Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction : Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda

Christiaensen, Luc ; Kanbur, Ravi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: towns;    poverty reduction;    mega cities;    urbanization;    rural-urban migration;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7895
RP-ID  :  WPS7895

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This review is framed around theexploration of a central hypothesis: A shift in publicinvestment toward secondary towns from big cities willimprove poverty reduction performance. Of course thehypothesis raises many questions. What exactly is thedichotomy of secondary towns versus big cities? What is theevidence for the contribution of secondary towns versuscities to poverty reduction? What are the economicmechanisms for such a differential contribution and how doespolicy interact with them? The review finds preliminaryevidence and arguments in support of the hypothesis, but theimpacts of policy on poverty are quite complex even insimple settings, and the question of secondary towns andpoverty reduction is an open area for research and policy analysis.