This paper emphasizes on the rural-urban linkages on the southern side of Mount Kilimanjaro, inNorthern Tanzania. This example is quite remarkable in terms of recent urban development in ahigh rural density mountain area. Mt Kilimanjaro countryside, usually known as Chagga land, isin fact one of the most dynamic rural agro-pastoral systems in East Africa, with very highpopulation densities scattered mainly on the fertile volcanic soils of 1000-2000 meters altitudeslopes of the mountain. The growth of the main town, Moshi, now about 200,000 people, firstoriginated from a rural development based on coffee cultivation and exportation. The sprawlingurban development has created a kind of rural-urban continuum, based on high densities, bothrural and urban, and strong rural/urban linkages and mobilities. Since the 2000s, some changes seem to occur: in the new context of globalization, symbolized bythe development of international tourism and capitalistic business, are the traditional rural/urban linkages becoming different? We guess that, more and more, some “discontinuum” breaklogics take over from the former urban-rural continuum. On the one hand, a growing tendency ofde-agrarianisation and livelihood diversification can be observed. On the other hand, there areclear indications of agricultural intensification and extensification. However, for manyhouseholds subsistence production is still more important than cash crop production and not all households succeed in connecting to the booming crops in the areas under study. Rural peoplemake an effort to diversify their livelihoods as much as possible in order to reduce vulnerabilityfor shocks and insecurities. Agricultural diversification (crop differentiation), non-agriculturalactivities, multi-locality and household’s resettlement are just some key examples of these rurallivelihood strategies.