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Urbanisation, agricultural development, and land allocation
140
Book Reviews
26 technopolis sites, is a further form of science based development policy described in some detail. The authors then pause from recent policy initiatives to reconsider the continuing innovative strength of major cities: London, Paris and Tokyo; before asking why Munich and Los Angeles took over the particular innovation roles of Berlin and New York. They then describe the thinking and the planning behind the Cartuja project in Seville and the Multi-function Polis project in Adelaide. What comes out of the insights gained from these somewhat disparate examples of strong science based industrial complexes? Five key lessons. State intervention is crucial, but it must be an intervention that allows competitive private enterprise to flourish. This may involve institutional entrepreneurship. There is a requirement for a highly skilled labour force, a need for access to venture capital, and a social fabric that encourages the exchange of ideas. And, most fundamentally, a source, or sources, of new commercially valuable technology: a university or universities, and private and public sector research laboratories. The book, written with great fluency, does not pretend to be comprehensive. It focuses on the large success stories. There are many smaller planned developments in many countries around universities or large laboratories that have had moderate success. There have also been many failures, particularly property or job creation driven schemes. The developments described in this book are all large enough to have national significance. They are all directed at the technology transfer of new science that has had or will have a world-wide commercial impact. There is little discussion of the milieux that are required for the absorption and application of existing science: the key to sustainable economic development for most cities. Technopoles of international status require a grounding in frontier science and technology, mixed with an appropriate cocktail of inputs of land, finance, labour skills and entrepreneurship, and pushed forward by one or two single minded individuals or organisations, working to a 10-15-year time scale. Initiatives with less hefty ambitions have need of similar inputs, the key to all lying more in the software than the hardware. The success of any of these kind of schemes lies somewhere in a vibrant local interchange of information and data of all kinds. Peter M. Townroe
Sheffield Hallam University
DIPASIS BHADRA and ANTONIO SALAZAR P. BRANDAO, World Bank
Discussion Paper, Urbanisation, Agricultural Development, and Land Allocation. World Bank, Washington, DC, 65 pp. £6.95 paperback Economic development is characterised by the transfer of capital, labour and other resources from the rural sector into the urban sector. Spatially, this leads to the outward growth of cities and the consequent reallocation of land from rural to urban uses. Through interventions such as zoning laws, governments in a number of countries have attempted to reduce this rate of conversion. This discussion paper, part of the research programme of the World Bank's Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, seeks to analyse the role of government in the land markets in peri-urban areas. The paper is a literature review of 250 publications and begins by analysing, from the perspective of the urban economist, the relationship between economic development and urbanisation. It finds that the large body of research available in this field concentrates on urban development as such, with agriculture playing a minor role. Welfare analysis to incorporate the costs and benefits of urban expansion (including effects in the agricultural sector) do not feature prominently. Where the agriculture sector is incorporated, in dual economy models, this is often in a stylised fashion. They treat the spatial structure of the economy as given and rarely deal explicitly with the reallocation of land.
Book Reviews
141
Secondly, the paper analyses the effects of urbanisation on agriculture. This is done by reviewing the theoretical literature on rural-urban land conversion issues (mainly applied partial equilibrium versions of the von Thunen model); reviewing empirical studies of the physical expansion of the urban sector; and reviewing literature on the indirect effects of urbanisation on the rural sector. These provide insights into the spatial organisation of farming and the effects of proximity to urban centres on farming profitability. Because these are not general equilibrium models, however, they may fail to deal with circumstances where markets for labour and capital and resource constraints (especially land) are critical determinants of the urbanisation process. In particular, it is noted that the studies do not consider the issue of land quality and its inter-relations with the intensity of land use and land yield. Finally, the paper examines countries where governments have intervened, recognising the critical role of land from the economic and political point of view and the need to control its management in the public interest. The objectives given for this are food security; the environment; control of speculation; and the irreversibility of urban land conversion. In dealing with the typology of interventions, the paper refers to mechanisms which include agricultural zoning, public purchase, tax relief and comprehensive growth management. It considers the unique nature of peri-urban areas (being both the immediate beneficiaries of urbanisation and the recipients of the negative effects of urbanisation) and comments that few countries have specific policies for such areas. Where policy interventions do exist that have had limited success - often due to contradictions with wider government policies; the paper identifies a need for a comprehensive evaluation of such policies in developing countries. The authors have dealt with an extensive range of published papers covering a wide field, and it would be difficult to identify gaps in such a review. Nevertheless, the discussion paper as a whole appears disjointed. Theoretical models of urban-rural interactions are followed by a general account of empirical studies on urban expansion and description of government interventions. A stronger link between these three themes would have been welcome and would have assisted the reader in building a better understanding of urban-rural relationships. More specifically, the emphasis is on literature that assumes an environmentally uniform space and builds a model based on that premise. There are few references to natural resources such as fertility and soil quality. In any event, some doubt must be cast on the value of modelling by comments in the report that some urban-rural relationships are too complex to model (the intricacies concerning land values around Dhaka, Bangladesh, are a case in point). Elsewhere in the report conclusions are reached which appear to be simplistic given the extent of literature reviewed. An example is "casual observations and or very preliminary data suggest . . . that it is likely that rapid population growth together with increased urbanisation (in particular, countries from Asia and Africa) create high pressure on land in both urban and rural sectors" (p. 34). On a more positive note, the report does highlight (and possibly could have spent more time addressing this issue) the key point that there are few policy initiatives dealing with the 'fringe areas' between the urban and rural areas in developing countries. Yet it is here that the greatest pressures on land occur. Where initiatives do exist they frequently fail because economic and political pressure groups can influence policy makers; or because they contradict other government policies; or, as in the case of compensation provisions, they are inefficiently applied. The report rightly recognises that the institutional framework necessary for the successful implementation of land management policies in developing countries is a rich area for further applied and adaptive research.
T. Gregory Natural R e s o u r c e s Institute, C h a t h a m
Book Reviews
26 technopolis sites, is a further form of science based development policy described in some detail. The authors then pause from recent policy initiatives to reconsider the continuing innovative strength of major cities: London, Paris and Tokyo; before asking why Munich and Los Angeles took over the particular innovation roles of Berlin and New York. They then describe the thinking and the planning behind the Cartuja project in Seville and the Multi-function Polis project in Adelaide. What comes out of the insights gained from these somewhat disparate examples of strong science based industrial complexes? Five key lessons. State intervention is crucial, but it must be an intervention that allows competitive private enterprise to flourish. This may involve institutional entrepreneurship. There is a requirement for a highly skilled labour force, a need for access to venture capital, and a social fabric that encourages the exchange of ideas. And, most fundamentally, a source, or sources, of new commercially valuable technology: a university or universities, and private and public sector research laboratories. The book, written with great fluency, does not pretend to be comprehensive. It focuses on the large success stories. There are many smaller planned developments in many countries around universities or large laboratories that have had moderate success. There have also been many failures, particularly property or job creation driven schemes. The developments described in this book are all large enough to have national significance. They are all directed at the technology transfer of new science that has had or will have a world-wide commercial impact. There is little discussion of the milieux that are required for the absorption and application of existing science: the key to sustainable economic development for most cities. Technopoles of international status require a grounding in frontier science and technology, mixed with an appropriate cocktail of inputs of land, finance, labour skills and entrepreneurship, and pushed forward by one or two single minded individuals or organisations, working to a 10-15-year time scale. Initiatives with less hefty ambitions have need of similar inputs, the key to all lying more in the software than the hardware. The success of any of these kind of schemes lies somewhere in a vibrant local interchange of information and data of all kinds. Peter M. Townroe
Sheffield Hallam University
DIPASIS BHADRA and ANTONIO SALAZAR P. BRANDAO, World Bank
Discussion Paper, Urbanisation, Agricultural Development, and Land Allocation. World Bank, Washington, DC, 65 pp. £6.95 paperback Economic development is characterised by the transfer of capital, labour and other resources from the rural sector into the urban sector. Spatially, this leads to the outward growth of cities and the consequent reallocation of land from rural to urban uses. Through interventions such as zoning laws, governments in a number of countries have attempted to reduce this rate of conversion. This discussion paper, part of the research programme of the World Bank's Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, seeks to analyse the role of government in the land markets in peri-urban areas. The paper is a literature review of 250 publications and begins by analysing, from the perspective of the urban economist, the relationship between economic development and urbanisation. It finds that the large body of research available in this field concentrates on urban development as such, with agriculture playing a minor role. Welfare analysis to incorporate the costs and benefits of urban expansion (including effects in the agricultural sector) do not feature prominently. Where the agriculture sector is incorporated, in dual economy models, this is often in a stylised fashion. They treat the spatial structure of the economy as given and rarely deal explicitly with the reallocation of land.
Book Reviews
141
Secondly, the paper analyses the effects of urbanisation on agriculture. This is done by reviewing the theoretical literature on rural-urban land conversion issues (mainly applied partial equilibrium versions of the von Thunen model); reviewing empirical studies of the physical expansion of the urban sector; and reviewing literature on the indirect effects of urbanisation on the rural sector. These provide insights into the spatial organisation of farming and the effects of proximity to urban centres on farming profitability. Because these are not general equilibrium models, however, they may fail to deal with circumstances where markets for labour and capital and resource constraints (especially land) are critical determinants of the urbanisation process. In particular, it is noted that the studies do not consider the issue of land quality and its inter-relations with the intensity of land use and land yield. Finally, the paper examines countries where governments have intervened, recognising the critical role of land from the economic and political point of view and the need to control its management in the public interest. The objectives given for this are food security; the environment; control of speculation; and the irreversibility of urban land conversion. In dealing with the typology of interventions, the paper refers to mechanisms which include agricultural zoning, public purchase, tax relief and comprehensive growth management. It considers the unique nature of peri-urban areas (being both the immediate beneficiaries of urbanisation and the recipients of the negative effects of urbanisation) and comments that few countries have specific policies for such areas. Where policy interventions do exist that have had limited success - often due to contradictions with wider government policies; the paper identifies a need for a comprehensive evaluation of such policies in developing countries. The authors have dealt with an extensive range of published papers covering a wide field, and it would be difficult to identify gaps in such a review. Nevertheless, the discussion paper as a whole appears disjointed. Theoretical models of urban-rural interactions are followed by a general account of empirical studies on urban expansion and description of government interventions. A stronger link between these three themes would have been welcome and would have assisted the reader in building a better understanding of urban-rural relationships. More specifically, the emphasis is on literature that assumes an environmentally uniform space and builds a model based on that premise. There are few references to natural resources such as fertility and soil quality. In any event, some doubt must be cast on the value of modelling by comments in the report that some urban-rural relationships are too complex to model (the intricacies concerning land values around Dhaka, Bangladesh, are a case in point). Elsewhere in the report conclusions are reached which appear to be simplistic given the extent of literature reviewed. An example is "casual observations and or very preliminary data suggest . . . that it is likely that rapid population growth together with increased urbanisation (in particular, countries from Asia and Africa) create high pressure on land in both urban and rural sectors" (p. 34). On a more positive note, the report does highlight (and possibly could have spent more time addressing this issue) the key point that there are few policy initiatives dealing with the 'fringe areas' between the urban and rural areas in developing countries. Yet it is here that the greatest pressures on land occur. Where initiatives do exist they frequently fail because economic and political pressure groups can influence policy makers; or because they contradict other government policies; or, as in the case of compensation provisions, they are inefficiently applied. The report rightly recognises that the institutional framework necessary for the successful implementation of land management policies in developing countries is a rich area for further applied and adaptive research.
T. Gregory Natural R e s o u r c e s Institute, C h a t h a m