Intermediate Urban Centres Research Articles

Responding to Climate Change in Small and Intermediate Cities: Comparative Policy Perspectives from India and South Africa

Remarkably little is known about how small and intermediate urban centres tackle their various sustainability challenges, particularly climate and broader environmental change. Accordingly, we address this in the very different contexts of India and South Africa. We conceptualise the small and intermediate towns, and the policy challenges and priorities for mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate/environmental change that can enable transformative adaptations to changing conditions. Central issues are the divisions of powers, responsibilities and the fiscal capacity and independence of local authorities within the respective countries’ multi-level policy and governance frameworks. In India, various functions have been constitutionally devolved to city governments to enable them to govern themselves, while more strategic ones lie at state level. In South Africa, the divisions of power and responsibility vary by city size category. We compare the relevant city government functions in each country and how they can enable/disable policy responses to climate change. The relationship between their sustainable development strategies, plans, budgets, and actions are assessed and illustrated with particular reference to Thiruvananthapuram, Shimla and Bhubaneswar in India and Drakenstein, George and Stellenbosch in South Africa.

The impact of urban development on risk in sub-Saharan Africa's cities with a focus on small and intermediate urban centres

The main urban issue that sub-Saharan Africa is facing is rapid growth in its urban population without the urban governance structures in place that can meet their responsibilities and manage the change. This has created very large deficits in infrastructure and service provision which exposes much of the urban population to high levels of risk. Without competent, effective and accountable urban governments, it is not possible to tap the great potential that cities have for supporting good living conditions and good health. This paper examines both the scale of urban change and the development challenge facing sub-Saharan Africa's urban areas and the possible implications on risk. It describes how a substantial proportion of sub-Saharan Africa's national (and urban) population lives in small and intermediate size urban centres (and thus not in rural areas or large cities) and considers what we know about risk in these urban centres and the implications for development. The paper suggests that within the region's urban population, inadequacies in provision for basic infrastructure and services are usually larger, the smaller the urban centre. Most small urban centres in the region have local governments with very little capacity or funding to fulfil their responsibilities for risk reducing infrastructure and services. Of these, the inadequacies in provision for water and sanitation are the best documented. But in some instances, provision for water and sanitation is so poor in large cities that the proportion of their inhabitants lacking adequate provision is as high as those living in small urban centres.

The neglected heterogeneity of spatial agglomeration and co-location patterns of creative employment: evidence from Portugal

Empirical literature on the geographical location of creative activities has been traditionally based on the spatial analysis of industries, often disregarding the creative employment that lies outside the necessarily limited boundaries of creative industries. As an extension to the most recent methodologies using industry and occupational data on industrial cluster analysis, this paper analyses agglomeration and co-location patterns of core creative activities, considering both ‘embedded’ (creative professionals working outside the creative sectors) and ‘specialized’ (creative professionals working in the creative sectors) creative employment. Using location quotients and principal component factor and cluster analyses, applied to all 308 Portuguese municipalities, we found that the geographical agglomeration and co-location patterns of core creative groups differ substantially. The typical arguments sustained by the literature—the tendency of creative industries/employment to agglomerate and co-locate in large metropolises—are only supported in the case of knowledge-intensive activities subjected to Intellectual Property Rights, most notably ‘Advertising/Marketing’, ‘Publishing’, ‘TV/Radio’, and ‘Software/Digital Media’, densely concentrated and co-located in highly developed, large urban centres, with high levels of human capital. These arguments do not hold for the traditional creative activities of ‘Architecture’, ‘Design/Visual Arts’ and ‘Crafts’, which, although co-located, appear mostly dispersed with small concentrations around intermediate urban centres. ‘Teaching/training/research’ present quite dispersed geographical patterns with some clusterization around municipalities with tertiary education institutions. ‘Film/video/photography’ and ‘Music/Performing Arts’ show some dispersion throughout the Portuguese territory with concentration around small urban centres and in rural areas. It is evident that, from agglomeration to co-location patterns, creative employment reveals heterogeneous characteristics across creative groups.

In search of the urban–rural frontline in postwar Mozambique and Angola

This paper describes urbanization processes in three intermediate urban centres, two in Mozambique and one in Angola. Both countries have suffered major social strife, and the rural livelihood base that existed before and after Independence has been severely affected. The lack of national and local infrastructure, combined with limited market opportunities and competition from cheap agricultural imports, undermine attempts to revitalize the rural economy through commercial agriculture. The growth in population size of the three urban centres is largely the result of the need for rural residents to combine non-agricultural activities, mainly in the urban informal sector, with subsistence farming for their survival, rather then the product of demand for labour in urban-based industry and services. Whilst local solutions to the centres’ environmental problems are absolutely necessary, they need to be linked to realistic interventions at the global level concerning development opportunities and to a better integration of rural and urban development programmes.

International municipal cooperation: an enabling approach to development for small and intermediate urban centres?

International municipal cooperation: an enabling approach to development for small and intermediate urban centres?

Hardoy, Jorge E. and Satterthwaite, David, "Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World" (Book Review)

Hardoy, Jorge E. and Satterthwaite, David, "Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World" (Book Review)

Book Review: Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World edited by J. E. HARDOY and D. SATTERTHWAITE. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1986. 448 pp. £15.00

Book Review: Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World edited by J. E. HARDOY and D. SATTERTHWAITE. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1986. 448 pp. £15.00

Hardoy, Jorge and Satterthwaite, David (eds.), "Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World" (Book Review)

Hardoy, Jorge and Satterthwaite, David (eds.), "Small and Intermediate Urban Centres: Their Role in National and Regional Development in the Third World" (Book Review)