Urban Primacy And Regional Economic Development In The Third World

Abstract

Many developing countries are now being persuaded that an appropriate urbanization strategy could provide them with one of the means of achieving the modernization of their societies (Mabogunje 1973). Unfortunately the information upon which to base sound urbanization policies is invariably lacking, and frequently assumptions are made without the relevant questions being asked, let alone answered. In this paper four critical questions are asked, and an attempt is made to suggest a framework within which answers may be sought. It is recognized that any answers will be at best tentative, given the current state of research into what is an immensely complex subject. But it is also true that Third World planners cannot await the conclusions of present and future generations of researchers: they need guidelines, however inadequately based, for immediate policy formulation.