Evidence Statement 7: EIA of Non-UK projects in Low and Middle Income countries

2.0. Objectives

3.0 Spatial Linkages and Transformation 3.1 Physical Linkages

3.2 Economic Linkages

3.3 Population Movement Linkages 3.4 Technological Linkages

3.5 Social Linkages

3.6 Service Delivery Linkages

3.7 Political, Administrative and Organizational Linkages

4.0. Building Development Centres: Location of Urban Services and Facilities.

4.1. The Village Service Centre 4.2. The Market Town: Small City 4.3. Intermediate City: Regional Centre

5.0 Transformational Development: An Approach to Spatial Integration Strategy.

5.0. Building on Existing Resources 5.1. Local Participation

6.0. Conclusion 7.0. Summary

8.0. Tutor-marked Assignment 9.0. Further Readings

1.0. INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we shall discuss the Urban-Rural linkages that would aid development. The integration of urban and rural development, an essential dimension of equitable growth planning, can only be attained in countries with resource scarcities if they use and build on existing spatial structures, organizational arrangements, behavioural patterns, economic and social institutions, and culturally embedded methods and practices, transforming them into more productive instruments of growth and change. This unit attempts to delineate one approach to transformational development: It outlines a conceptual framework for integrated spatial development planning, identifies major urban services and facilities needed at various levels of an articulated hierarchy of human

settlements. This describes the linkages that result from or promote interaction among communities and that generate transformation towards a cohesive and productive spatial system. Finally, it describes the policy and programme implications of the transformational approach to development, an approach that seeks to identify and use existing, culturally embedded resources, institutions, and human capabilities, combining them with appropriate modern technologies and organizational arrangements to bring about planned change in pursuit of development goals.

2.0. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this Unit, you should be able to:

3.7.1 Explain the reason for integrating urban and rural functions into a national spatial system.

3.7.2 Identify and analyze the various Linkages

3.7.3 Explain the adoption of Political and Administrative Linkages in formal governmental structural relationships

3.7.4 Outline strategies for building development centres 3.0. SPATIAL LINKAGES AND TRANSFORMATION

Integrating communities and their productive activities into a national economy is a major objective of transformation strategy. Neither the goals of increased productivity and income expansion nor those of greater equity in income distribution can be attained without increasing interaction among villages, market towns, intermediate cities, and metropolitan areas in developing nations without integrating urban and rural functions into a national spatial system. Integration promotes transformation at every level of the spatial hierarchy and at every stage of a nation’s development.

Transformation of communities and productive activities –the evolution of subsistence into commercial farming, of simple handicrafts into more specialized processing and manufacturing, of scattered and isolated economic activities into concentrated nodes of production integrated into a national system of exchange – requires a well-articulated spatial structure. Settlement of various sizes, specializing in different economic and social functions, must be linked to each other through a network of physical, economic, technological, social, and administrative interaction. The linkages-patterns of transaction

among groups and organizations located in spatially dispersed communities with sufficient threshold sizes of population to support their own specialized activities-are the primary means of expanding the system of exchange and transforming underdeveloped societies.

Even a cursory examination of developing nations where element of such a spatial system have emerged provides insights into the types of linkages essential for transformation and patterns of change they set in motion. The fundamental observations seem valid for all developing countries with elements of spatial articulation. First, increase in the number and diversity of linkages and the growth or transformation of development centers- from villages to market towns, market town to small cities, small cities to intermediate urban areas- are inextricably related. In some cases, new linkages - extension of road networks, river transport, or all connections-promote growth and diversification in existing settlements or generate new central places, whereas in others the appearance of new productive activities promotes increased linkages between individual settlement and the rest of the spatial system.

That is, some linkages promote accelerated growth of villages, market towns, and intermediate cities, and others result from nodal growth. To distinguish particular cause and effect relationships, however, is often extremely difficult because nodal and linkage growth may take place simultaneously or because a complex set of changes may occur in rapid succession.

Second, the variety of linkages that integrate urban and rural areas into an articulated spatial system are themselves inextricably linked. Creation of one new linkage may produce a

“cascade effect” making other activities and linkages possible, and promoting the growth of existing or new central places. Once a new set of linkages is introduced into a rural market system, it can trigger a set of “circular and cumulative changes” towards further growth and changes. Simply, improving transportation between villages leads to reorganization and expansion of existing periodic markets. Displacement of weak or unsuccessful markets and redistribution of commerce can create entirely new markets and increase the demands on the transport system. New urban-rural physical linkages can change the flow of economic resources, the spatial pattern of social and economic interaction and the movement of people.

Closer interaction among villages, market towns, intermediate cities, and major metropolitan areas makes it less expensive and more convenient to integrate technology at each level of the spatial hierarchy and to distribute more widely services that fundamentally transform organization and political relationships.

A complex set of linkages transforms and integrates urban and rural areas in developing nations. Physical, economic, technological, and social linkages and population movement, service delivery, and political, administrative, and organizational patterns play potentially important roles in the transformation of poorly articulated spatial systems (see table 7.1.

below).

Table 7.1. Major Linkages in spatial development

Physical Linkages Road networks

River and water transport networks Railroad networks

Ecological interdependences

Economic Linkages Market patterns

Raw materials and intermediate goods flows Capital flows

Production linkages – backward, forward, and lateral

Consumption and shopping patterns Income flows

Sectoral and interregional commodity flows

“Cross linkages”

Population movement linkages Migration – temporary and permanent journey to work

Technological Linkage Technology interdependences Irrigation systems

Telecommunications systems Social interaction linkages Visiting patterns

Kinship patterns

Rites, rituals, and religious activities Social group interaction

Service delivery linkages Energy flows and networks Credit and financial networks

Education, training, and extension linkages

Health service delivery systems

Professional, commercial, and technical service patterns

Transport service systems Political, administrative,

organizational linkages

and Structural relationships Government budgetary flows Organizational interdependences

Authority approval-supervision patterns Inter-jurisdictional transaction patterns Informal political decision chains