ABSTRACT
The availability of information about land resources is a vital factor in their understanding and management. Its flow can be measured in terms of ‘hubits’ per capita per year. Hubits are units of communicated information. In most societies their rate is very large. In advanced societies they can be counted by sample surveys of the frequency with which certain terms are used by the press, radio, or other mass media, multiplied by the number of people who receive them. In poorer societies, their number is smaller and must be estimated from descriptions of public life and social interactions. A comparison of the estimated median per capita incomes of people in the most modern literate societies with those in large cities in the poorest societies (Ethiopia, Indonesia, etc.) showed a ratio of between 25:1 and 75:1. The corresponding ratio for information flow was more than 500:1 (Meier, 1965). The gap between societies in information transmission was therefore ‘six or seven times’ greater than that between incomes, wide as this was. Furthermore, this gap appears in the earliest stages of the development process. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that it is one of the important preconditions for economic progress. The theory that the rate of economic development is due to it is called the ‘information theory of development’.
