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"Since cities first came into existence they have dominated the countryside and sucked wealth out of it. During the industrial age their economic, as well as political, predominance has grown. Following the industrialized world's example, Third World countries have sought economic progress by favoring urban at the expense of rural development. The resulting displacement of population has helped to create today's urban and rural crises in the Third World, at the same time as the waning of the industrial mass-production economy has created today's urban crisis in the West.
"The conventional economic approach to city and countryside, to urban and rural development, will have to change. Paradoxical as it may seem, solutions to today's urban problems may depend on a new, more positive approach to development in rural localities, in industrialized no less than Third World countries. And yet financial resources - and therefore physical resources - continue to be channeled into economically unsustainable cities, especially capitol cities, to keep the political, professional, managerial, financial and other white-collar elites working there, and to increase the already excessive property values and traffic congestion there. The full economic and social costs of this badly need to be documented.
"Documenting them will help to open up a new prospect for the 21st century. This will be for a greening and villaging of the cities from which the old industrial jobs have gone, and a further shift of population out to country towns and rural areas. More self-reliant, more ecologically conserving, cities will then be able to evolve, accompanied by more diversified development of rural economies, based on manufacturing, services, information and leisure occupations, as well as food production.
"For many Third World countries the need for a similar shift in development priorities and for a new urban/rural balance is even more pressing. A viable long-term future for many of today's already over-crowded and rapidly growing Third World cities will largely depend on giving priority to effective rural development, and making it more attractive for people to live in rural areas instead of swamping the cities."
Quoted from James Robertson, Future Wealth: A New Economics for the 21st Century (London: Cassell Publishers Ltd., 1989.
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