple social contexts;
so, too, are decisions about job search, migration, and labor force participation.
The panel regards these demographic decisions as being inherently multilevel in
nature, and in considering the individual-to-group links, emphasizes the roles of
urban social interaction, feedback, and diffusion.
29
OCR for page 30
30
CITIES TRANSFORMED
Had demographers but taken their cue from the Taichung experiment, we
might now be in a position to summarize 30 years of intraurban multilevel re-
search. That randomized intervention its elements were described by Freedman
and Takeshita (1969: 109 48) began in 1963, when Taichung was a smallish
Taiwanese city of some 325,000 inhabitants. The experimental design exploited
the city's neighborhood structure, allocating 2,400 small neighborhoods, or fin,
to treatment and control groups. The treatment took the form of provision of in-
formation about the intrauterine device (IUD), which was then a relatively new
method of family planning. A key question in the analysis was whether such fam-
ily planning information "spilled across" the boundaries of the treatment lin to
benefit women in adjacent control lin.
Remarkably strong evidence of such informational spillovers emerged, and
women's social networks were identified as the main mechanism by which news
of the IUD was conveyed from the treatment women to those who had not heard of
this method firsthand. A number of women outside Taichung proper were found
to have learned of the IUD through their social network ties to city residents.
These network contacts evidently had the effect of amplifying the program ef-
forts undertaken in the treatment fin, acting as "social multipliers" through which
information could be diffused across space and socioeconomic strata.
The Taichung case introduces several themes that figure prominently in this
report. Informational externalities are one such theme. Neighborhood effects are
another, as are the conceptual distinctions between neighborhood and social net-
work. The Taichung experiment revealed urban/rural linkages that were stronger
than expected, thus calling into question the sociological meaning of the city
boundaries. It also showed how programs that must operate in specific neighbor-
hoods small fin, in this instance can exert influence beyond those local spaces.
Had research only continued along these lines, a new "Chicago School" tradi-
tion of detailed spatial and social analyses of developing-country cities might well
have developed, with demographic behavior as one focus. But as it happened, the
urban themes of the Taichung experiment were left dangling, and the demographic
literature took up entirely different lines of inquiry. By the late 1970s and 1980s,
this literature had come to be dominated by individualistic models of behavior. In-
terest in contextual effects did not disappear, of course, and multilevel methods of
analysis continue to be refined) In developing countries, however, such methods
have seldom been matched to data on urban neighborhoods and local contexts. A
continuing difficulty to which we return in Chapter 5 is that in these countries,
census data are rarely processed at the level of local areal units. Lacking census
data, researchers interested in multilevel approaches have often found themselves
iSee, among others, Rosenzweig and Schultz (1982), Casterline (1985a,b), Tsui (1985), Entwisle,
Casterline, and Sayed (1989), Entwisle, Rindfuss, Guilkey, Chamratrithirong, Curran, and Sawangdee
(1996), Bilsborrow and Anker (1993), Pebley, Goldman, and Rodriguez (1996), Sastry (1996), Degraff,
Bilsborrow, and Guilkey (1997), Axinn, Barber, and Ghimire (1997), Axinn and Yabiku (2001), and
Mroz, Bollen, Speizer, and Mancini (1999).
OCR for page 31
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
31
restricted to rural sites, where sample surveys can be used to inventory the local
environment.
For these reasons, the demographic literature on developing-country cities has
never achieved the sophistication and keen appreciation of context that is seen in
studies of Chicago (Sampson and Raudenbush, 1999), Oakland (Fischer, 1982),
or Glasgow (Garner and Raudenbush, 1991~. As we take up the issue of why
location matters in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we are therefore uncomfort-
ably dependent on concepts and findings developed with other settings in mind.
We shall, nevertheless, borrow wholesale from these developed-country studies,
hoping to bring conceptual parallels and partial analogies to light.
PLACES, NETWORKS, NEIGHBORHOODS
Urban neighborhoods can be viewed as spatial units that might or might not
have significant effects on demographic behavior. To clarify what form neigh-
borhood effects could take, we must first separate the concept of place from that
of community. As used here, place is a spatial concept, whereas community is a
social concept, having to do with individual and group identities, senses of belong-
ing, and the presumption of mutual interests and shared values.2 A neighborhood
might be defined as a type of community composed of spatially proximate indi-
viduals. When the discussion focuses on social capital, social learning, and other
mechanisms through which neighborhood effects can be expressed, this commu-
nity aspect of neighborhoods comes to the fore. But there may well be effects at-
tributable to the local social-spatial environment that are due to the very lack of
place-based community ties. In settings where local residents mistrust one another
and recognize few shared interests and common values, they may see elements of
social and physical risk in the local environment and behave accordingly. Hence,
the concept of neighborhood effects encompasses two rather different influences
on individual behavior those stemming from local social ties and those due to
their absence.
The identification of neighborhood with community has gone in and out of
fashion in urban sociological research. In the early literature, it was argued that
cities had once been home to coherent, functional "natural neighborhoods," or "ur-
ban villages," which were ethnic communities akin to rural villages. The forces
of modernization were said to have swept away many of these local, place-based
social relationships and dispersed their functions among a variety of urban institu-
tions. Wirth (1938: 20-21) famously depicted the process as entailing a "substitu-
tion of secondary for primary contacts, the weakening of bonds of kinship, and the
declining social significance of the family, the disappearance of the neighborhood,
2 Different disciplines attach quite different meanings to the term "place." To geographers (e.g.,
Committee on Identifying Data Needs for Place-Based Decision Making, 2002: 55), place is an "en-
semble concept" that encompasses both spatial and social elements and processes. See also Harvey
(1973), Gregory and Urry (1985), Wolch and Dear (1989), and Golledge and Stimson (1997).
OCR for page 32
32
CITIES TRANSFORMED
and the undermining of the traditional basis of social solidarity." In the urban way
of life or so it then appeared place-based social ties were replaced by aspatial
social relationships or by no relationships at all.
When empirical methods were brought to bear on such views, they were found
to be simplistic and even misleading. As Chaskin (1994: 12) notes in reference to
the bygone era of functional, natural urban neighborhoods, "There is no evidence
that such a golden age ever existed." Sociologists began to examine broader con-
ceptions of community and to conceive of individuals as participating in several
sorts of communities at once, some of which are spatially grounded and others
not. Social networks including both personal social networks and those formed
through formal and informal associations began to be recognized as a key link-
ing mechanism. Through such networks, any given person might have ties to spa-
tially proximate and spatially distant partners. The idea of "communities without
propinquity" (a phrase due to Webber, 1963) emerged, and sociologists began to
think of individuals as being attached to each of their communities on a voluntary
and contingent basis (Chaskin,1994~.
Empirical studies in the United States showed that urban residence is not nec-
essarily associated with weakened personal ties and attenuated senses of commu-
nity; rather, it affects the types of ties and communities in which people participate.
Sampson and Morenoff (2000: 374) summarize the empirical record in this way:
. . . contrary to the popular belief that metropolitan life has led inex-
orably to the decline of personal ties, sociological research has shown
that while urbanites may be exposed to more unconventionality and
diversity, they retain a set of personal support networks just like their
suburban and rural counterparts (see e.g., Fischer 1982~.
Fischer (1982: 264) puts it succinctly: "Urbanism does not seem to weaken com-
munity, but it does seem to help sustain a plurality of communities."
If the social networks of urban residents contain sufficient links to other spa-
tially proximate individuals, a basis exists for thinking of geographic neighbor-
hoods as communities. Some social network researchers question whether mod-
ern urban networks are indeed this localized.3 As Wellman and Leighton (1979:
365-67) argue in a memorable passage:
To sociologists, unlike geographers, spatial distributions are not in-
herently important variables, but assume importance only as they af-
fect such social structural questions as the formation of interpersonal
networks and the flow of resources through such networks ... the
3Social network researchers maintain that their methods provide excellent tools for assessing the
relative frequency and strength of place-based ties. For instance, Wellman and Leighton (1979: 365-
67) write: "By leaving the matter of spatial distributions initially open, [the network perspective]
makes it equally as possible to discover an 'urban village' (Gans, 1962) as it is to discover a 'commu-
nity without propinquity' (Webber, 1963).... With this approach we are then better able to assess the
position of neighborhood ties within the context of overall structures of social relationships."
OCR for page 33
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
identification of a neighborhood as a container for communal ties
assumes the a priori organizing power of space. This is spatial
determinism.
33
The empirical record confirms that U.S. urban residents are connected to a variety
of networks extending outside their neighborhoods. But it also shows that they
continue to value their neighborhood ties, making use of them for day-to-day so-
cializing and drawing upon them for social support. Evidently, some strong and
intimate ties not all, to be sure remain grounded in neighborhoods.4
If neighborhoods are subsets of networks, how are their spatial boundaries to
be delineated? Residents of poor U.S. communities often disagree as to the dimen-
sions of the neighborhood even residents of the same household can see things
differently (Furstenberg and Hughes, 1997: 34~. The perspectives of adults and
youth can diverge, as can the views of younger and older children. For adoles-
cents, "neighborhoods of sociability" may be at least as important as those de-
fined according to residence (Burton, Price-Spratlen, and Spencer, 1997: 135~. In
a study of Los Angeles, Sastry, Pebley, and Zonta (2002) find that better-educated
respondents conceive of their neighborhoods in broader spatial terms than do those
who are less educated. Recent immigrants to Los Angeles hold spatially con-
stricted views of their neighborhoods. Hence, even where local space is acknowl-
edged to matter, the perceived perimeters of that space can be expected to vary
(Committee on Identifying Data Needs for Place-Based Decision Making, 2002~.
This social construction of neighborhood is not a merely a subjective matter
it may well have an influence on the use of public services and, through ser-
vices, on demographic behavior. For instance, neighborhood residents may view
a nearby health or family planning clinic as being inaccessible if it happens to be
situated beyond a socially defined neighborhood boundary. Or, where privacy is
deemed essential as it is often thought to be for adolescents such services may
deliberately be sought outside the bounds of the neighborhood.
Is there any reason to question the social significance of neighborhood in
the cities of poor countries? To the extent that city residents face higher costs
of transport and information exchange than their counterparts in rich countries,
local social space would be expected to assume greater importance. For instance,
in a study of two poor neighborhoods in Santiago, Espinoza (1999) finds that
nearly three-quarters of residents' personal network partners live within walking
4 acknowledging this, Wellman and Leighton (1979: 385) nevertheless express skepticism about
the relative importance of the local ties: "Neighborhood relationships persist but only as specialized
components of the overall primary networks.... if we broaden our field of view to include other
primary relations, then the apparent neighborhood solidarities may now be seen as clusters in the
rather sparse, loosely bounded structures of urbanites' total networks." Geographers (see Committee
on Identifying Data Needs for Place-Based Decision Making, 2002) argue that people can inhabit
multiple "places" at the same time, some of these at local spatial scales, such as neighborhoods, and
others at larger scales. The spatially distant connections found in social networks serve to define
some of the larger-scale places.
OCR for page 34
34
CITIES TRANSFORMED
distance. For these poor Chileans, distance is a constraining factor because of the
high cost of transport in relation to their resources. For the United States, Fischer
(1982: 251) shows that the social networks of the poorly educated are more spa-
tially concentrated than the networks of the better educated. Also, the social net-
works of women are believed to be more localized than those of men, containing
higher proportions of neighbors and kin (see Moore, 1990, and Stoloff, Glanville,
and Bienenstock, 1999, as well as the extensive references cited therein). The
panel is not aware of comparable social network research in the cities of low-
income countries, but would expect that in these settings, too, the networks of
women and the poor would tend to be disproportionately local. Because so much
of family demographic behavior depends on the information and resources held
by women, differences in the composition of their personal networks can have
important demographic implications.
Many activities undertaken by governments and nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) are spatially organized and will surely remain so. These activi-
ties confer additional social meaning upon local space. Public services water
supply, electricity, sanitation are of course spatially grounded. However hazy
the boundaries of neighborhoods in the eyes of local residents, city planners are
obliged to delineate them to arrange for the delivery of such services (White, 1987:
1-6~. Politics and political access likewise have their territorial aspects.
For these reasons, neighborhoods are often taken to be the natural units for
program interventions, whether on the part of NGOs, governments, or interna-
tional agencies. The popularity of neighborhood-based programs testifies to a
widespread belief in the organizing potential of spatial proximity. Chaskin (1994:
32-44) identifies four strands of thinking that have tended to orient program inter-
ventions to neighborhoods: the increasing value being placed on the concepts of
local empowerment, control, and responsiveness; the need to operate pilot projects
and experimental interventions on a manageable scale; the recognition that effec-
tive interventions must often have a comprehensive character, which is difficult
to achieve without some spatial concentration of effort; and the expectation that
important target populations are themselves spatially concentrated. The grow-
ing influence of these ideas is evident in many developing countries, and is being
expressed in the decentralization of government functions and the Revolution of
governmental authority. The twin processes of decentralization and devolution-
discussed later in this chapter and in full detail in Chapter 9 are causing govern-
ments to be resealed into spatial units that can approximate clusters of neighbor-
hoods. All this suggests that urban neighborhoods are likely to retain a good deal
of social meaning in low-income countries.
Neighborhoods and Demographic Behavior: Theory
This section explores the implications of neighborhood contexts for two types of
demographic behavior: first, investments in "child quality," which have to do with
OCR for page 35
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
35
children's schooling and the adoption of time-intensive modes of child care on the
part of parents; and second, household knowledge of health care and the nature of
health outcomes.
For well over a century, specialists in public health have understood that the
spatial proximity and intermixing of diverse city populations must amplify the
risks of contagious disease. The resources shared within neighborhoods aneigh-
borhood well in the famous health puzzle solved by John Snow (1855) present
opportunities for social interaction that can have profound epidemiological con-
sequences. An appreciation for the neighborhood aspects of child quality invest-
ments, however, is comparatively recent. Some of the theories reviewed below
stress the acquisition of information about the labor market and the economic
returns to children's schooling; others address the time and opportunity costs of
child rearing; and still others consider the location of services and institutions.
To the panel's knowledge, none of these theories has been properly tested in
low-income countries, but we comment on the features that would appear most
salient.5
Social learning via social networks
Theories of social learning draw attention to the information that is exchanged
through peer groups and personal social networks. Such individual-to-group link-
ages are a prominent feature of models in many social science disciplines, includ-
ing anthropology, sociology, economics, cognitive psychology, and the communi-
cation sciences. The common thread is this: In situations of flux and uncertainty,
when new choices and strategies are being debated, people naturally look to their
reference groups and role models to understand the benefits, costs, and uncertain-
ties of these new choices. In the demographic realm, social learning can prompt
a rethinking of broad family strategies, or it can be narrowly focused on new tools
and behavioral options.6
Social learning about education provides one example of the transformation
of family strategies. If left to their own perceptual devices, adolescents and their
parents would probably have only the haziest sense of the economic returns to
schooling. In diverse urban settings, however, they can gain a keener appreci-
ation of these returns by observing local adult role models and reference groups
(Wilson, 1987; Borjas, 1995~. Professional and middle-class adults exemplify dis-
tinctive life-course strategies; in so doing, they help others understand the implica-
tions of educational investments and decision points. If social learning enhances
5This review closely follows the presentation of Gephart (1997: 6-7), who draws in turn from
Jencks and Mayer (1990).
6A large literature in sociology, geography, and economics focuses on diffusion and social learning
processes see Montgomery and Casterline (1993, 1996) and National Research Council (2001) for
extensive reviews with attention to demographic implications. Although the behavioral mechanisms
suggested are often plausible, this literature presents few rigorous empirical tests of their significance.
We revisit this point later in the chapter.
OCR for page 36
36
CITIES TRANSFORMED
the perceived returns to schooling (it can also raise concerns about educational
costs and risks), urban families can be led to make deeper investments in their
children's schooling and to forego traditional strategies of high fertility.
Social learning about the tools of fertility control modern contraceptives-
was central to the success of the Taichung family planning experiment discussed
above (Palmore and Freedman, 1969~. The learning mechanisms uncovered in
that early experiment are being revisited in models of social networks and
the diffusion of modern contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa. Montgomery
and Casterline (1993, 1996) develop the theory with reference to contraceptive
use, and strong confirmation is found in empirical estimates made by Behrman,
Kohler, and Watkins (2001) for Kenya and Casterline, Montgomery, Agyeman,
Aglobitse, and Kiros (2001) for Ghana. These findings based on longitudinal
designs with repeated measures of networks show how contraceptive use (and
knowledge of AIDS) can be spread within localized social networks, diffusing as
if by force of example.
Although these empirical studies have focused on diffusion in either
rural (Behrman, Kohler, and Watkins, 2001) or rural and periurban (Casterline,
Montgomery, Agyeman, Aglobitse, and Kiros, 2001) networks, there is no reason
to expect the effects to be limited to these contexts. Indeed, as the Taichung exper-
iment strongly suggests, the socioeconomic diversity of cities and the heterogene-
ity of the information that circulates within them probably enhance the prospects
for informational spillovers. But surprisingly little is known about urban/rural
differences in the composition and function of social networks. Beggs, Haines,
and Hurlbert (1996) find that in the United States, rural social network ties are
"stronger" in the sense of involving greater intimacy, more frequent contact, and
longer duration; that rural networks are more homogeneous (especially in terms
of religion) and smaller than urban networks; and that they are more dominated
by kin. We know of no comparisons of this sort for developing countries.7
Clustering, common resources, and contagion
In describing social learning, some researchers refer to the "contagiousness" of
ideas and social examples, and make use of mathematical models drawn from epi-
demiology to trace out the implications (e.g., Rosero-Bixby and Casterline,1993~.
If models of social contagion are still relatively new and untested, models of bio-
logical contagion are by now well established. In epidemiology it is understood
that, with other things being equal, the risks of disease transmission among spa-
tially proximate urban populations must be higher than the risks facing dispersed
rural populations. Clustering obviously affects the likelihood of person-to-person
7 Mitchell (1969) offers many clues as to the nature of urban social networks in southern Africa in
the 1950s, but the studies collected here are on such a small scale that they might almost be regarded
as anecdotal. More recent evidence on urban social networks in Africa can be found in Tostensen,
Tvedten, and Vaa (2001).
OCR for page 37
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
37
contagion, whether due to airborne or sexually transmitted disease. Also, because
concentrated urban populations share certain resources (notably water), the san-
itary practices of one group can generate externalities that affect the health of
another.
As a result, urban populations start from a position of health disadvantage
relative to rural populations. Where this disadvantage is erased or reversed, one
looks for the cause in several areas: in the investments and regulation undertaken
by governments to improve water supply and sanitation, in the provision of both
public- and private-sector health services, and in the economic factors that supply
urban residents with the means to purchase better health care in private markets
(see, among others, Preston and van de Walle, 1978; Ewbank and Preston, 1990;
Preston and Haines, 1991; van Poppel and van der Heijden, 1997~. As discussed
below and in Chapter 7, neighborhood health externalities are not wholly a local
affair they also reflect actions taken by the public and private institutions that
transcend neighborhoods.
Collective and institutional socialization
Theories of collective socialization also highlight the linkages from individuals
to groups, but these theories emphasize a form of group influence that is dis-
tinct from social learning and contagion. The mechanisms of collective social-
ization are powerfully described by Wilson (1987) and Coleman (1988), whose
work generated a resurgence of interest in neighborhood effects in the cities of the
United States. Their research focuses attention on the role of adults residing in the
neighborhood, who can supplement the child-rearing efforts of parents by acting
as extraparental sources of authority and social control. Directly and by exam-
ple, these neighborhood adults can teach the young the boundaries of acceptable
behavior.
What if city neighborhoods lack such trusted adults? As will be seen in
Chapter 6, parents in developing-country cities often complain of the need for
extra vigilance in child rearing, describing this as one of the costs of family life
that is decidedly higher in cities. This is, perhaps, the other side of the notion
that "it takes a village to raise a child": in city neighborhoods where neighbors
are distrusted, the burden of child rearing can fall heavily on parents' own shoul-
ders. Furstenberg (1993) describes how in poor U.S. neighborhoods, apprehen-
sive parents take pains to isolate their children from the surrounding population
and thereby shield them from social risk. Girls in such high-risk settings may
be especially closely supervised (Furstenberg and Hughes, 1997: 28~. If simi-
lar views prevail in the cities of poor countries we strongly suspect that they
do the costs entailed in close parental supervision could strongly discourage
high fertility.
Institutional socialization refers to the nonresident adults who are figures of
influence in a neighborhood because they hold positions in local schools, clinics,
OCR for page 38
38
CITIES TRANSFORMED
police departments, or other institutions. In these roles, adults can affect the
young both directly and indirectly. If schools in poor neighborhoods are staffed
by inferior teachers, the direct effects may be seen in delayed child develop-
ment and discouraged human capital investment. Indirect influence can be ex-
erted when teachers or health clinicians require the young to adhere to strict
standards of comportment. In such ways, nonresident adults can wield influ-
ence much like that of the resident adults envisioned in collective socialization
theory.
Although institutional socialization theory has generally focused on micro-
level outcomes for children and adolescents, it is closely linked to the allocation
of societal resources to neighborhoods (White, 2001~. Political and economic
processes that deliver good schools and high-quality health clinics to some neigh-
borhoods while leaving others ill served can affect the young by altering the depth
and form of institutional socialization.
Social comparisons and subculture conflict
The focus of social comparison theory is on the perception of relative deprivation
and the possibility that when young people judge their own situation to be rela-
tively unfavorable, the reaction may be either to redouble efforts to improve or to
abandon these efforts and drop out of the competition. The theory is described by
van den Eeden and Huttner (1982: 42-6) as one of comparative reference groups.
The specifically urban aspect is the relative ease with which diverse reference
groups can be observed in cities as a result of the spatial proximity and socioeco-
nomic heterogeneity of urban residents.
When frustrated by blocked opportunities, the young may respond by forming
subcultures of resistance. Their individual motivations may be the product of
social comparisons, as sketched just above, but the emphasis in cultural conflict
theory is on how such motivations are voiced and reinforced by groups (Jencks
and Mayer, 1990: 116~. Chapter 9 examines urban gangs and violence from this
perspective; see Durlauf (1999) on how disaffected urban groups may constitute a
"perverse" form of local social capital.
The types of social comparison addressed in these theories have not been ex-
plored in much demographic research. A rather different form of social com-
parison, however, has attracted a modest amount of attention. We refer to the
consumption possibilities exhibited in the behavior of upper-income groups and
displayed in advertisements and television soap operas. In rural areas, the social
chasm between high-income families and the bulk of the population may be wide
enough to render the consumption habits of the rich irrelevant to most residents.
In economically diverse cities, however, a greater range of social groups may find
some modern consumer durables affordable, and as these items are taken up by
middle-class households, they may come to be seen as potentially within the reach
of the upwardly striving poor. In this form of social comparison, individuals are
OCR for page 39
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
39
influenced by the consumption patterns exhibited in their reference groups.8 As
Freedman (1979) argues, aspirations for modern consumer goods can exert a pow-
erful influence on fertility decisions, particularly when the costs of consumption
are understood to compete with the costs of childrearing.
Services and the physical environment
A prominent theme in demographic research is that the services available in local
neighborhoods can either complement or act as substitutes for individual and fam-
ily resources.9 In the area of health, for instance, it is thought that mothers who
are educated are equipped with information of direct relevance to health care, and
that education also helps mothers process the information provided by the media
and government, and supplies them with the social confidence needed to seek care
for themselves and their children (Caldwell, 1979~. Local health services might
therefore complement and enhance the positive effects of maternal education, and
in this way could increase the health differentials associated with education. But it
is also possible that well-functioning services could supply information to women
of low education that they might not have been able to acquire by other means. If
so, local services could act as substitutes for maternal education, and the presence
of services in the community might then reduce the health differentials associated
with education.
Examining child mortality rates in Brazil, Sastry (1996) conducts an unusually
thorough examination of substitution and complementarily between community
measures, on the one hand, and mothers' education, on the other. He finds evi-
dence of substitution between mothers' education and community sanitation and
water supply in Northeast Brazil. In this region, community infrastructure appears
to be more beneficial for the survival of children of less-educated mothers than for
that of children of the better educated. But as Sastry notes, even for Brazil the lit-
erature offers mixed results, and there is reason to think that the substitution and
complementarily effects must be highly context-specific, depending on policies,
prices, and levels of development.
The theories outlined above are concerned with social interactions and or-
dering, but the ways in which local space is physically ordered may also have
demographic implications. Highways, waterways, and other physical features of
neighborhoods can establish barriers, corridors, and niches that shape social inter-
actions and distribute risks across space. As Sampson and Morenoff (2000: 379)
observe for the United States,
... the ecological placement of bars, liquor stores, strip-mall shop-
ping outlets, subway stops, and unsupervised nlav spaces nlav a
Thor economic explorations of consumption reference groups, see Alessie and Kapteyn (1991) and
Kapteyn, van de Geer, van de Stadt, and Wansbeek (1997).
9Sastry (1996) provides an excellent review of the salient concepts and literature, touching on
earlier studies by Rosenzweig and Schultz (1982), Thomas, Strauss, and Henriques (1991), and others.
OCR for page 64
64
CITIES TRANSFORMED
To sum up, with cities having grown and projected their influence across space,
the "city-region" now deserves consideration as a unit of analysis for governance
and policy. Although difficult to define with precision, a city-region is identifiable
by the extent and nature of economic activity in an economic zone surrounding a
large city. Many such regions have grown enormously over recent decades. The
Extended Bangkok Region, for example, now contains more than 17 million peo-
ple; by 2010 it is expected to extend some 200 kilometers from its current center
(Kaothien and Webster, 20014. Such new regional forms, with their highly diverse
populations, will require innovative approaches to planning and administration.
FROM GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNANCE
Governments provide the legal and regulatory structures within which social and
economic interactions take place; they arrange for the delivery of public services;
and they attempt to manage the externalities and conflicts that inevitably accom-
pany social interaction. For these reasons, governments are inescapable presences
in local urban spaces. As we have just seen, however, cities are assuming com-
plex spatial forms, often extending into terrain where the lines of governmental
authority are muddled and casting influence across regions that include substan-
tial rural populations. These developments are presenting governments with new
needs to mediate among diverse demands (Simmonds and Hack, 2000; Scott,
2001).
The forms in which governments project themselves into these spaces have
also been rapidly changing. In many developing countries, local and regional
governments are taking on greater prominence, while national governments are
stepping back into indirect and seemingly less intrusive roles. As described in
Chapter 9, a process of decentralization is under way, whereby national govern-
ments are devolving to lower-level governments many political, fiscal, and admin-
istrative powers. Across the developing world, new local governmental forms and
units are proliferating at a rate that is little short of astonishing. This phenomenon
is in part the result of growing agreement that effective urban management re-
quires new formal structures of government (Sivaramakrishanan, 1996~. It also
owes a great deal to the introduction of democratic principles in many countries,
and to the increased importance being accorded to citizen and community voice
(UNCHS, 1996~. These are welcome developments in many quarters; yet they
imply that for some time to come, the levers of local policy will be manipulated
by new and inexperienced governmental actors.
As governments are resealed into smaller spatial units, they are engaging more
directly with private-sector actors and NGOs. The term governance describes this
engagement. It refers to a set of relationships: between the state and civil society,
between rulers and the ruled, and between governments proper and those who
are governed. Good governance is, in part, the outcome of government processes
that are transparent, as executed by bureaucracies instilled with a professional
ethos and accountable for their actions. In a healthy system of governance, these
OCR for page 65
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
65
structures of government are engaged with a civil society that for its part takes an
active role in public affairs; in such a system, all parties adhere to the rule of law
(Sivaramakrishanan, 1996~. The reciprocity and mutual engagement entailed in
good governance should build trust and lend support to the development of local
and national social capital (World Bank, 2000a).
As Stren (2002) observes, there is a certain romantic quality to some discus-
sions of governance, which imply that moving governments closer to the peo-
ple (the "grass roots") must heighten sensitivity to local needs and bring more
democracy and transparency to the processes by which these needs are addressed.
The current wave of decentralization is far more widespread than its historical
predecessors Stren notes two comparable "moments" of decentralization in
Africa and Asia, the first in the period surrounding independence and the second
in the 1970s but many of the warnings sounded earlier about limits and risks still
warrant attention.
It is exceedingly difficult to measure the efficiency and responsiveness of lo-
cal governments, and empirical evidence on their performance is thus far mixed
(World Bank, 2000a). Theories of public finance point to several potential ad-
vantages of small, localized governmental units. In decentralized systems, local
governments acquire a stake in local economic prosperity. They can arrange the
menu of local public goods to suit local preferences, although the quantities sup-
plied will still be constrained by local revenue-raising capacities and transfers
from other levels of government. In such systems, local consumers can express
their preferences for bundles of public goods by voting or by moving to other juris-
dictions (Tiebout, 1956~. Under ideal conditions, local politics can then achieve
something of the efficiency of markets. The increasingly globalized nature of
economic relations is another factor to be considered. Local firms working with
nimble, entrepreneurial local governments can collaborate to attract foreign direct
investment, sometimes by sidestepping central government authorities or involv-
ing them only minimally (UNCHS, 2001~.
At the same time, however, small governmental units can suffer from signif-
icant disadvantages. Some aspects of governance and regulation may lie well
beyond their technical and revenue-raising capacities. Unless transfers from
higher-level governments are well designed (see Box 2.5), local governments in
have-not regions will rarely be able to marshal the resources available to those
in wealthier regions, and if such tendencies are left unchecked, the result can be
pronounced regional inequities.24 In decentralized systems, higher-level govern-
ments need to devise ways of managing the externalities that spill across local gov-
ernmental boundaries.25 In addition, when the national government cedes power
24Discussing how systems of intergovernmental transfers can be designed to promote efficiency and
equity, Bird and Smart (2002) note that adverse selection and related behavior on the part of local
governments can defeat the good intentions of the system designers.
25Some observers blame weak national states and porous national safety nets for the growth of
megacities and the expansion of slums in developing countries, whose cities simply lack the tools to
manage national-level demographic and economic flows (Tulchin, 1998).
OCR for page 66
66
CITIES TRANSFORMED
BOX 2.5 Intergovernmental Transfers and Targeted Social Assistance
Alderman (2001) describes the case of intergovernmental transfers from the national to the
local (commune) level of government in Albania, where a social assistance program is in
place to help the poor. The Albanian national government lacks all but the most rudimen-
tary data on poverty at the local level. To allocate its transfers among local governments,
the national government employs ad hoc criteria that appear to be very weakly related to
local poverty rates. Although funds are evidently well distributed once they reach the local
level, the system as a whole fails to make the best use of resources. Alderman (2001: 50)
concludes that "to take advantage of local governments' assumed access to local informa-
tion, there must be a corresponding flow of information to the center as well as an incentive
to use this information." For instance, census data can be used to generate poverty rankings
at the level of local governments, and such spatially disaggregated data can provide the
national government with tools to improve its resource allocation.
to local governments, representation is not guaranteed to all local interest groups.
In some cases, the Revolution appears to do little more than transfer power from
national to local elites. Partnerships of local firms and local governments can in-
vite corruption and render local political processes opaque where transparency is
the ideal. Finally, decentralization can threaten macroeconomic stability if central
governments lose control over total public outlays.
The phenomenon of decentralization with all its attendant risks and ben-
efits, often heatedly debated in the countries involved does not yet appear to
have engaged the attention of the international demographic research community.
Perhaps in many countries, health and family planning services are still being
delivered through vertically organized ministries of health, much as they have
been for decades. But in many other countries, the decentralization of these ser-
vices is being actively contemplated, and in some it is already well under way.
A recent analysis by Schwartz, Guilkey, and Racelis (2002) in the Philippines
employed rare before-and-after data on local governmental units to determine
whether decentralization has affected rates of child immunization and the use of
family planning. In this case, it appears that the transfer of resources from
national to local authorities has increased local resources overall. The additional
resources have evidently encouraged the use of family planning, although they do
not appear to have had the same impact on immunization.
Until researchers can assemble more case studies such as this, the implications
of decentralization for reproductive health will remain highly uncertain. When de-
centralization confers greater authority over health and family planning services
on municipal governments, which have long lacked professional staff and man-
agerial expertise, on what basis will these governments make their decisions about
resources and policies? Will they possess the requisite technical abilities, and the
revenue-rasing capacities, to wield their newly assumed powers effectively? What
role should national-level professional associations play, along with the national
OCR for page 67
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
67
ministries, in seeing that technical expertise is made available to small govern-
ments? Perhaps the only certain element in all of this is that the international
policy dialogue in reproductive health, which has in the past been a matter of dis-
cussion with national ministries and NGOs, will soon have to engage on a broader
front with the many new units of government and local NGOs that populate de-
centralized settings.
WHAT REMAINS OF THE URBAN/RURAL DIVIDE?
In concluding, we survey the broad concepts that have entered this discussion
and ask whether they point to specific features that distinguish urban from ru-
ral landscapes. The urban/rural distinction is one that has been contemplated by
generations of thoughtful scholars, few of whom have failed to note its many in-
tricacies. The urban concept is an abstraction that involves multiple distinct but
interrelated social, economic, political, and ecological factors (McGee and Grif-
fiths, 1998; Frey and Zimmer, 20014. Furthermore, when carefully considered,
the differences between urban and rural populations are almost always seen to be
differences in degree rather than in kind. In almost any aspect that might be con-
sidered, urban and rural populations have something in common, and they often
overlap substantially. The conceptual challenge, then, is to identify the central
tendencies without denying the commonalities.
At the outset we referred to five concepts that tap distinctive aspects of ur-
ban social and economic relations proximity, diversity, externality, network, and
centrality. While giving attention to the first four of these, we have not commented
much on the fifth. Centrality is a summarizing concept: in our usage it refers to
the multiple strands of economic and social interchange that are knit together in
cities (Sassen, 20024. These strands also reach to rural areas, and they have links
that extend to the international arena. But they intertwine in cities, and from the
many knots and nodes there emanates a quality that might be described as urban-
ness. In employing this sort of language abstract and rather tentative we are
of course signaling the many difficulties that would be involved in moving from
summary concepts to their empirical measures.
This report takes the position that urbanness is best conceived in terms of a
continuum, or gradient, along which individual populations are arrayed. The dis-
cussion earlier in this chapter referred to city-regions and desakota zones, phrases
that are suggestive of a blurring between urban and rural populations. Are urban
and rural areas now so thoroughly intermixed that the urban/rural distinction has
lost its analytic value? We think not. As will be seen repeatedly in the chapters to
come, even very crude indicators of position on the urban/rural continuum the
definitions of urban and rural that are adopted by national statistical agencies-
are empirically powerful in explaining demographic behavior. Whatever these
conventional measures may mean, they somehow succeed in capturing impor-
tant locational differences. But the empirical performance of crude indicators
OCR for page 68
68
CITIES TRANSFORMED
notwithstanding, the concept of an urban/rural divide appears to be losing what-
ever intellectual appeal it may once have had. The difficulty is how to devise
satisfactory measures of the alternative concept of an urban/rural continuum-
with attention to the many ways in which rural residents are now partaking of
urban life.
To appreciate the empirical challenge, consider the case of Real Montecasino,
a settlement of about a thousand residents located just south of Mexico City,
wedged between the Federal District and the Metropolitan Zone of Cuernavaca.
The 2000 Mexican census classified Real Montecasino as rural. Yet only 1.8 per-
cent of the its labor force is engaged in the primary sector; 83 percent of its houses
have electricity, piped water, and waste disposal; 70 percent of its households
own telephones; 66 percent own cars; and 92 percent have televisions (Garza,
2002~. Despite its small population size, Real Montecasino is arguably an outpost
of Mexico City.
To distinguish such fine gradations in the urban/rural continuum, criteria such
as the degree to which cities are accessible from rural areas (or remote from them)
will need to be explored in some detail, making use of all available census and
survey data on commuting times and spells of short-term city residence (Coombes
and Raybould, 2001; Hugo, Champion, and Lattes, 2001~. Appendix A gives an
account of recent efforts in the United States to rethink urban measurement, and
very similar issues face the national statistical services of many developing coun-
tries. Advances in geocoding may enable researchers to link many different sorts
of data, thus permitting more sophisticated measurement (Hugo, Champion, and
Lattes, 2001~. A glimpse of the possibilities is given in Box 2.6 for Cairo, where
a combination of remotely sensed and census data permits a gradient of urbanness
to be distinguished within the Greater Cairo metropolitan area. But to measure
the micro-level aspects of social and economic interaction will surely require en-
tirely new forms of data collection; it is doubtful that data gathered routinely by
censuses or satellites will suffice. Although the concept of an urban/rural divide
should perhaps be readied for the scrap heap, much more research will be required
for the concept of a continuum to be put into a useful and operational form.
Table 2-1 summarizes the main urban/rural differences as seen from a de-
mographic perspective. This chapter has emphasized the social embeddedness
of information and behavior (Granovetter, 1985), drawing attention to the ways
in which individuals and families are linked to their social networks, neighbor-
hoods, and local associations; how they are connected to the larger structures of
government; and how they may be engaged as groups in relations of governance.
Although a multilevel perspective can be highly informative about rural societies,
we would maintain that such that a perspective is essential to an understanding
of urban demography. As our review of the U.S. sociological literature shows,
this is hardly a novel or controversial perspective, but its insights have yet to be
developed in the contexts of developing-country cities.
OCR for page 69
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
69
BOX 2.6 Using Multiple Data Sources to Define Urbanness: The Case of Cairo
~ ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
..,., ....
............
. ~.
I,:.........
................
.............................
i ~
........ , .,
A ..
...... ~
. .
......
. ~
A is, ,
............. `,
. ~ ~,
, ~ ., .
t ~ ., \,
I ~ ~. Am.
............ - ~
...... air - . .
........ , ., ~
.............. .b .
?::::::::
;; At,.
~ .
I . ~
s.~ ............
.......
.......... )
,P,- ,.,
. .,.-, ,~
,:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:.s:;
. ~.
............
...... ,.
i..........
I x
This figure, adapted from ongoing research by Weeks (2002), depicts a composite index of
urbanness derived from an unusual blend of remotely sensed data on land cover (indicators
of vegetation, impervious surfaces, bare soil, and the shade cast by buildings) and census
data on population density and the proportion of the labor force in nonagricultural occupa-
tions. The spatial units represented are shiakhas, of which there are some 300 in Greater
Cairo.
The map shows a gradient with the highest values of urbanness (portrayed in dark
shading) in the center of the city straddling the banks of the Nile. Urbanness declines
as one moves toward the newer urban areas to the west of the Nile (in Giza governorate).
Weeks has found that the composite urbanness index is correlated with several demographic
measures at the shiakhas level: the areas classified as more urban have lower fertility, later
ages at marriage, and greater education.
OCR for page 70
70
TABLE 2-1 Dimensions in Which Urban Environments Differ from Rural
Social: (1) The spatial proximity of social
and economic diversity; (2) the range
and weak ties of social networks;
CITIES TRANSFORMED
(6) higher urban incomes on aver-
age, possibly with greater income
disparities.
(3) a social delineation of neighbor- Health <1y Greater inherent risks of com-
municable disease, including those
that are sexually transmitted; (2) pos-
sibly lower unit costs for provision of
clean water; (3) a different range of
occupational health and safety risks;
(4) greater numbers of urban poor
at risk from some natural disasters
because of population concentration;
(5) possible economies of proximity
in health media campaigns, and infor-
mational spillovers from the educated
to the less-educated and through so-
cial networks; (6) greater access to
health services through private mar-
kets and mixed public-private provi-
sion; (7) quicker access to emergency
services, of great importance to ma-
ternal mortality; and (8) composition
of disease within the population al-
tered by higher incomes and better
public provision of services.
hoods, with neighborhood ties be-
ing subsets of wider network ties;
(4) informational spillovers and other
externalities; (5) spatial segregation;
and (6) distinct forms taken by urban
social capital (including gangs and
"perverse" forms), and the possibility
of "bridges" to government and fund-
ing resources.
Economic: (1) Scale, spillover, and di-
versity effects; (2) far greater special-
ization and diversity in private mar-
kets, such as in health services; and
(3) greater utilization of physical cap-
ital and infrastructure.
Human Capital: (1) Easier access to
middle and secondary schooling;
(2) greater visibility of educated ref-
erence groups and role models; and
(3) greater social risks attending child
rearing, implying higher costs in
parental time.
Prices and Consumption: (1) Costs of
living and incomes more monetized;
(2) greater exposure to variation in
wages and prices, hence greater sub-
jective sensitivity to their levels; (3) a
greater range of goods and services
available; and (4) greater visibil-
ity of diverse consumption reference
groups.
Livelihoods: (1) Nonagricultural occupa-
tions far more prevalent; (2) fewer
possibilities for own production and
consumption of food; (3) possibly
greater returns to human capital;
(4) for urban households, nothing
quite comparable to Green Revolu-
tion agricultural technology in rais-
ing productivity; (5) greater eco-
nomic value of urban housing; and
Basic Services: (1) Greater percentage of
households with water supply, waste
disposal, and electricity; (2) differ-
ent dimensions of access, with qual-
ity, reliability, and adequacy of ser-
vice taking on greater importance,
and time costs often of lesser impor-
tance; and (3) a greater reliance on il-
legal forms of access to basic services
and housing.
Government: (1) Greater dependence on
government implied by urban pop-
ulation concentration and diversity;
(2) greater exposure to a multiplicity
of laws and regulations; (3) possibly
greater vulnerability to "bad" govern-
ment; (4) especially in large cities,
multiple layers and units of gov-
ernment; and (5) possibly (in some
cities) greater ability of local govern-
ments to raise their own revenues.
OCR for page 71
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
71
Many of the points mentioned in Table 2-1 have already been described at
length or are taken up in more detail in later chapters. Our comments here can be
brief. A number of the distinctively urban social features stem from one source:
spatial proximity brings socioeconomic diversity into focus. Proximity allows in-
formation to flow more easily among social network members; it highlights social
reference groups and role models; and it puts diverse consumption possibilities
on view. As mentioned earlier, spatial segregation is likely to have profound de-
mographic implications because it suppresses diversity in the local environs. In
the economic realm, proximity enables firms and entrepreneurs to learn from the
experiments, successes, and failures of their competitors. The spatial dispersion
of rural populations and the greater homogeneity of much agricultural production
generally raise the costs of such social and economic exchange.
In advancing such broad and general claims, we are mindful of important
counterexamples. It was in the context of agriculture, after all, that the early
theories of information diffusion and adoption of new technology were formu-
lated (Griliches, 1957; Hagerstrand, 1952), and recent data drawn mainly from
rural sites provide the most convincing demographic demonstration of diffusion
operating through social networks (Behrman, Kohler, and Watkins, 2001; Caster-
line, Montgomery, Agyeman, Aglobitse, and Kiros, 2001~. Moreover, some may
object to giving urban diversity greater emphasis than city size. Large cities do
tend to exhibit greater diversity than small ones (Henderson, 2002), and in the
economic arena, scale is something of a precondition for specialization and diver-
sity. Nevertheless, scale and diversity are conceptually and empirically separable
features of urban environments. As Henderson has shown for high-technology
industries in the United States and Korea, it is diversity rather than city size as
such that generates productivity advantages for these industries.
Where social capital is concerned, there are likely to be many differences
between its urban and rural expressions; to our knowledge there has been no sys-
tematic study of those differences. Residential mobility and migration are thought
to weaken the basis for cooperation in city neighborhoods. Yet it is difficult to
know whether urban areas are, in general, sites of high residential mobility. In
the panel's own research experience, many city neighborhoods have proven to be
residentially stable (see UNCHS, 1996: 206 for confirmation).
Certainly urban environments do not prevent the mobilization of social capital.
The literature offers numerous examples of strong, effective, and inclusive urban
community organizations; recall Box 2.2 on the alliance of SPARC, Mahila Milan,
and the National Slum Dwellers Federation in Mumbai. Indeed, urban settings
would often appear to provide more opportunities for community organizations
to negotiate with government agencies (Appadurai, 2001; Boonyabancha, 2001;
Baumann, Bolnick, and Mitlin, 2001; Tostensen, Tvedten, and Vaa, 2001~. The
urban engagement between government and civil society is especially apparent in
countries with democratic systems, where there are political and legal restraints
on the power of government to suppress community mobilization.
OCR for page 72
72
CITIES TRANSFORMED
The differences in human capital are explored further in Chapters 5 and 8.
As is shown there, urban residents are more educated on average than rural resi-
dents, and would appear to enjoy easier access to middle and secondary levels of
education for their children. Less often appreciated, however, is the diversity of
educational opportunities for urban adults and children. What matters in cities,
we would argue, is not only the higher average levels of educational attainment,
but also the greater diversity of educational experiences. As discussed in Chap-
ters 5 and 6, in addition to the demands on parental time associated with children's
schooling, time costs arise from the distinctive social risks of urban child rearing.
Of course, these urban/rural differences should not be exaggerated. Urban
returns to schooling vary across economic sector and by city size and diversity;
education is known to help rural farmers exploit new agricultural technologies.
As is shown in Chapter 5, school enrollment rates among the children of the urban
poor often are hardly greater than those among rural children. In both rural and
urban settings, the need for child labor can keep children from attending school
regularly or at all.
It is a commonplace that urban populations rely more heavily than rural pop-
ulations on cash income for access to necessities including food, fuel, fresh wa-
ter, housing (which is more commercialized in cities), transport, and waste dis-
posal. Monetization reduces transactions costs and raises real standards of liv-
ing, but with these benefits comes a greater vulnerability to changes in money
wages and prices. The fact that most urban goods and services are monetized
may also induce in urban populations a keener appreciation of relative costs in
general, and may draw special attention to the relative costs of child rearing.
To be sure, monetization is probably more characteristic of larger than smaller
cities. In many countries, a significant proportion of rural dwellers are also de-
pendent on cash income, and they, too, can face variable prices for some goods and
services.
As discussed in Chapter 5, it is difficult to know just how much the prices
of essentials differ between urban and rural populations. The costs no doubt
vary enormously among rural areas themselves, among cities, and among dif-
ferent neighborhoods within cities. In rich countries, advances in transport and
communications, together with sophisticated systems of wholesale and retail trade,
have suppressed much spatial variation in prices. These factors operate with far
less force in most poor countries. In many of their cities, the urban poor face
particularly high costs for such essentials as water and health care because public
services are not reliably provided to poor neighborhoods, and the private markets
offering substitutes can be highly imperfect or exploitative.
Still, rural populations may face high money costs for some goods as well. As
recent economic studies have shown at the national level (Limao and Venables,
2001), the costs of transporting goods to rural areas are reflected in two sorts of
penalties: higher prices and severe limits on the range of goods available. Much
like landlocked countries, rural populations often suffer both of these penalties.
OCR for page 73
WHY LOCATION MATTERS
73
For many rural dwellers, access is limited by the inconvenience and relatively
high cost of transport, which for a given physical distance renders less accessible
schools, health centers, emergency services, courts, banks, politicians, and the
institutions meant to enforce the rule of law. For the urban poor, it is not so
much distance to services and institutions that matters, but rather exclusion from
them for economic, social, or political reasons. A squatter household living 200
yards from a hospital, secondary school, or bank can be as effectively excluded
as a rural dweller living 20 miles away. Proximity may ease access, but does not
guarantee it.
Discussions of urbanness often begin by noting the prevalence of nonagri-
cultural occupations, and it is certainly true that urban livelihoods are less di-
rectly dependent than rural on access to land, water, and other natural resources.
Urban residents cannot easily turn to subsistence production to cope with ris-
ing prices or declining incomes. However, urban agriculture is more important
to low-income residents than is commonly realized. Also, as discussed earlier,
many urban dwellers maintain some claims on rural assets. In the same way, rural
households can depend on nonfarm income, whether from wages, nonagricultural
production, or urban remittances.
Housing is a key economic resource for low-income urban residents: it can
supply income (from the renting out of rooms or as space for household-based
enterprises); it has value as collateral; and it reflects trade-offs made in access to
employment, as when the poor accept low-quality or dangerous locations to save
on transport costs. Rural housing can also play an economic role (as with food
processing and crafts), but generally this role is of lesser importance to household
economic strategies.
Earlier in this chapter, we described the greater risks of communicable dis-
ease faced by city populations in the absence of adequate infrastructure and good
governance. Higher levels of health risk are very much to be expected in ur-
ban areas lacking provisions for infrastructure, services, and waste management.
Dispersed rural populations enjoy a measure of natural protection from much
communicable disease. (Some large rural villages can also suffer from urban-
like concentrations of population and pollution due, for instance, to livestock and
agroprocessing.) Massive public-sector investments are required to convert an in-
herent urban health disadvantage to the urban advantage that is often taken as a
given in modern populations.
Cities exhibit a different range of occupational health and safety risks than
is seen in rural areas as a result of differences in the kinds of work undertaken
(involving industrial chemicals and wastes, dust, heat, or dangerous machinery).
Particular groups (such as waste pickers) face especially high occupational risks.
But rural occupational health and safety risks should not be understated. There
are high levels of health risk in many rural areas due to poorly managed irriga-
tion (schistosomiasis, malaria), agricultural chemicals, dangerous machinery, and
excessive physical demands. Finally, the spatially concentrated urban poor are
OCR for page 74
74
CITIES TRANSFORMED
vulnerable to natural disasters because they live on land at high risk from floods,
landslides, or earthquakes. Rural populations are also vulnerable to natural disas-
ters in many countries.
A central theme in this discussion is the pervasive influence of governments.
Cities are marked by a multiplicity of laws, official norms, rules, and regula-
tions that can be applied to land use, construction, economic enterprises, and
production. To many observers, it appears that a regrettably common use of
these regulations is to render illegal many of the means by which the urban poor
gain access to their housing and livelihoods (Hardoy and Satterthwaite, 1989~.
Because access to services is less a matter of distance than of ability to pay and
political clout, one finds in cities a greater reliance on illegal solutions for access
to services such as illegal taps of piped water and electricity and this carries
over to illegally occupied or subdivided land. Illegal or informal settlements are
often concentrated on land sites subject to flooding or at risk from landslides or
other natural hazards, especially where these sites offer low-income settlers the
best chance of establishing a home or avoiding eviction. Often these sites also
prove to be difficult to equip with basic infrastructure (Hardoy, Mitlin, and Sat-
terthwaite, 2001~.
The spatial concentration and visibility of urban populations may well leave
them at the mercy of bureaucracies and powerful vested interests. On occasion,
however, spatial concentration can also confer on the poor a certain political mass
and even a measure of power. Stren (2002) notes that in Latin America, a common
strategy among poor groups was to stage mass "land invasions" in an effort to
secure access to urban land. Although not always immediately successful, this
strategy enabled some poor groups to voice effectively their claim to a share of
public resources.
In summary, Table 2-1 shows the main elements the panel believes lend ur-
ban landscapes their distinctive character. In considering each of these elements
and in highlighting exceptions and counterexamples, we have endeavored to show
how along each dimension, the urban/rural distinction is mainly a question of
degree. The quality of urbanness which eludes definition, but is somehow easy
to sense emanates less from any single dimension listed than from their
combination.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
social capital
