Urban-Rural Connections: A Review of the Literature
Elizabeth Mylott
The relationship between urban and rural areas is changing is countries all over
the world. While some of the issues, like changing agricultural systems, are universal,
other aspects of the process are specific to certain countries or regions. This paper is
divided into two main sections. The first introduces literature about urban-rural
connections in the United States and Canada with several examples from Western
Europe. Urban and rural land uses in these countries are no longer mutually exclusive,
but rather exist on a continuum of community types that are increasingly interconnected.
Migration and settlement patterns are changing as new forms of urban, suburban and
exurban development alter patterns of community development. The population is
increasingly decentralized as suburbanization is being replaced by exurban development,
characterized by low-density growth where households with fewer people are living on
larger pieces of land further from urban centers. Development patterns influence national
and world views, the kind of governments elected the way natural and financial resources
are used and the development of transportation systems. (Herbers, 1986)
Much of this development and the resulting land use and lifestyle clashes occur in
peri-urban areas once dominated by agriculture. As non-farm growth in rural and peri-
urban areas competes with agriculture for land, tensions arise between farmers and non-
farmers. Environmentalists and farmland preservationists fight against suburban and
exurban expansion, and at times against each other. “The concept and the territory these
terms connote comprise dynamic and complex land use issues that involve more than
,rural to urban land conversion and conflicts between developers, environmentalists and
farmland preservationists.” (Audirac, 1999)
Public policies and urban and regional plans can help to support economic growth
while protecting natural and agricultural land uses. Unfortunately, many policies
continue to focus exclusively on rural or urban areas and fail to address the connections
between the two. While some studies of the urban-rural interface have been conducted,
further research is needed to inform public policies and planning processes.
The second section focuses on developing countries where the idea that there is a
clear divide between urban and rural areas distorts the realities of urban, rural, and the
increasingly important peri-urban areas where both urban and rural characteristics can be
found. Rural areas depend on urban areas for secondary schools, post and telephone,
credit, agricultural expansion services, farm equipment, hospitals and government
services. Greater access to information technology, better roads, improved education and
changing economic realities are increasing the movement of people, goods and services,
waste and pollution and blurring the boundaries between urban and rural areas. As
incomes from agriculture decrease, rural households are forced to develop new and more
complex livelihood strategies that include both agricultural and non-agricultural incomes,
including remittances from seasonal and permanent migrants. At the same time, low
income households in urban areas may rely on agricultural goods from rural relatives to
supplement their income. Current changes in the global economic, social and political
context, including structural adjustment programs and economic reform, have resulted in
deepening social polarization and increasing poverty in both urban and rural areas.
(Tacoli, 1998)
, Rural-urban linkages are important for poverty alleviation and sustainable rural
development and urbanization. Strong linkages can improve the living conditions and
employment opportunities of both rural and urban populations. Domestic trade and the
adequacy and efficiency of infrastructure are the backbone of mutually beneficial rural-
urban relationships and of the success of the relationship between urban and rural areas.
(Tacoli, 1998; Tacoli, 1998; Tacoli, 2003; Rosenthal, 2000)
The increasingly complex connections between urban and rural areas are
beginning to be recognized but “still have a relatively limited impact on development
policy and practices.” (Tacoli, 1998) The regional development planning used to create a
“better balance between urban and rural and reduce migration pressure on urban areas”
has disproportionally benefitted large farms and wealthy land owners. Instead of
stimulating the regional economies, the goods and services required by the new economic
activities stimulated by these policies come from businesses located outside the regional
boundaries and new income is not reinvested in the community. (Tacoli, 1998) Even
many policies that attempt to draw on urban-rural linkages are often unsuccessful because
they fail to reflect the true circumstances of the people they are created to help.
II. The United States and Canada
A. Patterns of Demographic Change
In their study of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of migration
streams between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas at four different times between
1975 and 1993, Fulton et al found three significant shifts in the direction of migration.
The first occurred during the 1970’s when historical patterns of non-metropolitan loss of
, human resources were reversed. During this time urban areas shrank while rural areas
gained and increased retention of the young and better-educated. During the 1980s that
trend reversed itself and there was a net migration loss from rural areas as better educated
and white collar workers moved to urban areas. During the 1990s there was a non-
metropolitan net migration gain, with the greatest increases among those higher status
groups which experienced the greatest decline in the 1980’s. (Fulton et al, 1997)
Widespread growth in non-metropolitan areas of the United States during the early 1990s
indicates that the renewed population growth in non-metro areas first noticed in the 1970s
has not ended. (Johnson and Beale, 1994)
B. New Settlement Patterns
Nationwide, the cumulative effect of thousands of individual land use decisions is
changing the countryside by consuming at least 1.4 million acres of rural land each year.
The results include loss of agricultural production, water pollution, increases in local
runoff and flooding and loss of habitat and biodiversity. Interaction among different
factors greatly complicates sustainable land management. (Olsen & Lyson, 1999)
Two land development trends, expansion of urban areas and large-lot
development (greater than one acre) in rural areas are reshaping urban and rural areas.
Although it claimed more than 1 million acres per year between 1960 and 1990, urban
expansion is not seen as a significant threat to agriculture, with the exception of some
high-value or specialty crops. Large-lot development poses more of a threat because it
consumes much more land per housing unit than the typical suburb. (Heimlich and
Anderson, 2001)
