Small and intermediate urban centres have attracted the attention of policy-makers and researchers since the 1960s. However, over the last ten years, there has been a growing interest in their significance for economic growth and poverty reduction. In part, this is because of the recognition that a considerable proportion of the world’s population live in them. By 2000, just over half the world’s urban population and a quarter of its total population lived in urban centres of less than half a million inhabitants;¹ our analyses of many recent censuses show that much of this is in market towns and administrative...

A large proportion of the urban population in most nations lives in small and intermediate urban centres. In both the North and the South, more than half the urban population is in urban centres of less than half a million inhabitants, with sizeable proportions in market towns and administrative centres that have between 5,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. The assumption that increasing proportions of the urban population will be in large cities (especially mega-cities) is now questioned and recent census data show falls in the growth rate of many of the world’s largest cities; the world in 2000 turned out to...

Since the early 1960s, small and intermediate urban centres have attracted the attention of policy-makers and planners. Different theoretical approaches have underpinned such interest and the related policy interventions, which are discussed in detail in Section 5. Early views of the role of small and intermediate urban centres in regional and rural development fell within the general paradigms of modernisation and dependency theories. In the first, small urban centres are seen as centres from which innovation and modernisation would trickle down to the rural population. Hence, the most effective and rational spatial strategy for promoting rural development is to develop...

The last 10 to 15 years have brought recognition of the multiple deprivations that most of the urban poor face; also of the limitations of definitions of poverty based only on consumption or income.¹ Figure 4.1 illustrates the many immediate (local) influences on the scale and nature of poverty.

There is also recognition that many of these deprivations have little or no link to income levels. For instance, many relate far more to the incompetence and incapacity of local governments or other bodies to provide infrastructure and services in a cost-effective manner. Those deprivations associated with poor quality and insecure...

Virtually all government policies have some effect on the form and the spatial distribution of economic activities and/or incomes ― and thus on what urban development takes place and where it is located. The growth, or the stagnation and decline, of small and intermediate urban centres, and the nature of their economic relations with their rural regions, are often strongly influenced by macro-economic strategies, pricing policies or sectoral priorities that make no explicit reference to spatial dimensions. Neglecting the powerful influences of such policies has often been ― and potentially still is ― a major factor in the failure of...

Too little attention has been given to the role of local governments in achieving the two central components of sustainable development: meeting needs and not depleting or degrading the natural resources and ecological processes which are essential to meeting needs. ¹ ‘Big’ global or national issues such as greater equity and justice, including the protection of human rights, protecting key natural resources, achieving greater democracy and reducing poverty are discussed at the macro level (international and national) but often with little attention to the local institutions needed to ensure progress in these areas. Yet the explicit goals and targets set...