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.

This book critically examines different forms of urban-rural links for sustainable development in different countries. As intertwined processes of globalization, digitalization, environmental challenges and the search for sustainable development continue, rural and urban areas around the world become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. This book contributes to understanding the role of this growing interconnectedness from an economic geographical perspective. It does so by theoretically and empirically addressing the various existing linkages, such as food networks, value chains, and regional governance at local, regional, national and international levels. In doing so, contributions extend and contrast existing approaches dealing with urban and rural areas separately by considering the interplay between these two as well as their consequences for sustainability transition pathways. This edited volume adds to the academic and policy debate by bringing together a variety of concepts and themes in order to shift the research and policy agenda away from simple dichotomy to different notions of rural-urban linkages. Offering multidisciplinary insights into rural-urban linkages, the book will be of interest to decision-makers, practitioners and researchers in the fields of economic geography, regional planning, food studies and economics.