ABSTRACT
The Latin American development literature contains few references to the 'urban bias' debate initiated by Lipton. Rural poverty, together with the concentration of political and economic resources in urban areas, are viewed in the Latin American perspective as the outcome of exogenous development processes. The descriptive use of 'urban bias' raises interesting issues, especially in the evaluation of development policy. This chapter explores how far 'urban bias' is an accurate, or heuristically useful, approach to understanding the politics behind Latin American development policies. It examines both the Latin American experience and some common interpretations of that experience: the historical role of cities in Latin America, the debate about 'sectoral clashes' and Import Substituting Industrialisation and the various interpretations offered of dependency theory. The chapter also considers two recent development policy initiatives, the Mexican Food System and Brazil's ethanol programme, which illustrate the need for a revision of the 'urban bias' thesis.
