City and Country

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793644330
Total Pages : 491 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis City and Country by : Alexander R. Thomas

Download or read book City and Country written by Alexander R. Thomas and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: City and Country: The Historical Evolution of Urban-Rural Systems begins with a simple assumption: every human requires, on average, two-thousand calories per day to stay alive. Tracing the ramifications of this insight leads to the caloric well: the caloric demand at one point in the environment. As population increases, the depth of the caloric well reflects this increased demand and requires a population to go further afield for resources, a condition called urban dependency. City and Country traces the structural ramifications of these dynamics as the population increased from the Paleolithic to today. We can understand urban dependency as the product of the caloric demands a population puts on a given environment, and when those demands outstrip the carry capacity of the environment, a caloric well develops that forces a community to look beyond its immediate area for resources. As the well deepens, the horizon from which resources are gathered is pushed further afield, often resulting in conflict with neighboring groups. Prior to settled villages, increases in population resulted in cultural (technological) innovations that allowed for greater use of existing resources: the broad-spectrum revolution circa 20 thousand years ago, the birth of agricultural villages 11 thousand years ago, and hierarchically organized systems of multiple settlements working together to produce enough food during the Ubaid period in Mesopotamia seven-thousand years ago—the first urban-rural systems. As cities developed, increasing population resulted in an ever-deepening morass of urban dependency that required expansion of urban-rural systems. These urban-rural dynamics today serve as an underlying logic upon which modern capitalism is built. The culmination of two decades of research into the nature of urban-rural dynamics, City and Country argues that at the heart of the logic of capitalism is an even deeper logic: urbanization is based on urban dependency.

Why Cities Lose

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Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 1541644255
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (416 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Cities Lose by : Jonathan A. Rodden

Download or read book Why Cities Lose written by Jonathan A. Rodden and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.

The Geography of Urban-Rural Interaction in Developing Countries

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351215361
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (512 download)

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Book Synopsis The Geography of Urban-Rural Interaction in Developing Countries by : Robert Potter

Download or read book The Geography of Urban-Rural Interaction in Developing Countries written by Robert Potter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1989, The Geography of Urban-Rural Interaction in Developing Countries addresses the nature and importance of the interaction between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ areas within Third World national territories, providing much-needed comparative, cross-cultural, and cross-national material. The book discusses the various theories of urban-rural interaction, and summarises the topic in the form of the movement of people, goods, money, capital, new technology, energy, information and ideas. Case studies are drawn from different areas of the Third World – including Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean and illustrate in detail the nature of urban-rural interaction.

Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022658528X
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth by : Paul Musselwhite

Download or read book Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth written by Paul Musselwhite and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English settlers who staked their claims in the Chesapeake Bay were drawn to it for a variety of reasons. Some sought wealth from the land, while others saw it as a place of trade, a political experiment, or a potential spiritual sanctuary. But like other European colonizers in the Americas, they all aspired to found, organize, and maintain functioning towns—an aspiration that met with varying degrees of success, but mostly failure. Yet this failure became critical to the economy and society that did arise there. As Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth reveals, the agrarian plantation society that eventually sprang up around the Chesapeake Bay was not preordained—rather, it was the necessary product of failed attempts to build cities. Paul Musselwhite details the unsuccessful urban development that defined the region from the seventeenth century through the Civil War, showing how places like Jamestown and Annapolis—despite their small size—were the products of ambitious and cutting-edge experiments in urbanization comparable to those in the largest port cities of the Atlantic world. These experiments, though, stoked ongoing debate about commerce, taxation, and self-government. Chesapeake planters responded to this debate by reinforcing the political, economic, and cultural authority of their private plantation estates, with profound consequences for the region’s laborers and the political ideology of the southern United States. As Musselwhite makes clear, the antebellum economy around this well-known waterway was built not in the absence of cities, but upon their aspirational wreckage.

Studies in Urbanormativity

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739178776
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Studies in Urbanormativity by : Gregory M. Fulkerson

Download or read book Studies in Urbanormativity written by Gregory M. Fulkerson and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world has been witnessing a long unfolding process of urbanization that not only has altered the structural basis of society in terms of political economy, but has also symbolically relegated rural people and life to a secondary or deviant status through an ideology of urbanormativity. Both structural and cultural changes rooted in urbanization are connected in complex ways to spatial arrangements that can be described in terms of inequality and uneven development. Through a focus on localities, Studies in Urbanormativity: Rural Community in Urban Society examines the implications of urbanization and its corresponding ideology. Urbanormativity justifies rural domination by holding urban life as the standard against which rural forms are compared and deemed to be irregular, inferior, or deviant. Urban production, as conceptualized in this book, is inherently exploitative of rural resources—natural, social, cultural, and symbolic. As this exploitation advances, a wake of entropic conditions is left behind in the forms of degraded landscapes, broken social institutions, and denigrated communities, cultures and identities. Edited by Gregory M. Fulkerson and Alexander R. Thomas, Studies in Urbanormativity engages a topic on which scholars have been surprisingly silent. Designed for advancing theory and practice, the chapters provide new theoretical tools for understanding the complex relationship between the urban and rural. While primarily intended for scholars and practitioners interested in rural life, rural policy, and community development, the insights of this book will also be of interest to scholars studying various forms of cultural and social domination, as well as identity politics.

Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World

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Author :
Publisher : Presbyterian Publishing Corp
ISBN 13 : 0203646274
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World by : Kenny Lynch

Download or read book Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World written by Kenny Lynch and published by Presbyterian Publishing Corp. This book was released on 2004-09-15 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustaining the rural and urban populations of the developing world has been identified as a key global challenge for the twenty-first century. Rural-Urban Interaction in the Developing World is an introduction to the relationships between rural and urban places in the developing world and shows that not all their aspects are as obvious as migration from country to city. There is now a growing realization that rural-urban relations are far more complex. Using a wealth of student-friendly features including boxed case studies, discussion questions and annotated guides to further reading, this innovative book places rural-urban interactions within a broader context, thus promoting a clearer understanding of the opportunities, as well as the challenges, that rural-urban interactions represent.

Handbook of Research on Urban-Rural Synergy Development Through Housing, Landscape, and Tourism

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Author :
Publisher : IGI Global
ISBN 13 : 1522599347
Total Pages : 437 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (225 download)

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Book Synopsis Handbook of Research on Urban-Rural Synergy Development Through Housing, Landscape, and Tourism by : Krsti?-Furundži?, Aleksandra

Download or read book Handbook of Research on Urban-Rural Synergy Development Through Housing, Landscape, and Tourism written by Krsti?-Furundži?, Aleksandra and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As cities continue to grow with advancing technologies, the spatial and temporal gaps between rural and urban areas are shrinking, thereby requiring the sectors to interact with each other. While the prospect is to develop each area without hampering the newfound synergy between them, there are still many barriers and concerns that hinder this inevitable urban-rural relationship. The Handbook of Research on Urban-Rural Synergy Development Through Housing, Landscape, and Tourism is a pivotal reference source that focuses on the applications and challenges of creating cooperation between urban and rural areas along various fields. While highlighting topics including suburbanization, weekend-residence zones, and homeostasis, this publication is ideally designed for architects, sector managers, region developers, urban planners, urban developers, construction managers, urban studies professionals, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on lessening the urban-rural gap in both global and local contexts.

Urban Migrants in Rural Japan

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Author :
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438478054
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Urban Migrants in Rural Japan by : Susanne Klien

Download or read book Urban Migrants in Rural Japan written by Susanne Klien and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an in-depth ethnography of paradigm shifts in the lifestyles and values of youth in post-growth Japan. Urban Migrants in Rural Japan provides a fresh perspective on theoretical notions of rurality and emerging modes of working and living in post-growth Japan. By exploring narratives and trajectories of individuals who relocate from urban to rural areas and seek new modes of working and living, this multisited ethnography reveals the changing role of rurality, from postwar notions of a stagnant backwater to contemporary sites of experimentation. The individual cases presented in the book vividly illustrate changing lifestyles and perceptions of work. What emerges from Urban Migrants in Rural Japan is the emotionally fraught quest of many individuals for a personally fulfilling lifestyle and the conflicting neoliberal constraints many settlers face. In fact, flexibility often coincides with precarity and self-exploitation. Susanne Klien shows how mobility serves as a strategic mechanism for neophytes in rural Japan who hedge their bets; gain time; and seek assurance, inspiration, and courage to do (or further postpone doing) what they ultimately feel makes sense to them. “This book is a valuable contribution to knowledge about diversifying rural Japan and evokes reflection about the future of post-growth Japan. Klien’s study benefits from assiduous and long-term field research and insightful analysis. She excels at locating the specifics of the study in theoretical observations and concepts, thereby setting the work into a larger consideration of Japan’s paradigm shifts in lifestyle and values.” — Nancy Rosenberger, author of Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation

Concrete and Countryside

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822983451
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Concrete and Countryside by : Carmelo Esterrich

Download or read book Concrete and Countryside written by Carmelo Esterrich and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Puerto Rico was swept by a wave of modernization, transforming the island from a predominantly rural society to an unquestionably urban one. A curious paradox ensued, however. While the island underwent rapid urbanization, and the rhetoric of economic development reigned over official discourses, the newly installed insular government, along with some academic circles and radio and television media, constructed, promoted, and sponsored a narrative of Puerto Rican culture based on rural subjects, practices, and spaces. By examining a wide range of cultural texts, but focusing on the film production of the Division of Community Education, the popular dance music of Cortijo y su combo, and the literary texts of Jose Luis Gonzalez and Rene Marques, Concrete and Countryside offers an in-depth analysis of how Puerto Ricans responded to this transformative period. It also shows how the arts used a battery of images of the urban and the rural to understand, negotiate, and critique the innumerable changes taking place on the island.

Ditch the City and Go Country

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Publisher : Page Street Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1624144101
Total Pages : 593 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (241 download)

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Book Synopsis Ditch the City and Go Country by : Alissa Hessler

Download or read book Ditch the City and Go Country written by Alissa Hessler and published by Page Street Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The No-Nonsense Guide For Country Dreamers Though moving to the country takes determination, every ex-urbanite says it was the best decision they ever made. The same rings true for Alissa Hessler, who relocated from Seattle to rural Maine years ago and has never looked back. In this book she uses her wit, charm and experience to help you chart a path to successful country living. Ditch the City and Go Country covers the ins and outs of how to find a home, how to keep your current job remotely or where to look for a new one, how to own livestock and prepare for disasters, how to make a smooth transition and become a part of your new community and how to embrace the seasons. With this must-have guide, you’ll be able to stop daydreaming and finally live the life you’ve always wanted in the country. Alissa Hessler was inspired to launch her blog Urban Exodus after relocating to Maine in 2011. She has been featured in Modern Farmer, Popular Photography, Click Magazine and Maine Home.

Rural Origins, City Lives

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Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 029599925X
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (959 download)

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Book Synopsis Rural Origins, City Lives by : Roberta Zavoretti

Download or read book Rural Origins, City Lives written by Roberta Zavoretti and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new understanding of rural-urban migration and inequality in contemporary China Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences are far more nuanced than popular narratives might suggest. Rural Origins, City Lives probes long-held assumptions about migrant workers in China. Drawing on fieldwork in Nanjing, Roberta Zavoretti argues that many rural-born urban-dwellers are—contrary to state policy and media portrayals—diverse in their employment, lifestyle, and aspirations. Working and living in the cities, such workers change China’s urban landscape, becoming part of an increasingly diversified and stratified society. Zavoretti finds that—more than thirty years after the Open Door Reform—class formation, not residence status, is key to understanding inequality in contemporary China.

Development and the Rural-Urban Divide

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351714899
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Development and the Rural-Urban Divide by : John Harriss

Download or read book Development and the Rural-Urban Divide written by John Harriss and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1984. It is widely acknowledged that rural-urban differences and interrelationships play an important role in the development process. Some theorists believe they are a primary cause of continuing poverty in poor nations. This volume of essays summarises and appraises theories of rural-urban relations and economic development and explores, mainly on the basis of country case studies, the conceptual and theoretical problems to which they give rise, and the extent to which they correspond to recent experiences in the Third World.

Urban Centers and Rural Contexts in Late Antiquity

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Author :
Publisher : MSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0870138987
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Urban Centers and Rural Contexts in Late Antiquity by : Thomas S. Burns

Download or read book Urban Centers and Rural Contexts in Late Antiquity written by Thomas S. Burns and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent publications on urbanism and the rural environment in Late Antiquity, most of which explore a single region or narrow chronological niche, have emphasized either textual or archeological evidence. None has attempted the more ambitious task of bringing together the full range of such evidence within a multiregional perspective and around common themes. Urban Centers and Rural Contexts seeks to redress this omission. While ancient literature and the physical remains of cities attest to the power that urban values held over the lives of their inhabitants, the rural areas in which the majority of imperial citizens lived have not been well served by the historical record. Only recently have archeological excavations and integrated field surveys sufficiently enhanced our knowledge of the rural contexts to demonstrate the continuing interdependence of urban centers and rural communities in Late Antiquity. These new data call into question the conventional view that this interdependence progressively declined as a result of governmental crises, invasions, economic dislocation, and the success of Christianization. The essays in this volume require us to abandon the search for a single model of urban and rural change; to reevaluate the cities and towns of the Empire as centers of habitation, rather than archeological museums; and to reconsider the evidence of continuous and pervasive cultural change across the countryside. Deploying a wide range of material as well as literary evidence, the authors provide access not only into the world of élites, but also to the scarcely known lives of those without a voice in the literature, those men and women who worked in the shops, labored in the fields, and humbled themselves before their gods. They bring us closer to the complexity of life in late ancient communities and, in consequence, closer to both urban and rural citizens.

Crossing the Divide

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197602150
Total Pages : 705 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Crossing the Divide by : Robert E.B. Lucas

Download or read book Crossing the Divide written by Robert E.B. Lucas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The magnitudes, nature, causes, and consequences of population movements between rural and urban sectors of developing countries are examined. The prior literature is reviewed, proving limited in key dimensions. Evidence is presented from a new database encompassing nationally representative data on seventy-five developing countries. Several measures of migration propensities are derived for the separate countries. The situation in each country is documented, both in historical context and following the time of enumeration. Rural-urban migrants enjoy major gains; those who do not move forego substantial, potential gains. Barriers to migrating are very real for disadvantaged groups. Migration among ethnolinguistic communities is a pervasive theme; the context in which each group lives is detailed. Upward mobility in incomes in towns is affirmed, and the departure of adults from rural homes raises living standards of the family left behind but consequent separation of married couples is endemic to particular societies. Reclassification of rural areas as urban is shown to be more important than net rural-urban moves in incremental urbanization and rural-urban moves are less permanent than normally portrayed. A contention of symmetry between rural-urban and urban-rural migration propensities is rejected and indications that these twin movements result in sorting of labor by skills is not supported. Moreover, step and onward migration are not as common as popularly claimed. Previously neglected topics studied include autonomous migration by women, child migration, and networks at origin. Policies to limit rural-urban migration are questioned, rather planning for managed urban growth is vital as climate change continues. Key words: Rural, urban, migration, development, literature, database, reclassification, sorting, policies"--

From Farm to Firm

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Author :
Publisher : World Bank Publications
ISBN 13 : 0821386239
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (213 download)

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Book Synopsis From Farm to Firm by :

Download or read book From Farm to Firm written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Rural-Urban Linkages for Sustainable Development

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000175715
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Rural-Urban Linkages for Sustainable Development by : Armin Kratzer

Download or read book Rural-Urban Linkages for Sustainable Development written by Armin Kratzer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Invisible China

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022674051X
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Invisible China by : Scott Rozelle

Download or read book Invisible China written by Scott Rozelle and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of how China’s changing economy may leave its rural communities in the dust and launch a political and economic disaster. As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern. China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries. Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China. Today, that is no longer the case. With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan. For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people. Recent progress may come too late. Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas. Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere. In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe. If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious. Understanding the situation in China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions. This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike. Praise for Invisible China “Stunningly researched.” —TheEconomist, Best Books of the Year (UK) “Invisible China sounds a wake-up call.” —The Strategist “Not to be missed.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK) “[Invisible China] provides an extensive coverage of problems for China in the sphere of human capital development . . . the book is rich in content and is not constrained only to China, but provides important parallels with past and present developments in other countries.” —Journal of Chinese Political Science