Urban growth and agricultural productivity

Abstract

In organic economies it was always the case that the size of the urban sector was strongly influenced by the productivity of agriculture. City dwellers needed food and drink no less than those living in the countryside and since they produced little food themselves, they depended upon the existence of a rural surplus. If, for example, the agricultural sector produced 25 per cent more food than would cover the needs of the rural population, the food needs of an urban population that constituted a fifth of the total population could be satisfied. Agricultural productivity set limits to the urban growth that could take place, but agricultural productivity was itself strongly influenced by urban demand. In the absence of a substantial urban sector, in rural areas there was little incentive to produce an output greater than that needed to meet local needs. In other words, agricultural productivity and urban growth might be characterised by either negative or positive feedback. If the urban sector was trivially small and stagnant there would be minimal incentive for increased agricultural output since any surplus over local rural needs would be unable to find a market. If, however, the urban sector was significant and growing it created an incentive to increase agricultural output, thus ensuring that demand and supply remained in balance as urban growth progressed. Positive feedback between urban growth and improved agricultural productivity was always possible in organic economies. If it occurred, however, although the level of urbanisation might increase for a time, matched by an increasing rural surplus, the positive feedback could not continue indefinitely, because of the implications of the fixed supply of land which the classical economists described so effectively. The scale of urban growth in England and the continent Perhaps the most striking and important of all the contrasts between England and her continental neighbours in their economic development in the early modern period was in the speed, scale, and nature of the urban growth taking place. It was striking in England but muted to the point of non-existence in most of continental Europe. This in turn, necessarily meant that throughout this period English agriculture was making notable progress, given that the island remained broadly self-sufficient in food production.