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Urban Poverty and the Rural Development Bias

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Marcus

    (University of Melbourne, Australia; amarcus@unimelb.edu.au)

  • Sulikah Asmorowati

    (University of Airlangga, Indonesia; into_divinity@yahoo.com.au)

Abstract

It has often been said that there is an ‘urban bias’ in development, due to the assumption that economic growth and modernization naturally occurs in cities and has as its ultimate destination development by urbanization. This has meant that problem oriented interventions are typically focused on excluded rural people and built around rural paradigms. Even in development practice that is explicitly urban, stakeholders are often viewed through a rural lens. This has often left development practice with what amounts to a rural bias. Nowhere has this urban bias in development policy and rural bias in development practice been more clearly manifest than in the developmentalist states of Asia. Drawing on contemporary empirical data from the Urban Poverty Project (UPP), an ongoing World Bank/Indonesian government urban anti-poverty initiative in Northern Java, we discuss some of the ways in which this rural bias has weakened the conceptual tools for imagining development in urban environments. It will be our argument that the dominant rural/village development trope and its corresponding scalar dichotomies between local and global and social dichotomies between traditional and modern have formed the basis of much of the way we think about and practice development. This has often obscured, rather than clarified what people actually want and need and how it can best be delivered.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Marcus & Sulikah Asmorowati, 2006. "Urban Poverty and the Rural Development Bias," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 22(2), pages 145-168, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:22:y:2006:i:2:p:145-168
    DOI: 10.1177/0169796X06065800
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Philip Amis, 2001. "Attacking Poverty : but what happened to urban poverty and development?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 353-360.
    2. Dilip Mookherjee & Pranab K. Bardhan, 2000. "Capture and Governance at Local and National Levels," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 135-139, May.
    3. Warr, Peter G., 2000. "Poverty incidence and economic growth in Southeast Asia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 431-441.
    4. Asep Suryahadi & Sudarno Sumarto, 2003. "Poverty and Vulnerability in Indonesia Before and After the Economic Crisis," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 45-64, March.
    5. Naylor, Rosamond L. & Falcon, Walter P., 1995. "Is the locus of poverty changing?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 501-518, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jakimow, Tanya, 2018. "A moral atmosphere of development as a share: Consequences for urban development in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 47-56.
    2. George G. Wagah & Mathenge Mwehe & Nelson Obange & Peris Teyie & Maria Nystrom, 2017. "Land Tenure Systems in Kisumu City; The Formal-Informal Dichotomy," International Journal of Sciences, Office ijSciences, vol. 6(10), pages 32-42, October.

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