Population, territory and sustainable development

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Although the inhabitants of some rural areas of the region, especially those that border on large
cities or that fall within the sphere of influence of large metropolitan areas, are more likely to have access
to modern services and to jobs that are in some way related to urban activity and to live in more
accessible locations, many members of the rural population are divorced from that reality, and their daily
lives are marked by the time-lag or “backwardness” that is often seen as being typical of rural areas. As
shown in box 4.2, however, the roots of this gap between rural and urban areas go far deeper than the
scattered pattern of settlement or difficulties of access.
3. Peri-urban rural areas: rural-urban interrelationships and
how they may shape new types of spatial contexts
From a regional economic standpoint, rural settlements located in the vicinity of cities may be assumed to
have a higher degree of agricultural development owing to the functional integration of these two areas of
activity. This functional integration facilitates the creation of service-delivery and infrastructure linkages
between urban centres and the surrounding rural areas. Schejtman (1999) contends that the spatially
polarized development problems experienced in a majority of developing countries have been brought
about by the skewed distribution of national investment and that the solution therefore lies in skewing the
distribution of investment in favour of secondary urban centres. By strengthening the positive linkages
between smaller urban centres and their rural surroundings (and given the heterogeneity of the
agricultural production structure), this approach would place the benefits of investment within the reach
of small-scale rural producers. The virtues of this type of functional integration stem from a number of
factors: the fact that cities have played an important role in generating and disseminating agricultural
technology (Jacobs, 1970); that capital, input, labour and product markets tend to be less imperfect in the
vicinity of urban-industrial hubs; and that, as a spillover effect, nearby agricultural enterprises have access
to more sophisticated machinery and technologies, have less surplus labour, command better prices for
their products and receive greater remuneration for their work (Schejtman, 1999).
Schejtman (1999) also, however, calls for a critical appraisal of whether or not present urban
settlement patterns actually help to promote this type of rural development and of what types of measures
should be promoted in order to generate its potential benefits. This also means that the analysis of rural
development issues needs to be approached from the standpoint of the development status of local
economies, that is to say, by focusing on the economic linkages between urban communities and their
surrounding agricultural areas and by analysing how the different markets existing at that scale fit in with
one another. Schejtman (1999) asserts that this is the only way to tackle the issues posed by changing
production patterns, poverty and the environment at a sufficient level of specificity to ensure effectiveness
and participation within a given institutional context.
A specific example is provided by Vázquez (2011) in his analysis of how land use has been
modified in a number of smaller cities in eastern Paraguay in ways that are reshaping the urban landscape
in that country. The linkages that these emerging cities, which are more modern and offer a more
diversified range of services, have with rural areas, on the one hand, and with other regional urban
centres, on the other, are very close and becoming more so all the time. These cities are a reflection of the
strong growth profiles of regional production activities and, above and beyond their identity as urban
areas with a defined urban structure, are economic hubs that provide an ideal platform for the expansion
of service industries. One of the mainstays for these emerging cities is the communications infrastructure
that links the various regions of the country. This reconfiguration is giving rise to a more complex urban
model in Paraguay that encompasses Asunción and its metropolitan areas, the older established cities
located in border areas and the new agriculturally based cities, which are bringing together a range of