Breaking down rural and urban bias and interrogating spatial inequality, evidence from South Africa

Abstract

This article investigates current socioeconomic disparities within rural and urban areas. The empirical analysis is grounded in an examination of urban and rural bias theories, which have often underpinned poverty analysis. This article suggests that poverty analysis can be improved by moving beyond the rural-urban binary and investigating differences across all geographical types (when data are available). Using 2012 household survey data on South Africa, the article sheds lights on substantial differencesin household composition and access to services and assets-that are likely to make households located in particular geotypes far more vulnerable to poverty. Finally, the article discusses how development policy can better address the specific income-generating constraints that disadvantaged areas face. K E Y W O R D Spoverty, South Africa, traditional authority, urban informal, urbanization | INTRODUCTIONIn South Africa and elsewhere, an urban-rural binary remains a widely-used axis for poverty analysis and policy-making. This article argues that the urban-rural formulation, albeit useful, masks significant differences within the broad urban and rural categories. This is particularly accurate in South | O247 ZIMBALIST Africa, where historical policies strongly favoured the development of certain rural areas for commercial agriculture and certain urban areas for infrastructure and industry. Although South Africa is perhaps an extreme case, similar processes of favoured spatial development (or outright segregation) have occurred in much of colonial Africa (Njoh, 2008;Morton, 2013).Moreover, even in the post-independence era, policies have been biased towards certain geographical types (henceforth geotypes). For example, state and private resources are often directed towards 'formal' areas, which afford some combination of better physical access, political capital and higher returns on investment. As a result, the development of the poorest areas remains relatively neglected. This article aims to provide quantitative evidence of intrarural and intraurban differences in South Africa and examine some of the possible reasons that particular geographic areas (in South Africa and elsewhere) are more vulnerable to poverty.The remainder of the article is structured as follows. Section two examines theories of urban and rural bias. Section three begins by analyzing key factors underlying spatial inequality in the developing world and concludes by describing the South African context. Section four then outlines the research methodology and the data used in the study. In Section five, I present descriptive statistics for the characteristics of individuals and households, and indicators of socioeconomic welfare, by geotype. In Section six, poverty statistics shed further light on disparities across geotypes. Finally, Section seven provides conclusions and avenues for future research.

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