Urbanisation, central planning and Tolley's model of urban growth: a critical review

Abstract

The study of urbanisation under central planning, while rich in empirical documentation, still lacks a theory that can take recent advances in our understanding of the socialist (or formerly socialist) societies into account. However, one of a host of new developments in urbanisation studies, the model devised by Tolley, holds great promises in store to inform our endeavours to appreciate the circumstances under which the rural-to-urban drift might take place in a variety of settings. This prompts an effort to evaluate the model's potential contribution towards an improved comprehension of urbanisation in socialist polities. Although previous studies indicate that Tolley's model would seem to fit developments in China and that of other Soviet-type economies in a rather congenial manner, it is here suggested that it is not fully appropriate. As the original model is premised upon carefully specified causal links which are not present under central planning, the conclusions drawn from an apparent congruence of patterns derived from nationally aggregated statistics are spurious at best. Therefore, it is argued, while useful in other contexts Tolley's model sheds little light on urbanisation under central planning. More generally, scholars taking an interest in comparative urbanisation would benefit from studying the processes which mold the patterns in individual cases rather than merely comparing the patterns as such.