ABSTRACT
As people wake up in the world this morning they do so in very different conditions. Some are healthy, well clothed, employed and secure. Three-quarters of the world’s population are not so lucky. The majority find themselves in unhealthy, poor conditions with little economic security. Many of the world’s poor live in Third World rural areas, but it is the ranks of the urban poor that are swelling most rapidly. Clearly, living standards vary widely between countries; it is less obvious that they vary widely within countries (see Plate 7.1). Latin American countries, for example, have among the highest income inequality in the world. There are also pockets of deprivation in ‘rich’ countries. The principal argument of this chapter is that accelerated globalization has exacerbated unevenness as it creates new networks of inclusion/ exclusion and perpetuates old ones. Development geography studies patterns of inequality at various geographic scales – globally, within and between nation-states and localities and, more recently, on and off the networks. A relatively young subdiscipline, it has a number of overlapping aims:
● To describe and map inequalities, especially as they relate to poorer regions;
● To explain and interpret the factors giving rise to such inequalities; ● To uncover historical trends of inequality across space; ● To study competing discourses of development and their spatial
manifestations at various levels; ● To propose and assess frameworks for the reduction of geographic
inequalities.
