The traditional rural-urban dichotomy, and the correspondingly mandated governance structure, appear insufficient to comprehend and address poverty, malnutrition, education, health, environmental management, and even development. To understand urban-rural interconnections and address environmental and natural resource management issues, the concept of urban catchment areas delineated along an urban-rural continuum must be adopted.
What exactly is the rural-urban dichotomy?
- Distinct Division: The perception of a clear and distinct separation between rural and urban areas, which are viewed as two distinct and separate entities.
- Significant Distinctions: This dichotomy is based on the assumption that there are significant differences in social, economic, and cultural characteristics between rural and urban areas.
- Traditional vs. contemporary values: It implies that rural areas are primarily agricultural, underdeveloped, and possess traditional social and cultural values, whereas urban areas are more developed, industrialised, and possess modern values.
The Rural-Urban Continuum
- The Rural-Urban Continuum is an alternative viewpoint that recognises the existence of intermediate areas that blur the line between rural and urban.
- Between the two extremes, an intermediate settlement formation exists in which rural and urban functions coexist without discernible boundaries.
- These formations emerge as a result of the interactions of a diverse set of geographical, cultural, economic, and historical processes.
- The transition from rural to urban follows a graded development curve, and opportunities for social and economic development are determined by one’s location along this curve.
The Rural-Urban Continuum’s Importance
- Identification of urban catchment areas delineated along an urban-rural continuum would aid in understanding urban-rural interconnections, which is critical for making policy decisions across development sectors and addressing environmental and natural resource management issues.
Studies and examples of Rural-Urban Continuum
The Desakota Study report:
- The Desakota Study Team’s 2008 report, Re-imagining the Rural Urban Continuum, was based on research in eight countries, including India.
- The team’s 2008 report emphasised the importance of understanding the changing relationship between ecosystems and livelihoods across the rural-urban continuum as it has important policy implications at all levels.
In India, Kerala for instance:
- The rural-urban continuum in Kerala’s coastal plain is well known. Even Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta noted this in the 14th century. The trend continued to spread across the lowlands, as well as the adjacent midlands and highlands.
- Geographical factors, aided by affirmative public policy promoting distributive justice and decentralisation, have increased rural-urban linkages while decreasing rural-urban differences in major parts of Kerala.
- The urban industrial interaction fields in India are rapidly spreading: The urban industrial interaction fields in India are rapidly spreading by connecting rural areas and small towns around megacities and urban corridors penetrating rural hinterlands.
Removing boundaries and barriers
- Connectivity was facilitated by technology and globalisation: Technology and economic globalisation have increased resource and human mobility, as well as inter- and intra-country connectivity, promoting the rural-urban continuum.
- Physical barriers are dissolving: Physical distance barriers are dissolving as rural-urban linkages increase, resulting in diffused network regions.
- The flow of goods, people, and information is increasing: Rural hinterlands are linked to a number of urban centres, and the movement of goods, people, information, and finance between production and consumption sites has strengthened ties between production and labour markets.
The Rural-Urban Ecosystems Are Changing
- Changes in Land Use: Agriculturally productive lands are being converted to other uses, food security zones are being reconfigured, and pollutant filtering areas are shrinking.
- Ecosystem Services and Local Livelihoods Affected: There is an increase in waste dump, increased disaster risk, and increased vulnerability, limiting local people’s access to water, food, fuel, fodder, and fibre from ecosystems.
- Intermediary Market Institutions Emerge: At the same time, intermediary market institutions are emerging to provide these goods, which has important implications for the local people.
- Marginalization and Escalating Market Value of Land: There is also an escalation in the market value of land, which further marginalises them.
Way ahead
- Recognize the rural-urban continuum in discussions about social, economic, and environmental development.
- Identify challenges and opportunities for bettering urban and rural governance, as well as improving access to employment, services, institutional resources, and environmental management.
- Create a rural-urban partnership by using a systems approach in which the city and its surroundings form a city region for which a perspective plan integrating rural and urban plans is prepared within a common framework.
- Transition to a post-urban world in which the rural-urban divide will no longer exist.
- Improve mapping of rural-urban linkages by combining satellite-based settlement data with Census data.
@the end
Recognizing and addressing the interconnections between rural and urban areas along a continuum is critical in India for effective policymaking and environmental management.
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-rural-urban-continuum_fig2_240637580